Two Faces of Today's Learners: Multiple Identity Formation

Abstract

With the help of digital media and networking technologies, today's learners are increasingly participating in the consuming, producing, and disseminating of new meanings in various modes such as text, image, sound, video, or all together—particularly in online communities—forming new identities as knowledge producers. By using online ethnography coupled with qualitative data collection instruments including participant observation and e-mail interview, the study explored (a) how game players participated in learning how to make mods a fan-programmed game feature and (b) why they created and shared mods with others. Findings revealed that game players participated in learning through collaboration, appreciation and validation, and mentoring. Moreover, affiliation, offline interests, and increased enjoyment motivated them to participate in making and sharing mods with their peers. The findings also unveiled that gaming culture has been overlooked or neglected as a form of possible applications for informal online learning, which can provide many rewarding benefits—especially to teachers, researchers, and school reformers—with a new understanding toward today's learners' multiple identity formation.

Keywords

gaming culture modding participatory learning new identity formation online ethnography

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development has focused study around what it calls “21st Century Competencies,” as practiced by “new millennium learners”. It has identified a cluster of behaviors, competencies, and attributes “of the moment,” including the ability to learn together, cooperation and negotiation, self-regulation, metacognitive skills, and learning environments that develop “horizontal-connectedness” (Dumont et al., 2010). Today's learners take on different identities and learn to participate in various practices in a globalized culture, where boundaries between activities and contexts become more fluid and blurred.

Learning is, thus, not synonymous with schooling, which generally refers to formalized, institutional, and systemic characteristics and outcomes. Active participation in learning as an activity is a question of opportunity, practice, and confidence. Digital learning dismantles the shackles of time and space constraints, enabling communication and exchange between individuals and groups that could learn together or form an ongoing community of practice (COP). In addition, youth is no longer to be understood simply or primarily as a phase of life but as a social condition that represents itself in culturally differentiated ways. As the boundaries between youth and adulthood become more fluid and ambiguous, so do conceptions of suitable learning subjects diversify and elongate through the life course. Learning is less age-related, more generation-related (Chisholm, 2013). As a result, identity formation as a core dimension of learning becomes a continuous project that is not confined to the youth phase. When identities are reworkable and subjectivities are adaptable, the youth phase, thus, no longer bears the unique load of their uniform and stable formation.

Furthermore, as the use and nature of the Internet changed from the first generation of the web (Web 1.0) to the second generation of the web (Web 2.0), the Internet has facilitated participatory, collaborative, and distributed practices among participants in online communities (Carrington & Robinson, 2009; Lankshear & Knobel, 2006). Because Web 2.0 promotes interconnectedness between users, it is often found to provide many opportunities for communication and cooperation among users. Jenkins, Clinton, Purushotma, Robinson, and Weigel (2006) pay particular attention to the emerging types of activities in online communities, defining these activities as “participatory culture” (p. 3). Because of its intrinsically digital and interactive nature, Web 2.0 provides a suitable platform for participatory culture. Such online culture encourages collaboration among users who share the same interests and thus increases feedback as well as support among one another. Today's youth, thus, collaborate to learn from each other while participating in online communities. Elucidating Web 2.0's potential, the 2008 National Technology Leadership Summit also proclaims that connecting youth's learning to participatory digital media is one of the major objectives of future educational research and practice.

Many researchers and educators still regard young people as passive learners or knowledge consumers, overlooking their active informal online learning (Bull et al., 2008; Greenhow, 2008). Teachers do not acknowledge the ways that students learn by using digital technologies outside classrooms (Levin, Arafeh, Lenhart, & Rainie, 2002); students expect to exert newly acquired identities inside classrooms and to leverage online networks as part of their learning process (Baird & Fisher, 2005; Barnes, Marateo, & Ferris, 2007). Greenhow, Robelia, and Hughes (2009) point out the lack of research on and interest in participatory culture, which is able to promote potential educational value not seen in traditional learning settings. They suggest two future research themes—“learner participation and creativity” and “online identity formation,” which emphasize the need of empirical research on the use of and learning through Web 2.0. By referring participants as “learners” instead of “students” (p. 246), they also try to extend the meaning of learning out of school to include informal online learning.

There is still a lack of empirical studies conducted to investigate young people's experience of informal online learning; researchers have been more interested in students' online inquiry processes and their difficulties (Holscher & Strube, 2000; Livingstone, Van Couvering, & Thumin, 2008). To understand today's learners' participation in informal learning and their online identity formation, this study explores game players' participation in learning of fan-programming or modding in an online community. Although not all participants are students (most of them are young and all of them are learners), findings can also suggest potential educational values that can be used to reform learning in schools by articulating “neglected” yet “valuable” roles of today's learners in the community of knowledge.

