KEY
Bold:	Interviewer
Regular:	Respondent(s)
[ ]:	Uncertain word(s)

Okay, how can I help?
Brilliant, well first of all thank you for talking to me.  I will give you a brief outline of the project and then talk about what we’re hoping to talk about today really.  
I’ve sent you the information but basically the project that I’m working on is a European funded project, funded by Age-2020; it’s a project looking at kind of discourses around video gaming and looking at their role in society, and education and culture, so we’re basically – these, we’re trying to explore the ways in which video games are understood by different experts in different contexts.  So we’re speaking to researchers, educators, we’re speaking to game designers, we’re speaking to people who play video games, people who’ve researched them and people who’ve used them in their context, just to get their perspectives.  
Your interview will be one of about sixty interviews that we’re doing with different people and they’ll be transcribed, they’ll be anonymised, so your name won’t be part of it, and we’ll be looking at the kind of ways in which people are talking about video games, the ways in which they’ve used them in their practice and the ways in which they understand them as useful things, as interesting things, as whatever, whatever perspectives you have; does that make sense?
Yes, but can I just have some clarity on what you mean by video games?
Yeah, absolutely. Well I can kind of, I can clarify in that it can mean what we want it to mean in this discussion.  So we’re taking a very broad group of people who will have very different understandings.  So we’ve talked to people who have designed what might be called serious games for learning, we’re also talking to designers of kind of bigger budget entertainment games, so it’s anything that, it’s whatever video games means to you really.  So it can be a kind of digital tool for learning that has game-like elements to it, or it could be something more simple like Tetris, big budget games, small games, very specific ones that have been designed for a specific purpose.  So anything really, does that – I know that doesn’t clarify specifically but hopefully it suggests that, as long as we’re in the area of some kind of video game-like thing, in our discussion, then we’re not going off-topic.  
Yeah, no, I just needed to clarify that just in case you wanted me to be in a particular viewpoint or not.  
Yeah, genuinely I would just like you to talk, when – well the interview is basically, I haven’t got a list of set questions, I’ve got some areas that I’d like to cover and so when I cover those areas with questions, anything that you feel is relevant for you to bring into that would be great.  It could be likely from your academic experience, your experience of research, your teaching, it could also be just from your own experience of game-play, or something from your own experience of video games in your own life, so, does that make sense, is that all right?
Yeah.  
Brilliant.  So as open as you’d like it to be.  Is that all right?
Yeah, that’s good. 
Great, thank you. I’m going to kind of, I’m going to ask questions and give you prompts, it’s a kind of discussion although you would probably expect to hear less from me, because we’re actually interested in what you’ve got to say rather than me.  But feel free to clarify if you’re not sure.  
So I’m going to start by opening, with asking you about your work, your research, your interests and how they might relate to video gaming.  
One of the big projects I was involved with is the Magical Project, and I notice your name’s linked with people like Jeff, is it Earp?  And people like Nicola Whitton etc. so I was involved in that project where we were looking at, how can you encourage those novice trainee teachers to consider game-based learning with their pupils in the classroom.  So we were involved in that big project; and at the moment I’m writing an article with Nicola and James looking at, James Duggan, looking at, in particular collaboration. If children are involved in creating games, online games, does it enhance their skills of collaboration, or depending on how a novice teacher is operating in the classroom space, does it actually hinder things like collaboration in that process.  So that’s what we’re exploring at the moment; yesterday I was in a meeting discussing that, so that’s at the forefront of my mind.  
So I was involved in that two-year project, 2012 to 2014, looking at game-based learning.  The case study groups that we focused on were geographers and I train up geography teachers, the novice trainee teachers, so we were using them as a testbed and we’ll be using them as the case studies as well, so that’s part of my research and of course that is still linked in with – and if you’re inspired by something it then filters into your practice anyway afterwards, so there’s still aspects of game-based learning that I’m using within my students’ work.  So that’s one aspect.  
