UCI Seminar Addresses Explosive Growth of MMOs/Virtual Worlds Among Children


Today's Computer Games and Virtual Worlds Seminar at UC Irvine focuses on the huge growth of massively multiplayer online games (MMOs) among young virtual world denizens in recent years.

Currently, more than 200 MMOs/virtual worlds are aimed at the youth market, whose growth has particularly exploded in the past five years.

Seminar speakers Jackie
 Marsh
, professor 
of 
Education at the 
University
 of
 Sheffield in the

UK
, and Heather
 Horst, socio cultural 
anthropologist with the 
UC

Humanities 
Research 
Institute at 
UCI, address how this has changed children.
]

Marsh studies the 
relationship 
between 
popular 
culture,
 media 
and

new

technologies 
and 
young
 children´s literacy
 practices, 
both 
in

and 
outside 
school.

She will draw on the MMOs/virtual 
world 
Club 
Penguin 
and 
Barbie 
Girls for her presentation, exploring the ways children play, see the environments and transfer what they learn in virtual worlds to the real world. Marsh will also address the digital 
literacy

practices 
embedded 
in 
children's 
engagement
 with 
sites 
such
 as 
Club 
Penguin.

Horst, who is also 
a research fellow
 in 
the 
MA
 Program
 in 
Digital 
Anthropology 
at 
University 
College in 
London, focuses her research 

on 
the 
relationship 
between 
place, 
space
 and
 new
 media. 



She will talk about 
transformations 
in family life in light of new media.


A panel discussion runs from 3:30 
­
to 5 
p.m., followed by a reception, at 6011
 Donald 
Bren
 Hall

 on the UCI campus.

RSVP 
to A9******@ic*.edu">
ve****@ic*.edu


.


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