Emergent Education as Metaplay

Lead Presenter: indiebio / Bernelle Verster

Venue: Lecture A – The Hearth

This session invites participants to experience education as an emergent game, where learning happens not only through play, but through metagaming activities such as strategizing, discussing, information-seeking, creating, sharing, and remixing knowledge. During the session, participants will explore examples drawn from existing knowledge infrastructures—including and beyond platforms such as Wikipedia, OpenStreetMaps, Minecraft, and similar ecosystems—and examine how these environments support learning through participation rather than top-down instruction.

Using insights from the presenters’ funded applied research project on urban water, the session demonstrates how playful, curiosity-driven interaction with complex systems can foster shared understanding, community, and new ways of engaging with contested or uncertain knowledge. Participants will see how these approaches move beyond narrow notions of “games for education” toward teaching learners how to critically engage with information, mis-information, and meaning-making itself. The session concludes with discussion and reflection on how such metagaming practices can be applied within educational contexts.

Objectives:

• Participants will be able to examine the educational potential of knowledge infrastructures (including and beyond Wikipedia, OpenStreetMaps, and Minecraft) through the lens of metagaming and participatory practice.
• Participants will be able to expand “games for education” to include metagaming activities that support critical engagement with information, mis-information, and complex knowledge ecosystems.

Insights Connection:
Community: Partners to co-develop, test and evaluate the tool or apply for research funding together.

Accessibility: Provide a written script during the presentation