I might be thinking of others as we go through the discussion, but the Magical Project is a good starting point. 
Yeah, yeah that’s great.  So you’ve used video games, and you’re using video games with trainee teachers and geography, what are the – what do you feel then are the benefits of doing that?  In what you’ve seen, what has been good about using kind of gaming environments in that context?
I’ll do both, I’ll do some of the disadvantages, because they pop up immediately in your head and you have a wide-range of prior experience in the room; you have those getting confident in gaming and those feeling, it’s not for me, and it’s not something I’d want to spend my life doing, which is very similar in the geography classroom, as those who love being in the outdoors and going climbing mountains etc. and those who would rather not be outside in the rain, so it highlights a different diversity within the group.  And then it raises issues as to whether you’re better paired with someone with more experience or someone with a similar confidence experience to yourself when you’re doing something like, anything to do with gaming.  So that is a question that’s still at the back of my mind, is it better to be with someone who’s slightly ahead of you and has got far more confidence, or whether you should be learning alongside someone with a similar confidence level to yourself, because there’s different dynamics happening.  So that’s one of the negatives.  
In terms of geography, we were looking at, I don’t know if you’ve seen that online gaming programme called Sploder, which enables students and pupils etc. to take elements and create their own game, and different types of games are available, one of them is like a platforming game. But we were looking to see can it enhance children’s understanding of the world around them, i.e. geography and give them some deeper understanding of geography?  
One of the cases studies was looking at something really dull and boring in geography, which doesn’t – it has a contested place called the Burgess Model, which is that basic, how a town develops, it’s like a ring based development with the central business district going out to the suburbs, and it looks like a dartboard, it’s so easy to draw, so it’s been littered throughout textbooks for the last fifty-odd years.  Never created by a geographer in the first place, and geographers would contest having it there, but it’s still there in the curriculum, schools are still using it, even though it’s not listed in the curriculum.  One of the schools, one of our case study students for the Magical Project was using it.  I could see when children were trying to create a platform game and using 2D icons to try and explain something which is more 3D they were really getting into how a city is developing, like they were going down, they were going up and down lifts, going through pipework, they were considering ultraviolet light, could it be seen here, they were having to think in 3D whereas this little model is such a 2D nonsense of the world, they were thinking beyond it, and so I could see some deep geography learning happening in a few cases.  But I couldn’t blanket that the whole class were benefitting from deep geography understanding through doing a platform game.  But there were some that that enabled them to think deeper and maybe their normal way of teaching wouldn’t have given those particular children that particular opportunity.  
So there was something about using the game as a pedagogical tool that allowed the teacher to demonstrate something, or the children to experience something that they couldn’t experience otherwise.  
Textbooks don’t, they just give it in 2D, whereas thinking in – you have to think in 3D more, I think, if you’re doing something like an online game, even though it does still seem to you to be 2D flat, but it gives that new opportunity for the 3D-ness, the spatial awareness.  There was something spatial happening for some of those pupils. For some the whole computer aspect of it, like if you don’t know how to copy, paste to repeat some boring tasks in making your game, if you didn’t know that as your starting point you were being switched off by some very boring, repetitive task to create a game.  Whereas others, if you didn’t have all the limitations or your confidence in the IT side there was that new potential for the spatialness to be enhanced, possibly. 
Great, your answer’s interesting, because you’ve obviously got an insight into how it can be useful, but you’re also kind of taking a critical approach because you’re not saying, hey this is wonderful and everyone should do this, you’re seeing the kind of challenges of using that as well, which I think is really important.  
You talked about this aspect of geography as quite dull and boring.  Games are often said to be motivating things, was there an aspect, or for some people, as well it being more useful that it had some motivation behind it in using a video game?  Or it motivated them to learn?
