Call for Manuscripts: Learning and Identity in Virtual Learning Environments

Guest editors
Aroutis Foster & Mamta Shah
Drexel University
Scope

The Journal of Experimental Education

This special issue of The Journal of Experimental Education seeks to provide education scholars with insight into current theoretical and methodological approaches to conceptualize, facilitate, and empirically examine learning and identity in virtual learning environments (VLEs) such as games, virtual realities, and simulations. In recent years, increasing research has shown virtual learning environments to provide effective contexts for learning and identity exploration through students’ enactment of player roles (Barab et al., 2010; Foster, 2011; Khan, 2012; Kafai et al., 2010; Shaffer, Nash & Ruis, 2015). From a situative perspective on learning and identity, digital games and virtual worlds support transformation of game-players’ knowledge and self through participation in the gaming activity that involves the whole person in a dynamic individual-environment interaction (Barab, Bransford, Greeno, & Gee, 2007; Shah, Foster, & Barany, 2017). However, this domain is still in its infancy and requires research for developing theories of the learning and identity mechanisms occurring in VLEs, evidence-based measurement of these processes, and design principles for virtual learning environments and experiences that promote learners’ knowledge, identity processes, and career paths.This special issue seeks to bring together empirical examples of conceptually, methodologically, and analytically well-grounded research to illustrate the learning and identity processes, characteristics, and outcomes that VLEs can facilitate. For this special issue, the guest editors define learning and identity in VLEs as the process by which a person engaging in digital gameplay or virtual environment enacts an activity-based identity with the potential to modify the person’s learning and identity in this and other domains (Foster, 2014). Accepted manuscripts will illuminate characteristics of VLEs that provide learning and identity change opportunities, explicate learning and identity development within VLEs, and/or demonstrate the role of educators and contexts in supporting learning and identity change in VLEs.

Content Criteria for Submission
The Journal of Experimental Education (JXE) invites empirical manuscripts for the special issue that address one or more of the journal’s areas of (1) Learning, Instruction and Cognition; (2) Motivation and Social Processes; and (3) Measurement, Statistics, and Research Design. The goal of this special issue is to showcase a wide range of theoretical underpinnings and empirical inquiries that can advance the burgeoning field of learning and identity in VLEs. Manuscripts may propose and demonstrate an emerging theoretical conception of learning and identity in VLE, build upon existing frameworks for examining learning and identity in VLEs, and/or illustrate emerging and established ways of examining learning and identity in VLEs. Authors should consider their proposed contribution along dimensions of an ecological approach to learning and identity in VLEs (Foster, 2014), including, but not limited to, the consideration of the following questions:

  • ‘How’ are the processes of learning and identity exploration conceptualized?
  • ‘What’ cognitive, pedagogical, and social processes are involved in learning and identity exploration in virtual environments?
  • ‘Who’ are the learners, in terms of biological, social, cognitive, experiential, and affective characteristics?
  • ‘Where’ in these environments is the learning and identity exploration taking place?
  • ‘Which’ academic and professional domains facilitate learning and identity exploration?
  • ‘When’ in the process do learners undergo meaningful transformations in knowledge structures and identities?
  • How can learning and identity exploration of diverse students in variety of virtual environments be assessed?

Criteria for empirical research for this special issue correspond to those for regular JXE submissions, and include diverse methodologies, units-of-analysis, and scopes (e.g., may include detailed report of case studies, simulations, or illustrations), but must have a strong conceptual orientation. Consideration for inclusion in the special issue will involve evaluation of substantive sophistication and contribution, theoretical grounding of the topic, a clear alignment among the framework, method, analysis, and results from a learning and identity in VLEs perspective, and a strong rationale for a fit with the special issue. Excellent submissions that will not be included in the special issue may be considered for publication in JXE through the regular submission process.

Timeline and Submission/Review Process
May 11, 2018 – Authors should submit a one-page summary that provides a brief description of the topic and how the intended submission addresses learning and identity in virtual learning environments within one or more of the three main emphasis areas of JXE: Learning, Instruction, and Cognition; Motivation and Social Processes; or Measurement, Statistics, and Research Design. Summaries and questions should be submitted via email to Mamta Shah at jxe.identity.vle@gmail.com. The guest editors will respond to all summary submissions. Authors of selected summaries will be invited to submit complete manuscripts for a double-blind peer-review.