Theoretical Framework

To inform the analyses of game players' participation in learning and to understand their new identity formation, the study relies on Kress's (2003, 2010) multimodal social semiotic approach. The approach includes several assumptions: (a) signs are always newly made in social interaction, (b) signs are motivated by the interest of makers, and (c) forms used in the making of signs become part of the semiotic resources of a culture. The approach resonates with the change or multiplicity of modes and media in a contemporary social and cultural context (The New London Group, 1996). In the multimodal communication, particularly on screen, design is emphasized as the paradigm of informed, reflective, and productive practice.

Another framework used in the study is situated learning—a theory of learning that assumes that what people learn cannot be separated from how they learn it (Brown, Collins, & Duguid, 1989; Greeno, 1989). The perspective is grounded in sociocultural theories, which consider learning as located in the context and relationships rather than in the minds of individuals. Participation in the sociocultural practice where any knowledge is involved is an epistemological principle of learning. From the perspective, learning and identity are inseparable: They are two aspects of the same phenomenon (Lave & Wenger, 1991). Learning can, thus, be defined as a change in participation or as an assumption of new identities, through which one becomes a different person with respect to the practices in the activity setting (Gee, 2004). This definition also helps to understand game players' participatory learning and their new identity formation through the learning.

In addition, social capital is assumed as the aggregate of actual or potential resources that are embedded in a social network to understand sociocultural learning in the online community in which today's learners participate to learn and to form new identity. It is a form of wealth that is accumulated through lasting and stable networks of interactive relationships and that is a resource shared among participants. As such, social capital is a social resource that is accumulated and embedded in the network of the members' relational contexts through formal and informal network interactions in a community. It is also generated by the online community through computer-mediated communication (CMC). Using CMC, participants contact and interact with others to maintain some sort of social identity in networks, which is also beneficial for the acquisition of resources. The concept is particularly important in Web 2.0, in which knowledge is defined as collective agreement, validity is formed through peer review, and expertise is considered to understand disputes and to offer syntheses accepted in a community (Dede, 2008).

Learning Beyond Gaming

From an ecological perspective, gaming culture is composed of in-game game play, and after-game activities in the online community (Gee, 2007, 2008; Steinkuehler, 2006a), which is called beyond-game culture (Ryu, 2011, 2013). The beyond-game culture comprises either traditional or new literacy practices, such as the discussion and debate of game-related issues, the creation and distribution of fan fiction and multimodal artifacts, or annotated game screenshots. Gee (2007, 2008) also argued that we have to learn how people learn while and after playing games and suggested some learning principles of gaming culture. On the basis of various learning theories, such as situated learning and new literacy studies, Gee developed his arguments about the relationship of gaming and learning. Thus, game players' participation in various practices during and after game play is closely associated with learning (Gee & Hayes, 2010; Nardi, Ly, & Harris, 2007; Squire, Devane, & Durga, 2008).

Nardi et al. (2007) examined learning culture in World of Warcraft. Jointly playing the game and observing as participants, the authors showed that learning from playing World of Warcraft was erratic, spontaneous, contextual, and driven by small events in the game. Employing Civilization III, Squire et al. (2008) investigated what impacts a game could have on students' multiliteracy learning. The results presented an approach to bridging learners' identities in and out of school. Ryu (2011) also explored traditional, multimodal, multilingual, and multicultural literacy learning, paying a particular attention to beyond-game culture. The findings showed that old and new literacy could actively be practiced online after playing games. Furthermore, Ryu (2013) explored language learning through playing games and participating in the online community. Drawing on an ecological perspective on gaming culture, the author showed that language learning from gaming could be ascertained when we looked into learning both during and after game play, which were also closely interrelated.

While participating in beyond-game culture, game players also become fan-programmers (or modders) who modify (or mod) features of existing commercial games and distribute the modifications (or mods) through the Internet (Postigo, 2007; Sotamaa, 2005, 2008; Steinkuehler & Johnson, 2009). Analyzing emerging features of player-produced flags in Civilization IV, Moshirnia and Walker (2007) discovered the tendency of modders: to inject aspects of themselves into the game, to advertise their offline interests, and to correct or alter the historical value of the game. Suggesting a new model of schooling in the digital age, Squire and Giovanetto (2008) argued that participation in the online community could help students to enter as players but to leave as designers. The study examined how cognitive functions were stretched across students' roles, practices, and resources. To understand modders' design activities, Duncan (2010) analyzed productive d/Discourse in the online discussion forums. Drawing on the concept of the “affinity space” and the “participatory culture,” the author viewed the online community through the lens of gamers as designers. The findings showed that the borderline between game players and designers was permeable so that participants freely crossed from one group to the other and from one identity to the other.

The research focus of gaming for learning has developed from game play to a wider range of gaming culture. Particularly, beyond-game culture is an essential part of gaming culture, which needs more attention and exploration. Although the research on and around modding in beyond-game culture is still in its infancy, it is noteworthy that modding has been placed within the contexts of participatory learning and the boundaries between production and consumption.