I would say the majority of the pupils, because we were going as researchers to observe what was happening in schools, and it was a three-lesson sequence; the first lesson learning about gaming, the second lesson was actually creating it and the third lesson was playing other peoples’, so it was a three-lesson sequence as part of the Magical Project.  The two schools, as researchers, we were going to observe; that first lesson, because the geography curriculum, timetabling, you’re not normally in a room full of computers, the children were going somewhere different, it felt different, there was motivation, hey we’re going to go and use computers today, so there’s the motivational in terms of the space they were using was different, and then yes it’s all different, there was lots of activities like buddy lines, getting children paired up and it all felt different, then they could onto the computers.  So the first lesson, yes, there was a buzz, this is going to be new, this is different, this is not what we normally do in a geography classroom, so yes, motivation because it’s different. 
The second lesson, it depends on their starting point, because if you’re collaborating and you’re creating something, but you’re sharing an email address where you’re storing it, that added extra issues, as maybe one person could’ve loads of work on it and the other person hadn’t got access through that digital link into the email, and saving it.  So the whole thing on saving it between one lesson and the next added some hiccups and some – like pupils would arrive and they hadn’t been able to save it because they thought they had saved and hadn’t saved, by pressing the right button.  Others, someone had gone way ahead and done loads of work at home, but the other one couldn’t have seen it, so there was a little bit of hiccups, but for some pupils they are motivated, they’re using computers, they’re using some different skills as to a classroom where normally you’re expected to be writing.  So yes, I think it can enhance, whether it would enhance more than three lessons.  
And for some pupils they didn’t engage with the keyboard at all.  Their physical presence was kept separate from the computer.  That doesn’t mean they weren’t involved in making the games, because they were still, had the opportunity, they could talk to the other partner, but because of the – we were working with trainee teachers, novice teachers who have obviously got researchers observing them and their class teachers observing them, then that heightened state of trying to do the best they can, they had over-structured what was going to be happening, so even how they were pairing students, they were getting – if you’re getting confident gamers with less confident gamers, and you’re getting them to stand in a line, there was a massive gender imbalance in that line, and if you’re pairing from the two ends of the line, you were creating a situation where boys and girls had to work together.  So there was that dynamic happening in the classroom and often it was the boys who would go straight to the computer, feel confident, and the girls were sitting separate and maybe behind the boys. So there were some issues there.  But you know, but a novice teacher thinking, how do I structure, how to get them─
The other school we went to, the teacher said right, I want all the boys to go and sit at the computers first, now girls go and find your boy to sit next to, so it was, there were some issues in how do you allocate children to share a computer.  
Yes. 
Which your novice teacher, this is week eleven of your training course, you haven’t had that life experience in the classroom to even work out how do you pair children.  So on paper, yes, I’m going to pair them, experience and not experienced, I’m going to pair different genders, because then they can add different insights.  You could see their thinking, but playing out in practice could’ve added extra concerns to the process. 
I think what you’ve kind of highlighted in your answer really effectively is the situation in which you’re using that video game is so complex and classrooms are so complex and teaching is so complex, that actually adding the video game to it, it’s really hard to get at what is the video game and what is the, what other things that are going on in the room.
Yes.  
Which is, yes, which is really complex when you’re thinking about the effect of the video game in that context.  You talked a bit about boys and girls and allocating people to work, I’m wondering if we could kind of take that in a certain direction and think about the kind of ethics of introducing this kind of technology into the situations you’re seeing.  What sort of ethical things do you think video games bring with them, in the context in which you’re looking at?
I’ve not considered that.  
Okay.  I would say – well for a start I would say, I wanted to talk about the ethics of video gaming and what they bring with them, but what you said that prompted me to think about that bit next, was that you were talking about the teacher said, right boys go and sit down first and then girls come next, I was wondering if, I’m not trying to put words in your mouth at all, but I was wondering if there was something about the associations with the task that it had some associations for the teacher with boys rather than girls, and therefore he sat them down first, or she sat them down first, or whether it was, whether that was tied up with the video gameness or it?  Whether there are associations that we have with video games that make them feel appropriate or inappropriate in certain situations?  Does that make sense?