January 11, 2019 – Complete original manuscripts will be due to be submitted on the Journal’s online submission system. Authors should comply with all submission criteria. In the cover letter, authors should include a statement that the manuscript is intended for submission to the special issue and to which section of the journal (Learning, Instruction, and Cognition; Motivation and Social Processes; and Measurement, Statistics, and Research Design) their work best applies.

April 12, 2019 – The editors will provide authors feedback and decisions regarding the acceptance, request for revision, or the rejection of their manuscripts. Authors asked to revise their manuscript would be required to provide a revision within 90 days for inclusion in the special issue.

Manuscripts are expected to be published online during 2019 and the print special issue is expected to be published early in 2020.

Call for Chapters: “Storytelling outside the context of entertainment, where the narration progresses as a sequence of patterns impressive in quality, relates to a serious context, and is a matter of thoughtful process”

In human culture, storytelling has a long tradition. The reasons why stories have been told are manifold: to entertain, to transfer knowledge between generations, to keep cultural heritage, or to warn others of dangers. With the emergence of the digitalization of media many new possibilities to tell stories emerged in serious and non-entertainment contexts. A very simple example is the idea of serious gaming – thus digital games without primarily an entertainment purpose. Within this handbook, we generalize the approach of serious games, on other genres of digital storytelling, and call for handbook typical contributions which introduce „serious storytelling: storytelling with a purpose beyond entertainment“ as new approach. We seek for handbook alike contributions, reviews of existing application areas, established theories and methods, fundamental concepts, ground breaking research results in a transdisciplinary approach. The handbook shall range across domains, and illustrate storytelling outside an entertainment context in e.g. data science, artificial intelligence, well-being and health, medicine, psychology, education, ethical problem solving, eLeadership, and business/management, robotics, storytelling in deep learning and big data, qualitative journalism, serious games, storytelling in simulations, HCI research and storytelling, VR/AR training, user-experience studies, and online communication.

Themes and Topics

The handbook is suited for people with interest in entertainment computation, human-computer-interaction, media technology and design, information systems research, multimedia, data science, digital games, eLearning, eHealth, new media scholars, and visualisation.

  • Storytelling in/for data science, AI, Big Data, and deep learning
  • Storytelling in HCI and User-Experience research
  • Human-Computer-Interaction supporting serious storytelling
  • Animation, graphics, 3D, VR, and AR storytelling
  • Serious storytelling in business, leadership, and law
  • Education and serious storytelling
  • Digital forensics and storytelling
  • Storytelling and social media
  • Anthropological perspectives of serious storytelling
  • Storytelling as part of the innovation process
  • Medicine, wellness, and therapy and storytelling
  • Storytelling in science, and scientific PR and publishing
  • Automated generation of stories
  • New computational paradigms (e.g. quantum computing) in storytelling
  • Narrative form, structure, and expression
  • Media technology, multimedia, and entertainment computation
  • Theories, methods, frameworks, and concepts
  • Your idea?

Contributions

We seek for full research papers, literature surveys, technical solutions, surveys of the field, theory of storytelling, essays, state of the art descriptions, best practices in real life projects, and point of views and critique of the topic. As it’s a handbook, contributions not essentially need to be new, we also seek for proofed concepts, methods, existing projects, and ideas that contribute to a handbook type of book.

We would like to focus on shaping a NOVEL research direction, and define Digital Serious Storytelling as a new research pathway. Therefore, we are seeking for establishing theory. As we would like to have a tightly controlled editing process, we will mix authors of different contributions as well as we will step into the chapter authoring processes as it is required to get a red line through the book. We would not like to have an edited book consisting of a set of loosely connected chapters. We want to create a reference book, which will have impact, and act as teaching reference.

Submission Deadlines

  • June 30th 2018 : Expression of Interest and Intend to Submit a Chapter (or Final Chapters)
  • July 30th 2018 : Invitation of a Selected set of Expression of Interests as Final Full Chapter
  • Sept. 30th 2018 : Final Full Chapters (also authors who did not submit an expression of interest can
    contribute)
  • Nov. 30th 2018 : Review Results to Authors after (Double Blinded Review)
  • Jan., 15th 2019 : Final Chapters Due