Online Identities

Recently, researchers have conceived of identity as a process rather than a fixed quality or label (Buckingham, 2008; Merchant, 2006). Identity is so regarded as fluid, malleable, and negotiable through multiple social practices and discourses. As a force to liberate young people, digital technology helps to communicate with different aspects of the self in online communities (Hull & Nelson, 2005; Hunter, 2011; Ranker, 2008). Using the terms of “anchored” and “transient” identity, Merchant (2005) distinguished between positions that were fixed or innate and those that were influenced by sociocultural practices. The study suggested that digital technology could provide a richer context for identity play and performance. Weber and Mitchell (2008) also described the structural features or characteristics of digital production, which reflected a broader view of identity as an ongoing process. To encapsulate the construction of identity, a concept of “bricolage” was suggested to refer to a creation that was improvised, using whatever materials were available. Moreover, Boyd (2008) illustrated how one of the social networking sites, MySpace's profile provided a type of digital body in which individuals wrote themselves into new beings. Because of the direct link between offline and online identities, it was reported that young people tended to present the side of themselves that would be received by their peers. Greenhow and Robelia (2009) also examined students' views of using MySpace for learning in and out of school, investigating the influence of social networking sites on students' identity formation and 21st century skills. The findings presented online identity formation as dynamic, self-reflective, and performative at a given moment of time.

In a nutshell, identity has been considered to be a broad and ambiguous concept, but researchers lately pay attention to the questions about sociocultural influence on the new identity formation, particularly in online communities. As young people's learning expands across offline and online spaces, those questions have become consequential to understanding their development across various settings in relation to the nature of their experience of learning.

Research Questions

To fill the gap of the literature on today's learners' online informal learning and their new identity formation, we looked into game players' participation in learning how to mod and sharing their mods with others. Specifically, the following questions were addressed: First, how do game players participate in learning how to mod? Second, why do game players make and share their mods?

These questions helped to understand the ways and reasons that today's learners including students informally learned online; and how they could form new identities as knowledge producers.

Method

Research Setting and Participants

Civfanatics.com (CFC) was selected as a research setting because it was one of the largest and most popular fan-based community that could demonstrate game players' natural participation in learning how to mod and sharing their mods. The online community was one of the unofficial websites for the online game, Civilization. While CFC was an open community that required a simple registration process, it also had staffers, moderators, and administrators who spontaneously helped the community to be appropriately managed. In addition to forums for game play, CFC had sections that would support projects for modding, displaying of completed mods, or providing information on modding—such as Modiki, Projects, The FAQ, Downloads, or Screenshots.

Thirty-five members of CFC were initially selected from those who participated in the thread Meet the Modders by purposeful sampling, particularly participants who met the following criteria: active participation, current availability, collections of mods, and experience of learning (Patton, 2008). Although a relatively small number of game players participated, the purpose of this study did not lie in the generalization of the result but in the analytical description of a new type of online informal learning and new identity formation. Their ages ranged from early 20s to late 30s except three participants (ages 17, 49, and 54), and the variety of ages reflected the current popularity of games and the expansion of game generations. However, participants were all male, which might also restrict the generalization of the findings. The uniformity of participants' genders could be due to the characteristics of the game (cf. for female game players' characteristics). Most important, participants were all classified as learners in that they spontaneously tried to learn how to mod in the online community, which also certainly affected their new identity formation. They all participated in the online community for more than 3 years after they decided to go beyond playing the game, Civilization. Their offline occupations or educational backgrounds range from students to retired engineers, but we paid more attention to their learning and sharing following Greenhow et al.'s (2009) suggestion and Gee's (2008) argument on online participants' lack of interest in others' age, gender, race, offline status, and so on.

Research Design

This study was the third part of a larger project on learning in beyond-game culture (Ryu, 2011, 2013). Three studies were all conducted in the same setting and employed similar methodology, but each of them had different research purposes, questions, and participants. After wrapping up two projects, I found another interesting aspect of learning in terms of modding. Initially, the study started with a focus on the young participants and “how” they learned how to mod. As my understanding of the learning deepened, however, the focus of the study expanded to include a wider generation of participants and the question of “why” they made and shared mods, which led to the inquiry of their multiple identity formation. In addition, the focus of this study was informal learning in the online community so that the identity of a designer or a modder was not empirically examined but, by definition, assumed by the “legitimate” participation in learning how to mod. This study focuses more on the overview of learning in the community, while learners' detailed personal lives in the off and online communities of gaming are discussed in Gee and Hayes (2010).

Virtual ethnography was employed as a principal design, following Steinkuehler, Black, and Clinton's (2005) argument that research on the context of new digital technologies should articulate the nuances of meaning-making practices. Virtual ethnography refers to an ethnographic research approach that is carried out in the online setting (Hine, 2008). In the online context, assuming the nature and meaning of countable variables as priori runs the risk of obscuring the nuances of meaning-making practices (Mann & Stewart, 2000). Ethnography was also “a relevantly complementary enterprise” to multimodal “meaning-making, the agency of meaning makers, and the constant (re-) constitution of identity in sign- and meaning-making” (Kress, 2011, p. 242). As a result, qualitative data collection methods—such as observation and interview—were adopted to descriptively analyze game players' informal learning in the online community (Windschitl, 1998).