It does.  I mean sticking with gender, there was loads – we were unpicking our data yesterday and we’re seeing loads of, we’re considering loads of aspects with it, and a lot of aspects are to do with power and the power relations within the classroom.  And when it’s a novice teacher who’s not considering some of those power influences in the classroom then things may be happening in the classroom which, with experience you think, uh, I wouldn’t be doing it that way.  And maybe with – there’s not that wide-ranging opportunities of different types of software available that they know about to use, so they’re using something off the shelf, which they may not, there’s not loads of research showing some hiccups with it, or some things to consider with it.  So they’re taking something which looks really exciting, they’re in a very short placement where they’re having to bolt it onto what they need to teach, because they need to teach what they’ve been told to teach and they don’t have that much freedom because they are novice in a power situation in schools and they want to please the schools, the schools are writing their references, etc. so they don’t have that full confidence to be so creative and maybe really consider the cross curricular nature of using game making and video gaming within their classroom.  So they’re trying to – they’ve got huge enthusiasm, they could be sparked off with that enthusiasm by the tutor at the university, but we’re only talking a very short training course in a very packed training year, and this was quite early on.  So they’ve taken something with enthusiasm, they’ve bolted it onto a curriculum which, you know, it might fit, might not fit, but they don’t really know, and they’re trying something out, and they’re trying something out whilst there’s all these power relations around them being observed to be successful in terms of the standards, there’s just so much happening in that mix, that you know, what’s happening with the child, they’re doing their best, but with greater insight researchers watching what’s happening, they’re thinking, uh-ho.  
In terms of ethics there was loads of ethical controls, like informed consent, and also as researchers getting into a school we had the gamekeeper’s as the student teachers.  So the student teachers were needing to talk to the schools to say, can I carry out some research, can I use gaming with the pupils, within geography, they had to get full permission from the class teacher, any other adult that was going to be in that room, they also had to get permission from the head-teacher, they also had to send letters to the pupils, for the pupils to know about it and their parents to know about it, so on paper they were considering lots of ethical tools before they were doing what they were doing.  But that’s just one aspect of ethics, that’s just getting started, yes. 
Given that a lot of that ethics sounds like it is definitely part of your research project, if you imagine a situation where one of those teachers, or trainee teachers, was using a video – I’m going to move on from ethics in a minute, but I’m just really interested in what you’ve said – if a teacher wanted, a new teacher or a teacher who’d been using video games for years, or playing them themselves for years, wanted to use video games in the classroom, not as part of a research project, but just as part of their standard practice, they weren’t researching so they didn’t have to get permission in that situation, do you think there would still be ethical considerations that that teacher would need to make about using video games, because it’s a video game that they wouldn’t have to get, if for example, they were just bringing a new text into the classroom?
A very interesting question.  If we take text in its broadest sense of any resource you take into the classroom, then there’s ethical issues against anything.  There could be colonial overtones of things they’re using, there could be, you know, there’s just so many things out there, but particularly for a trainee teacher.  I mean I’ve seen ethical things happen in classrooms where it could be a white middle-class teacher, you know, I’m stereotyping here, a white middle-class teacher whose life has mainly been in suburbia and they’re now teaching in a very multicultural classroom and they’re teaching and using resources which to them seem very safe and very familiar to them, which actually raise loads of issues culturally and ethically, and gendered issues in the classroom, but they’re not aware of it because how do you open up a new teacher to consider everything unless it’s, you know, one of the roles if you’re training at a university and your university tutor comes in, we’ve got heightened awareness of so many things that we can raise things with them, which raises concerns like training routes.  If a – the government’s, you know, really focusing on things like skits and school-based training, where a student is choosing a route where they are going into familiar type schools, which are familiar to their own life experiences they may not be jolted to think beyond lots of things that they’ve silenced in their life and never considered.  Whereas potentially using something new, a new resource, which is maybe a little unfamiliar to them in an education setting could raise some issues which they’d not considered or needed to consider before.  That’s a long answer. 
