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Abstract

This paper offers a case study of the design, development, and play-testing of a Flash-based Baroque music game,“Tafelkids: The Quest for Arundo Donax”, focusing on the tension between constructing an online resource that an audience aged 8–14 would find engaging, and the directive to include historical information and facts, as well as convey some of the sounds, musical structures and conventions of Baroque music, history and culture through play. We begin by setting out some basic theoretical principles around game-based learning, in particular, introducing the concept of“ludic epistemology”, in order to situate our design efforts within an emerging pedagogical paradigm. After detailing the game’s design, we document 3 play-testing sessions in which we observed, in total, over 150 students aged 12–14 play the game. We conclude with a discussion of the particular challenges in designing a bridge from propositions to play, digitally re-mediating a traditional approach to Baroque music education to address the broader epistemological question of what and how we may best learn, and learn best, from play.

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Jenson, J., Taylor, N., de Castell, S., Droumeva, M., Fisher, S. (2011). Baroque Baroque Revolution . In: Khine, M.S. (eds) Playful Teaching, Learning Games. Contemporary Approaches to Research in Learning Innovations, vol 5. SensePublishers. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-6091-460-7_5

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