Participant Observation

To address the first question on the ways to participate in learning how to mod, I analytically reviewed participants' asynchronous CMCs from an insider's point of view. Participant observation was useful in disciplines such as game studies where the object of study was emergent, incompletely understood, and thus innately unpredictable (Boellstorff, 2006). The observation of asynchronous discourses began from the thread Meet the Modders, which guided me into related activities and artifacts in the other websites. To search for similar categories, phrases, and words or to review all the posts written by a particular participant, I used Google Search, the searching engine installed in CFC. While reviewing, I made notes of significant features of learning. In addition, I sometimes directly participated in the conversation with participants in CMC to listen to their voices. I collected virtual artifacts by taking screenshots and copying addresses. Although there were still disputes over privacy infringement with respect to covert observation, the potential to move beyond the limitation of face-to-face research contexts was a huge advantage of online ethnography, particularly in participant observation (Mann & Stewart, 2000). All the CMC discourses or artifacts were published online; few ethical issues arose.

E-mail Interview

Interview was mainly conducted to answer the second question regarding the reasons that participants made and shared mods with others as well as to understand participants' experience of learning and becoming designers in more depth. To interpret the meaning that participants make of their experience, e-mail interviews worked as a necessary, if not sufficient, tool of inquiry because participants were located throughout the world (Seidman, 2006). Before starting the interview, I devised protocols on the basis of my observation but would adjust the specific questions according to the interviewees' answers to the previous questions. In the first contact with 24 participants whose CMC and virtual artifacts were observed, 17 agreed to participate in the e-mail interview. Of those 17 participants, 12 answered the second interview questions. Finally, 9 of those 12 interviewees responded to the last e-mail questions. Although the number of interviewees decreased, their answers became deeper and wider. After initially analyzing the data collected from observation and interview, the second round of interview was conducted to check, complement, or confirm my initial interpretation. E-mail interview provided an indirect access to learning in participatory culture and an appropriate way to understand why participants made and shared mods from insiders' perspectives (Patton, 2008).

Data Analysis

Computer-mediated discourse analysis gave an insight into informal online learning and identity formation through data-driven basis of texts and interaction between participants in online communities (Androutsopoulos, 2008; Herring, 2004; Steinkuehler, 2006b). I used participant observation and field notes as a backdrop of CMDA (Computer-Mediated Discourse Analysis) for the analysis of relationships between digital texts and participatory practices. Specifically, I analyzed CMC discourses, looking for patterns to represent learning and sharing. The analysis was based on the concept of Gee's (2006) “D”iscourse, which includes values, behaviors, codes of acts as well as verbal discourses. Emerging patterns from CMDA were categorized with a focus on the ways of learning how to mod and the reasons for making and sharing mods. I used open coding and axial coding strategies and allowed categories to be formed from the data (Creswell, 2007). Expanding or narrowing down the range, I could find common features of participatory learning and sharing in terms of modding. Field notes and interview scripts were repeatedly reviewed to triangulate initial analyses, which were also reinforced or invalidated with a second round of interview. These analyses of CMC also provided with a window to participants' thoughts over informal online learning.

Findings

Findings were categorized into two large patterns to address each research question. I first investigated how game players participated in learning how to mod; then, I shifted my attention to why they made and shared mods with others. The issue of new identity formation was addressed along with those findings. Both categories of findings included subcategories, which represented specific features of learning and sharing.

How to Participate in Learning How to Mod

Not all the participants in CFC tried to learn how to mod because they had different expectations from and experience in the affinity space. But those who thought themselves as modders or amateur designers more actively participated in learning from and teaching the other participants. Their participatory patterns for learning how to mod in the study showed three subcategories—collaboration, appreciation and validation, and mentoring—although those patterns were interrelated and could not clearly be separated.

Collaboration

The online community, CFC, created a collaborative environment for learning how to mod. The individual participant was linked to the community through collaboration with others, in which information, knowledge, and skills could be taught and learned. The following example presented an initial stage of a modding project.

R: This will serve as a development thread for a set of Japanese cities Gen. Rommel has requested of me. There are to be four eras, from ancient to modern. I believe the first era should approximate the Jomon or Yayoi periods, so GR, if you could provide me with some pictures, I'll get started.

O: For some ideas on middle and industrial eras, I'd suggest looking up pics of Hiroshige's “36 Views of Edo” and visiting www.orientalarchitecture.com for ideas. Those two sources were the ones I used for my Japanese city set.

G: This thread makes me very excited for the impending city set! I want to thank you again for even taking up my request, and if there's ever a way I can make it up to you, I will gladly do so.

On to the pics! I was able to gather quite a few images of various Jomon and Yayoi period houses/huts which should give you a good idea of how a Japanese village during this time period looked.