No, it’s a good answer.  So in effect, introducing new resources into a classroom can be ethically problematic and need thinking about, and video games as a new resource, would need thinking about and there might be things associated with it that the teacher might not think about. 
Yes.  
Great, okay, brilliant, thank you.  
But in, I’m working with geography students so I want them to use technology, I want them to use loads of digital resources.  I mean the world’s been opened up with digital access to so many things, so as a geography teacher there’s that need and want to use new things because, you know, geography lessons twenty years ago were very different, mainly textbook based, whereas now you’ve got Google Earth, you’ve got – but even things like Google Earth there’s so much of the planet that you haven’t got access to but you think you’ve got access to, so the whole digital nature of education opens up, but also closes down, and raises new issues.  
And like geographers, you’d want them to use GIS, you want them to connect data with digital, you know for geographers spatial ways of looking at things, so there’s a whole new area that there isn’t that much research yet that is highlighting to a trainee teacher, these are the things you should be considering.  There’s more available resources for trainee teachers, hey about using this, hey about using this, this is a simple guide to using something, rather than, here’s some research that’s saying, you know, have you considered this, is it raising this in the classroom.  
Given that you – you’ve talked a lot about the complexity of using video games, or a video game in the classroom.  You’ve talked about, with enthusiasm about using technology to kind of, to teach children, to support trainee teachers with their teaching.  Given that it’s complex and difficult, if we can try and focus on video games particularly why would you suggest it’s worth introducing those into that context, broadly?  So obviously we’ve talked about a specific case, can you talk generally about why you might encourage a teacher to think about using a video game in their geography classroom?
If I go back twenty years ago, thirty years ago, I would be encouraging students to use games, they wouldn’t necessarily be video games, digital games, but games and using games and simulations of the real world it’s a way to engage many pupils who haven’t got experience beyond their locality.  I mean, and games, you’ve only got to think of people like Rex Horford, writing all those lovely geography textbooks on games and simulations, like the railway pioneers going across America etc. so games in geography is something that, you know, my background has been enthused by and as a young teacher in the eighties, I was using games and getting – and I found more powerful learning if the children were creating their own games rather than, here’s one off the shelf, which someone else has created, which looks good.  So involving children, thinking deeply about what you want them to learn but getting them to put that in a new context in potentially groups there was so much extra spin-offs in terms of deeper learning and transferable skills happening at the same time.  So I’ve got a lifetime experience in the classroom before going into teacher education of seeing the potential of using games and children creating their own games.  I always remember 1992 was a big European year and we touched the whole school and they were all coming for eight minutes each to contribute to this game and the school created this fantastic game etc. which we then considered patenting; there’s lots of other spin-offs and cross-curricular things in making games; so moving that into the digital times, which we’re in now and the huge potential of using spatial mapping etc.  At the same time, I see huge potential in my curriculum area of using game making in this new digital environment. 
But again, you know, games throughout my career people have said, well why are you doing that, why’re you doing that, you know, you should be just teaching them rivers etc. but teaching them rivers with models and game-making, I found, you know, and I could prove the results were getting higher, so yeah, it’s probably my background is pushing me in a particular direction, but if others haven’t had that background and weren’t involved in the eighties; I was at that lucky time, pre national curriculum, involved in those curriculum development projects that were happening at the time, and school council curriculum projects, and geography for young school leaver projects, the Avery Hill model of working, etc. so I was like the geography school industry project coordinator for the West Sussex, and again games were being infiltrated into that way of thinking, so I’m coming from a really privileged time before national curriculum, this is what you need to teach and how to teach it. . 