Submission Guidelines

  • Please format your submission according the guidelines in: https://www.crcpress.com/assets/images/crc/T%26F%20Text%20Preparation%20Instructions_Disk_Word_v1_1.pdf (Microsoft Word) or https://www.crcpress.com/assets/images/crc/T%26F%20Text%20Preparation%20Instructions_Disk_Latex_v1_1.pdf (LaTeX)
  • Expressions of interests should contain title, author information, short one sentence pitch of the proposed chapter, perspective of the chapter (technical, business, computer science, HCI, new media, data science….), author short bios, author pictures, 1500 word description of the contribution, own research publication contributing the final book chapters, and list of references to be considered for the final contribution.
  • Authors are encourage to submit final chapters as their expression of interest, and these efforts will be rewarded and help us to decide upon the final accepted chapters. However, we also fully consider thoroughly written expression of interests, which are contributing directly to the book, and will invite a selected set of high quality contributions to submit a final full chapter. Authors who did not submit an expression of interest, are encouraged to submit a final chapter at the final chapter due date.
  • We only accept submissions through the submission system. If you have multiple files (e.g. word document, pdf, and multiple figures) to submit, please upload ALL THE FILLES AS A .ZIP ARCHIEVE to the submission system.
  • The submission system can be found on: http://www.artur-lugmayr.com/Submissions/2017Story/

From my inbox, Making Digital Learning Work: Success strategies from six leading universities and community colleges

Here is a new report titled “Making Digital Learning Work: Success strategies from six leading universities and community colleges”

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CALL FOR CHAPTERS: Social and Emotional Learning in Teaching and Teacher Education

CALL FOR CHAPTERS: Volume 1: Social and Emotional Learning in Teaching and Teacher Education

Edited by Roisin P. Corcoran, IRINSTITUTES & UCD,
Patricia Jennings, University of Virginia
Kimberly A. Schonert-Reichl, University of British Columbia

A volume in the Contemporary Perspectives on Social and Emotional Learning Series
Roisin P. Corcoran, IRINSTITUTES & UCD

This volume of the Contemporary Perspectives on Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) Series will explore social and emotional learning (SEL) in teaching and teacher education. SEL involves the process of implementing the skills needed to understand and manage emotions, show empathy for others, achieve positive goals, maintain positive relationships, and make responsible decisions (CASEL, 2015). Several jurisdictions have begun to incorporate social and emotional learning in teacher practices, policies or programs designed to improve teacher effectiveness and student learning. The editors invite chapter proposals involving high quality research drawing on diverse methodologies advancing the integration of SEL into teaching and teacher preparation. We welcome related research evaluating interventions including practices, policies or programs designed to embed SEL to improve teacher effectiveness. Interventions of interest are those implemented during teacher preparation, or for those employed already in the teaching profession. Relevant categories of interventions include: 1) teacher preparation (universitybased traditional teacher preparation programs or alternative teacher preparation programs), 2) teacher induction (interventions targeting novice teachers), 3) teacher professional development. Conceptual proposals that critique theoretical frameworks and analyze policy dimensions are also encouraged.

Proposal:

Chapter proposals should be submitted on a single-spaced page, and should include your name, affiliation, email address, a tentative title, and abstract (200 words maximum). Also include a brief biography (300 words maximum) and relevant high-quality publications. Chapter proposals must be emailed as a single Word file document consisting of 2 pages to Roisin P. Corcoran (rcorcoran@irinstitutes.org) by April 30, 2018.

Chapter Submission:

Authors of accepted proposals will be notified by June 30, 2018 about the status of their submission and sent chapter guidelines. Full chapters, ranging from 7,000 to 8,000 words in Times New Roman 12, double spaced text, inclusive of title, abstract, manuscript, and references, should be submitted as a Microsoft Word email attachment by July 30, 2018. Manuscripts should conform to 6th edition APA style conventions. See Author Guidelines at http://www.infoagepub.com/guidelines.html. Graphics and images may be included.

Drawing on the author(s) own research, chapters should include questions for readers to think critically about key concepts. Text boxes should be used to explain key themes in order to engage readers in the arguments outlined. The chapter should conclude with a summary of research methodology insights, and recommendations readings for further exploration.

Send Inquiries to: Roisin P. Corcoran rcorcoran@irinstitutes.org

Tentative Schedule for Publication:
Abstract Submissions: April 20, 2018
Notification of invite to submit chapter: May 30, 2018
Submission of book chapter: June 30, 2018
Reviews of book chapter manuscripts sent to author(s): September 30, 2018
Receipt by editors of final draft of book chapters: December 30, 2018
Final book submitted to publisher: January 2019
Anticipated publication: Spring 2019