R proclaimed the purpose and characteristics of the thread for developing a mod, which began with G's request, suggesting an overall plan to make the mod. Responding to the project plan, O suggested the other thread and website that could assist R's project and verified the quality of two resources on the basis of his experience. As a person who had asked R to make a particular mod, G emphasized the importance of the project and promised R to help him as much as he could. In addition, G provided good resources for designing that mod. As a consequence, G could help R who initiated the project following G's request. This example showed no clear distinction between initiators and followers, or experts and beginners; all the participants collaborated to complete a project of modding and to contribute to the community together.

The following example presented a participant's two postings at the same date, which represented two different identities as a beginner of modding (or a game player) who asked for help and as an expert of modding (or a game designer) who gave help.

V: Are there any basic mod-making tutorials? If so, could somebody point me in the right direction? Thanks

V: As you can see, I have tried to keep the borders and city names close to how they were in 1939, while maybe cheating here or there for more playability.

Within a day, V's skills or knowledge could not have increased from beginners to experts. Rather, V would play a role as a beginner (or a player) who needed more advanced expertise or skills; he would also work as an expert (or a designer) who could teach the others. No participant in CFC could have all the knowledge required to make all kinds of mods. It was also more effective to have each participant focus on his own specialty to complete a project of modding. As such, participants collaborated for a particular modding project, filling the gap of each other's expertise. When projected mods were completed, participants shared their new mods with those who did not participate in the project, which also contributed to the collaborative environment of learning in CFC.

Appreciation and validation

Because modding was essentially a collaborative project, all participants got helped in knowledge, expertise, or skills for their modding projects. They often expressed their acknowledgment for the others' contribution to their projects. Most of them also expected and received validation of their new mods from peers in the community. As a result, affective support, encouragement, or appreciation served as elements to establish a constructivist environment of participatory learning. The following example showed two participants' (B's and O's) appreciation and validation of a (E's) recently completed mod.

B: It looks amazing, I almost want to copy and paste it to my desktop as a screensaver. Even the mighty empire once had a despotism govt back in 4000 BC. Too bad Firaxsis went haywire and hardcoded fog of war, it would be nice to splash some stars on it to give it a more space feel …

O: AWESOME!!!!! Awesome, awesome, awesome. Back when I was active, I tried to make a map and my own terrain very much like this one, 4 × 4 planets and everything. I might recommend some cities, the Matrix Cities by Badi Dea. No one uses them, and they look great on planets, as they sprawl out and look huge, Corouscant style. Other ideas I had were …

E: Thanks for motivation. It helps me going better than if I was making it for myself only.

Two participants, B and O, praised E's mod and appreciated his efforts although they did not participate in the modding project. The modding project was validated by the reasons that participants liked this mod: B pointed out E's correction of Firaxsis' mistake (a misspelling of Firaxis, a company of Civilization), and O told his experience of making mods and recommended another participant's mods for a reference.

Moreover, participants gave credits to those who helped them to make mods or to those participants whose programs or engines were employed to complete their new mods. Attributing their current mods to the others' efforts, participants articulated who they learned from and how knowledge developed or amassed for their current mods. The following example illustrated a long list of credits, which showed direct or indirect contributors to a modding project.

Klyden again provided a wealth of R&D, feedback, game logs, and stats (dug into Jane's and Conway's). He logged a ton of turns and is most responsible for curtailing the economics in AoI v4.0 (harder to accumulate mass wealth) and especially w/ getting the Russian postion in shape (fine line between Big Red Machine and Historically Weak Tsarist Russia).

Tank_Guy#3 and Moff Jerjerrod did some extensive testing with us and also provided some valuable feedback. Adler17 provided some R&D and was a great sound board for production ideas. jimmygeo logged hundreds and hundreds of hours w/ the beta files. real life has prevented him recently of testing. but he actually finished a few games for us in beta and gave some great early bug reports. Civinator aka Blue Lion was also a great sound board for ideas and lent his super-creative mind to many of our discussions.

In the first paragraph, how Klyden as a main contributor helped him was specified; in the second paragraph, six additional contributors' names were disclosed with brief comments on their help. Showing who helped whom in what contributed to the collaborative environment of CFC. The appreciation, assessment, evaluation, validation, or feedback, thus, fueled participatory learning and helped participants affiliated “because it transformed knowledge into social capital” (Herz, 2002, p. 179). The participatory culture was worth in a social context where their status was derived from peer acknowledgment—a form of social capital gained from the CFC community. As mutual fans who admire those who admire them, participants have a passion for what they teach and learn, and they also want the passion to spread over the community.

Mentoring

All the learning in CFC began with participants' interests and needs. Newbies could start anytime to learn what they needed while participating in the online community. Experts acknowledged the others' different backgrounds and helped them to learn what they needed through their experience in the meaningful context. Participants could not learn all that they needed to make mods by memorizing manuals and tutorials but by participating in modding projects. The following example showed that B encouraged E to learn what was needed from his own experience.

E: There are few land titles graphics for every terrain type. They seem to be placed randomly. Is there any way to customize it and place exact graphic I want in a place I want?

B: Yes. For that you can use the editor (the one that came with your game, or Steph's editor, for instance). From the editor, you can place special terrain, LM terrain, overlays and resources among others, on any map. Take a look at the tutorials for ideas.