What you’re describing makes – you’ve described really clearly the kind of impetus to involve games and video games are kind of an extension of that, but they also involve that, as you said, 3D mapping, so it sounds like the kind of mechanics of the video games that you’re thinking about are the bringing the gaming of the features of gaming to a digital context as an extension of your practice as a teacher anyway.  So you’re not necessarily being drawn to this from the perspective of someone who has seen the value of video games, the value comes from gaming itself, would that be right?
Yes. 
And your focus in how you’ve talked is largely around creating games and getting pupils to create games.  So there’s something about that process of creation that’s valuable, am I right?
Yes.  
Okay.  
But there’s some limitations in what is available to enable a child to make digital games when many of the icons aren’t necessarily as gender neutral and, you know, all the other PC words, so there are some limitations in what seems to be available at this moment in time.  
Can I just ask you what you mean by the icons being gender neutral?  You probably mean something very clear and I just need to clarify what you mean.
Well if I strip that back to a different context.  If I think in terms of children’s comics and magazines of the age group, you know, we’re talking like the ten-fourteen year old age group, and if you go into any of the stores, pick them up, they’re just so seemingly gender specific and, yes, we’re now fostering, so we’re now seeing the world though digital eyes and I was quite shocked by the messages to a, particularly a ten year old girl being shown in the, what she’s choosing to purchase in the shops.  So we’ve been discussing this at work and I’ve been asking for advice and I was coming across, ah there’s some comics and magazines which interestingly where they’re sold is particularly middle-class like, they’re sold in Waitrose only and we don’t have a Waitrose round here, but you know, you can get it online.  But Phoenix; Phoenix is a comic which has been written where there’s at least fifty-percent of the superheroes are going to be female, fifty-percent will be any particularly race on this planet, etc. so there’s, you know, they’ve fused it to be as neutral as possible without directing a child’s thinking.  
When we were looking at this research for the Magical Project and needing to choose an online game development piece of software and Sploder fitted what we were able to use in the time allowed etc. because it could work on Apples as well as PCs and it could be used in Europe as well as, you know, we had limitations of what we could use and that was the best fit. 
When you come to look at what opportunities the child has in terms of the bank of resources on there they tend to be created - if you strip back and, I think, creating a lot of these online game things tend to be men and I could see what’s been available didn’t particularly have a mixed gender opportunity.  I don’t know how to explain it in a different way. 
That absolutely makes sense and I think when we were talking about ethics earlier, that kind of aligns with what we were saying about ethics and the ethics of bringing something into the classroom.  If that medium, or if the tool has gendered associations built into it, then there’s maybe ethical problems there with the resource itself, and if pupils, children, students, have associations with a medium like video games, does that bring baggage with that tool already?  
The Sploder software that they were using, you know, it seems, on the surface, quite neutral and one of the schools we were researching, it was a female teacher in a female department with her pupils in a, it looked a very collaborative environment, all the pupils were sitting in circles and it was an open plan classroom, it was all very, very modern and new and the school had only been open two years etc. and the curriculum was about a female working in the third-world in textiles, and they had to create a day in the life of this, twenty-four hour, a day in the life and it had to fit what they would be doing in all the other classrooms, which basically would be a storyboard of a day in a life of someone working in the third-world, if it’s the third-world anymore, but you know, whatever terminology they were using, they were using the word ‘third-world’.  
It was interesting that the pupils could do this, they could choose an icon and call it a female and they could get her walking to the factory, a block building there, they could have her going into the factory and then everything that was happening was men telling a female what to do.  And that was really interesting and the teacher in the classroom, her focus was to get them to write, so they had to do speech bubbles over everything, so unless there was speech bubbles over everything happening, she didn’t feel she was adding and writing and meeting the school’s literacy needs, etc. etc.  So she was manipulating what they could do, they were being limited by the icons they could see, which I think led to heightened possible misconceptions and a stereotypical view of what could be happening.  The openness of potential was being lost by lots of demands on those pupils.  
