Learning agency in online game spaces: What happens when middle school children play online and can exercise power?

Online games are areas where middle school students have power and agency. Understanding the mechanics of online participation and the metalanguage allows students to participate in global meeting and creation places that most teachers do not investigate. Through a socio-material framework, playing a game such as Minecraft can be understood as actual building and creating in a third space, not merely a representation of building (Dezuanni, 2017). This research study looks at the use of an authentic gaming space to develop student agency whilst applying the Sustainable Development Goals (UN, n.d.) and Goal 2 of the Alice Springs (Mparntwe) Education Declaration (DESE, 2019) of resilience and problem solving. This session investigates the structures of power that disable students from learning in ways and places where their knowledge is valued. The author then discusses how this can be changed through the use of the International Baccalaureate Learner Profile (Bullock, 2011) used as a reflective tool allowing a mutual language for students and teachers to understand the learning that is occurring in gaming spaces