E: Thanks Balthasar. I am thinking of making new terrain with kind of new concept, but the files loook bit confusing. Some empty templates with explained terrain connections would be useful.

B: One way to learn is to make an old terrain with an old concept. If you're making terrain, there are a few files you need to know more than others:

As a beginner of modding, E asked for a general help in making mods. To the contrary, an expert, B's response to that question seemed so contextualized that he provided specific examples and unexpected issues that E might encounter. In addition, B gave E additional resources that he could refer to. Those resources might not be needed to E, but B provided with a chance to decide which option is more appropriate to his issue by himself. Last, B suggested learning how to mod through his own experience. Most experts did not directly tell beginners what to learn but motivated and resourced creativity and productivity through the beginners' own experience. Through such a mentoring process, an expert of modding could help a beginner to become another expert. Helping beginners to become skilled modders or modding experts contributed to the diversity of mods and the richness of gaming experience in the online community.

As a consequence, CFC worked as an informal apprenticeship community. Lave and Wenger (1991) called the process of learning as legitimate peripheral participation, drawing attention to the point that learners participate in communities of practitioners and that the mastery of knowledge and skill requires beginners to move toward full participation in the practices of a community. Thus, participatory learning was facilitated in the community of modding, and its constructivist culture encouraged knowledge of modding to be accumulated and shared in the online community.

Why to Make and Share Mods

The motivations for collaboration have been suggested as peer acknowledgment and group identity (Herz, 2002); pleasure, desire, and ludic tension (Denis & Jouvelot, 2005); and educational extrinsic need and potent intrinsic factors (Moshirnia, 2007). Participants in the study were motivated to participate in the learning and teaching of modding and filled the gaps in their knowledge of the modding. The results showed three reasons of making and sharing mods with others: affiliation, offline interest, and increased enjoyment.

Affiliation

CFC followed social dynamics (Brown & Duguid, 2000; Sawyer, 2007). Participants considered themselves to be part of the online community, which gave them a stronger bond to their peers on the basis of their common interest in modding. They shared knowledge and skills for making mods and examined each other's new mods. Participants also demonstrated their competence and creativity by aiding others. The following interview transcript illustrated a strength of an affiliated community beyond individual participants.

Together the many modders make it possible to produce many good mods and scenarios. My simple modding skills alone would not amount to much but with access to all the great stuff produced by the whole community I can do much, much more.

Most experts of modding tried to help newbies to become experts, who would also contribute to the community of modding. Newbies who had received help from experts could mentor others because they had experienced similar issues and addressed them with others' helps. The following example described the process of a beginner becoming an expert.

Because, everyone has been new at some point most people are patient and always willing to careful explain things to new modders. That was my experience and now that I know more myself I try to help new people with their problems when I can.

Participants performed a shared goal of modding to which they bring all of their knowledge, skills, and constructive abilities. They felt strongly connected to each other; the affiliation motivated them to collaborate to make and share mods together. Thus, stronger incentives were created to help a beginner to become another expert, who could make the community of modding more diverse and affluent.

However, not every participant told that their affiliation to the community motivated them to make modding. Some apparently emphasized their individual interests in modding. While passion usually spreads over the online community, not all participants were much passionate or fully committed.

Contributing to the community is only a small part for me, a side effect really. I mean, it's nice to be able to upload it for others. However, the main reason for me to make mods is to tell a story. It's an interactive narrative with me pulling all the strings.

Offline interests

Participants' offline interests strongly affected their participation in the community of modding; what to mod or how to mod reflected their individual or collective interests formed offline. The design of mods often required out-of-game research and asked for additional studies about computer programming or graphics. Some tried to represent a more accurate history in their mods to correct something misrepresented, overlooked, or ignored by original designers; others used their creativity and imagination to reorganize historical facts or to create their own historical hypotheses.

My interest in history and fantasy stories such as the Lord of the Rings drove me to want to mod the game and to add new content and customise it to my liking.

Plus I'm very interested in history. I made mod because I dislike having tech trees which were too simple, and above all because I strongly dislike the unit lines: too short, a lot of missing links, and having units looking the same for every civilization is really bad.

Furthermore, many participants were already interested in or had considerable knowledge in computer science or engineering, which was needed for making new mods. These offline interests and expertise enabled participants to redesign original scenarios, maps, levels, or games following their own tastes. But their individual specialties further advanced or elaborated while collaborating with peers.

Later, as I found the existing editor really poorly made, I started to make my own.

As a software engineer, I know how to program, but not how to program games. I learnt that myself (at least a few basics). This allowed creating tools to mod further, and also I started to program my own game.

Participants' offline interests in history, culture, fantasy fiction, or science/engineering first had them play the game Civilization, which flowed over into beyond-game culture in which they could learn how to mod or make mods. After finding issues in the original game, participants suggested new or better ideas and developed those ideas into the new modding projects. As a result, their new identities as producers or designers could be formed by planning modding projects, selecting available resources, and working with peers together.