Yeah. 
And the icons supported a particular view of the world.  It was hard to make it a female in the first place, yeah. 
So yeah, so that use of that tool, although it met lots of your needs there was still something about the associations that it brought into the classroom that were problematic and there were some tensions there.
Yes.  And whether the trainee teacher, whether the teacher who was running the lesson, facilitating the lesson, facilitating the learning could see that; she could just see praise, she was praising; all the feedback after every single lesson she was feeling, wow, this is working, this is working, this is working, wow they worked together, they were collaborative, they were creative, they were doing this, they’d put all the speech bubbles in, she could only just praise because, again you’ve got to think where they are in their training year to – and again, even taking children to a different environment, a different classroom, getting them logged on, getting past all those issues, for her, it was a great success.  But whether it led to more issues for the future of those children learning about the real world, she wouldn’t even think that deeply at that stage. 
What you’re saying there as well, is kind of highlighting the importance of research around these kind of tools, because I know from having been a teacher myself and now doing research you notice different things when you’re researching to when you’re teaching, even if you’re an experienced teacher; and so your research there has maybe highlighted somethings that clearly someone in their day to day practice having to manage a class of children and their learning wouldn’t have noticed.  
True. 
So that maybe leads me into just thinking about, we’ve maybe answered the question, or you might have more to say, the value of the kind of research that you’ve been doing I think that is, that kind of highlights a value of the research you’ve been doing. 
What do you feel the kind of – you’re doing research around video games in education, what’s the kind of status of that sort of research?  Is that sort of research seen as something that’s important, something that’s valuable, is that sort of research something that’s likely to get funding for example?  So yeah, any thoughts on that?
Well if you think that you’ve got funding at the moment and we had funding for Magical, so in terms of Europe it does seem to be something that is worth researching and there’s funds available.  The whole area of play is another interesting area and game and play sit very, in my view, that they’re very good companions.  In terms of the research, who have I been talking and dissimilating to?  I’ve been going to like the Geography Teachers’ Conference and the Geography Teacher Education Conference and sharing research there.  Again it’s two different audiences, we’re not talking to the classroom teachers, they want to know what is possible, is it worth me investing in learning about gaming and, you know, what is the potential and there is huge potential.  I mean just going by that first one I was mentioning about children understanding the 3D nature of cities, I think it can add, you know, using their extra senses and extra way of thinking it can add to their learning of geography.  
So we need to be on one hand, doing research that is showing possibilities and getting people to be more open and thinking digitally, we are in a digital world, but at the same time they, they come up immediately with all the barriers, why can’t we do this, it’s the same as why can’t I do PIS, why I can’t use loads of other things and it’s showing people what are the barriers and being very aware of what they are, because teachers need to know what they are and what are possible solutions for them.  So that is all on a practical front, and that is all, you know, how do we help this new generation of teachers or experienced teachers consider something which may have huge benefits for children and we have a duty to do that, but then that deeper level of researching it to see what are the possible hiccups and what are the possible attentions and what are the possible things, that just trying something and being enthusiastic and solving some of the barriers doesn’t really get to the cracks of some other deeper things.  So I think there’s a huge potential for doing both, we need both, and they need to be sitting side by side, we need the enthusiasts to try things out and showing what’s possible, and showing what the barriers are and how the solve the barriers and at the same time someone doing it at deeper level to say, right, yes on one level all of that has worked, but you now need to think of this.  
I mean it’s going back to – like the work of, have you come across the work of Lisa Mazzei on Silence?
Oh, no I don’t think I have, I know the name. 
