Connected Learning Summit 2019

Online multiplayer social games, like Minecraft, lend themselves as viable sites for youth to learn and practice social and emotional skills. Players can interact socially during gameplay, creating, collaborating, competing, and communicating. They also encounter conflict, both that engineered by the game and that created by players through disruptive behavior or social drama. Socio-technical mechanisms, like whitelisting servers or online moderation are widely accepted as potential remedies that limit and/or eliminate player-led conflict and curb toxic social behavior. However, such mechanisms may also reduce learning opportunities for youth to grow and develop both social and problem solving skills. A recent study offers fresh perspectives on ways current online gaming moderation practices disempower youth communities (Slovak et al., 2018). In this paper, we build on this research to develop a conceptual framework supporting the design of play-based online learning environments that embrace conflict and empower youth. Through the careful integration of social emotional learning strategies that originate in evidence-based prevention science programs, we discuss an online afterschool program for youth ages 8-13 in Minecraft. We report select findings from a six-month pilot of the program wherein we observed youth practicing and/or developing social competence, overcoming conflict, and creating a community guided by norms they themselves developed and enforced.