Increased enjoyment

When participants no longer enjoyed game designers' original edition, they did not waited for updated games to be released. Participants made new mods for more “fun” of playing games themselves. Most of them did not care about commercial benefits but focused on the refinement or improvement of game play. But their knowledge or competence of designing games was as highly developed as that of professionals.

You can download here for free the tools I have developped to help modding Civilization III. However, you can use them only for non commercial project or scenarios.

I started by studying the machinations of other mods. Another inclination was to make the base game better (ie better than what the original designers had made).

The preceding interview transcript presented participants' amateur sprits along with their professional competence. Both participants were not satisfied with an original game design and started to develop new mods, which was not for economic benefits. The following interview transcript also articulated how a game player's identity changed while participating in the community of modding.

I began adding new units that were created by other modders… .All the time studying, learning more and more from the various tutorials provided by more experienced members… .Finally, someone posted a thread looking for someone to complete a scenario that had been started by one of the mod developers…. I eventually completed it with help from other members who often supplied advice and assistance …

The amateur game designers (or modders) could be called “pro-ams” in the sense of professional amateurs (Leadbeater & Miller, 2004). Pro-ams—which could represent two faces of today's youth in participatory culture—would proactively transform or redesign original products while collaborating with peers in online communities. Meanwhile, they could acquire a new identity as a knowledge producer (or a game designer) beyond a knowledge consumer (or a game player).

Discussion

To have a deeper understanding of today's learners' informal learning and their multiple identity formation, we examined how game players' learning intersects with the affordances of the online community, which contributes to a new identity formation. From a sociocultural perspective, learning at the individual and collective levels influences each other: “intra-personal” and “inter-personal” relationships (Vygotsky, 1978). Today's learners—not always young or in classrooms—actively participate in online communities to develop their new identities. Now, let us expand the findings of their online informal learning into two different yet interconnected levels: community of knowledge and multiple identity formation. In addition, we will review the findings with a respect to the reform of schools.

Community of Knowledge

Knowledge is a type of social capital and can be exchanged through interpersonal interaction, and members in a social network accumulate social capital through formal and informal network interactions. When participants accumulate social capital through a fair and mutually beneficial exchange process, they can create a foundation for affective commitment and emotional support. To exchange the knowledge of game play and to fill a gap in their knowledge, game players go to the online community, becoming immersed in its larger breadth of passions (Gee & Hayes, 2010). Game players' individual knowledge is combined with knowledge accumulated in the community and knowledge built into the tools that they have used. They are also open to the knowledge of other communities. While accumulating knowledge as social capital in online communities, game players collaborate with others for the creation of game-related artworks, mods, or new games per se.

Conceptually, knowledge is embodied as “collective agreement” that “may combine facts with other dimensions of human experience” (Dede, 2008, p. 80). It is also decentralized, accessible, and co-constructed among users in a community. Knowledge building is so defined as the creation of knowledge as a social product. Following this concept of knowledge, a community of modding represents a good example of knowledge building (Scardamalia & Bereiter, 1994; Zhang, Scardamailia, Reeve, & Messina, 2009). Knowledge creation and social interaction in online communities have recently attracted the attention of educational researchers who wish to understand online informal learning (Boyd & Ellison, 2008; Greenhow & Robelia, 2009; Jenkins, 2006a, 2006b). From a sociocultural point of view, learning comes from participation in the community of modding, and the knowledge from learning is accumulated and distributed through interaction between participants based on their trust and emotional support.

Likewise, Gee and Hayes (2010) suggest “passionate affinity spaces” as online communities for gaming, and other scholars also have tried to expand the concept into the other online informal learning contexts (Hayes & Dunkan, 2012). The concepts of knowledge are necessarily applied to the collaboration and creation of gaming features in the affinity spaces because such spaces build, transmit, sustain, and transform knowledge. Nevertheless, knowledge is always in the service of something beyond itself. It has to be in the service of solving problems for themselves or helping others to solve problems in the affinity spaces. Modding is often part of an affinity space that builds up around game and engages in discussion about strategy, game play, and the statistical or algorithmic properties that underlie the game engine (Gee & Hayes, 2010). Participants teach and learn from each other while collaborating to design mods together. However, not all the online communities are affinity spaces, and not all affinity spaces are alike either. Some affinity spaces are supportive and nurturing, while others might turn out to be the opposite.

Nowadays, all kinds of institutions and communities are using digital technologies—such as computers, the Internet, mobile, and handheld devices— which can support learning in anywhere, and at anytime. Today's learners can learn whenever and wherever as long as they wish to, whether they are studying in school or playing games at home. However, knowledge works very differently inside and outside school. Within the traditional framework of school, the object of learning is to store facts in one's head for answering test questions; outside school, learning is more personal, tangible, and made to be used in real-world applications. Through the exploration of how today's learners informally build knowledge in online communities, we can understand how learning can be stimulated in classrooms. If we as researchers and educators seek to improve the learning ability of students, we ought to expand our research into their use of Web 2.0, in terms of participation, creation, and knowledge building inside and outside schools (Greenhow et al., 2009).