Lisa Mazzei, American educationist and she did work, because obviously I work with trainee teachers; her PhD, we’re talking some time ago, was looking at working with trainee teachers who have never considered the fact they’re white, and like, I’m white and I never considered, what’s the impact of me being white, have I ever considered it, what impact does that have on me teaching, and is it a barrier, is it, you know, the fact that I never talk about it, never think about it, what is that doing in the classroom if I’m teaching in a multicultural situation, and I’ve never considered, I’m actually going to have an impact because I happen to be white, and I’ve never considered that.  That whole thing on silencing has really opened up; once I heard her work, then it makes me consider anything to do with – have I silenced, you know, even things like places and places I’ve been to, and places I’ve lived in, has that had an impact on me, does that – so as a geographer I would consider myself incredibly well-travelled around this whole planet, has that made, does that add an extra barrier, does it add – you know, what’s it doing?  
So the whole thing on opening up silences, opening up conversations, opening up dialogue around things, which include confidence with gaming, confidence with anything, I think all of those, we need researchers to make other people even thing about it for the first time and, you know, not to make them feel so uncomfortable they think, uh I can’t do anything now, but to give them some extra ways of thinking that is going to enhance what the pupils can do in a classroom. 
That’s fascinating.  I’m just aware of the time now and I didn’t want to take this beyond forty-five minutes, as I don’t want to take up too much of your time.  Can I just kind of finish with, asking about your own kind of personal relationship with video games?  You’ve talked about being interested in games as a, you know, as a tool, as a teacher and then how that extends to video games, do you personally ever play video games?  Do you have an interest in them outside of education, or not?  Either answer’s fine, I’m just interested. 
In terms of anything to do with games and anything new particularly with games, I would say, you know, I’m always interested.  You know, I can’t go past a game shop without going in and, you know, we have loads of games, whether they’re board games, or thinking games, or [0:42:03].  So games is part of what I like, even to the extent that role-playing type games, acting in games, even being paid to act in games, stay at hotels etc. so my life has been infiltrated with games in many contexts.  Like even, I don’t know if you’ve come across murder mystery games, so I’ve been paid to die in gruesome conditions over three days at four-star hotels etc. but the whole thing on – I mean it’s interesting the whole thing on lying and taking on a different role and empathy etc.  
You know, particularly, it spills into my curriculum area because how do you understand about this planet, other people in different parts of the world, that whole thing on empathy and role-playing etc. there is a place for that in the classroom. So I think I’m open to and inquisitive and curious about all types of games and like travelling around the world, and things like, I walked to Everest base camp, but that’s in my own time, that’s not work, but doing something like that where you’re pushing your body to the extremes, but you’re doing it with people who are different, some different cultures in that group, you’re learning games from around the world that they’re playing as well, and so infiltrating games from around the world into what you’re doing.  I was involved in a project with the Development of Education project looking at games people play around the world and some similarities and differences, and when you have no resources, how do you create a game, so the whole thing on gaming is part of who I am and what I do throughout my career, so my home life, it infiltrates everything. 
Yeah, so gaming itself, very important.  Video games at all?
Again it’s that definition of what would equal a video game.  So yes, I would say – there’s some games, I mean again, do you call them a video game, things like some of the classic ones like Sim City and things like that. 
Yeah, I would class that, personally I would class that as a video game. 
But you know, those ones where you can be in a plane going past windows of people in Hong Kong and things like that, to be actually, feel another part of the world by playing a game, yes I see huge potential. 
So in that you talked about the kind of empathy and role-play and experiencing different things, and it sounds like you see the potential in video games for that as well. 
Yes.  
Great.  
But there’s that potential is how do you capture that in the classroom and how do you skill up the teacher?  And okay, I’m working with trainee teachers, but to see beyond is quite hard. 
That’s a challenge. 
Yeah. 
One of many.  Thank you so much for talking to me.  I’m going to finish it there because of time, but it’s been a fascinating conversation.  You’ve added lots, there’s lots of things there that have synergies with some things that other people have said, there’s lots of stuff that’s kind of distinct to your situation, so it’s been really, really valuable to talk to you.  So thank you very much for spending your time, I do appreciate it; and it was great to meet you. 
Thank you very much.