New Identity Formation

Contemporary identity theories categorize identity as multiple, changing, and a site of struggle, as identity, practices, and resources are inextricably linked and socially constituted. Particularly, new online identity is “dynamic and shifting” because of various social developments and changes (Coiro, Knobel, Lankshear, & Leu, 2008, p. 526). As such, today's learners present multiple identities as game designers as well as game players in the online communities. They freely develop various identities, which are proliferating at a great rate as a result of online participatory culture (Gee, 2017). This study demonstrates that game players try out new identities of being game designers through participation in the community of modding. They form new identities of being game designers while still keeping their old identities of game players. As a result, they keep multiple identities and choose one of them according to the role that they have to play as.

Learning in all semiotic domains requires a new identity and a process to transit from old identities to the new ones, which is part of social identity tied to the communities associated with the knowledge domain (Gee, 2008). Thus, “learning is a change not just in practice, but in identity” (p.190). Such a social identity is the expression of a person's intersecting affiliations, interest, values, and practices. Learning and a sense of identity are so inseparable that they are aspects of the same phenomenon (Lave & Wenger, 1991). The notion that learning entails identity formation is at the core of the COP framework. COP encourages learning through knowledgeable practices, which often includes acquiring a new social identity, where a person needs to become a member of a community from which he can learn, taking on the values of the community. Thus, learning implies a transformation in a person' identity and the establishment of membership in COP (Lave & Wenger, 1991; Wenger, 1999). It is important to note that their newly acquired identities as designers are often not stable or fixed because most of them also enjoy playing games as players. Their identities—as players, designers, teachers, or learners—are so changeable with contexts—in which they live—that they have to keep and choose from multiple identities according to their expected or selected roles.

Today's learners do not just learn what is given to them but design their meanings according to the contexts (The New London Group, 1996). Faced with the increasing multiplicity and integration of modes of meaning-making and the amplified local diversity and global connectedness, they can see themselves as designers or makers of meaning. Digital media and networking technologies also provide them with increasing affordances to work as producers, where they can be collaborating with peers and experimenting with new identities (Boyd, 2008; Greenhow & Robelia, 2009). Engaging in production and consumption, today's learners are developing multiple identities or “dynamic and shifting constructions and presentations of self” (Coiro et al., 2008, p. 526). The easier design, production, and distribution of their works strongly encouraged them to acquire new identities as knowledge producers.

Furthermore, traditional structures that helped young people to form their identities are not as influential as they once were (Boyd, 2008). Unlike learning in traditional classrooms, today's learners actively choose the content and structure of their learning and redesign what is available in the new social and cultural context. As a result, they can have more opportunities to learn out of school than in school and often compare the two different types of learning experience. Those engaged in Web 2.0 often participate in evaluating roles (traditional teachers' roles) as well as in being evaluated (traditional students' roles), which often includes sharing their works and getting feedback from their peers. Although some teachers or schools accept and use students' interests and creativity that are developed informally, it is still not easy to integrate the new modes of learning into a traditional curriculum. More teachers need to regard students' identities as potential, unfinished, and in progress, helping build up their new identities of producers. The possible connections and conflicts of being a learner engaged in both school and out-of-school sites should be considered for future research.

Conclusion

As reviewed, today's learners' learning, identity, and participation in COP interact to influence one another, particularly in the passionate affinity spaces. To take their online informal learning into account and to understand students as multiple selves inside and outside of school, we ought to explore how they participate in learning in myriad settings. In addition, we need to reassess the value of informal learning and to push the boundaries of our traditional framework of learning. Argues that by making the curriculum more relevant to these students' lifeworlds, and through acknowledging and valuing their multiple identities, students are able to engage in powerful meaning-making practices that led to increased proficiency in the design of school-based texts. Therefore, researchers as well as educators have to relook at online informal learning and today's learners' multiple identities to develop healthy and valuable ecological perspectives on their learning.

Limitation

Clearly, findings of the study cannot be generalized because they relied on a small number of participants' learning experience in an online community, CFC. Purposeful sampling also makes it harder to generalize the findings. Unlike participants in the study, not all game players in online communities are active learners; there also exist lurkers who mainly read and passively participate in communities although their passive learning should be explored as well. In addition, unevenly distributed access to technologies or online games may show different results in different contexts. However, the purpose of this study is not to present general patterns of learning but to understand a valuable emerging learning experience outside of schools, which are often overlooked by educators and researchers.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Author Biographies

Dongwan Ryu is a professor in the English Education Team at the Korean Aviation College. Ryu has completed PhD coursework and Certificate of Advanced Studies from the University at Albany-SUNY, post-master’s advanced certificate in Educational Theory and Practice from New York University, and master of arts degree in Multilingual/Multicultural Education from Hankuk University of Foreign Studies’ Department of English Linguistics.

Jiwon Jeong is a professor in the English Education Team at the Korean Aviation College and has received PhD in English Education from Chung-ang University, Seoul, South Korea.

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