The Institute for Research on Digital Literacies
The Institute for Research on Digital Literacies

Jennifer Jenson

Dr. Jennifer Jenson is Director Emeritus-Supremus of the Institute for Research on Digital Learning because she rode off into the sunset and is now at The University of British Columbia.  Prior to this move Jen was professor of Pedagogy and Technology in the Faculty of Education at York University, Toronto.  She is co-editor of Loading:The Journal of the Canadian Game Studies Association and President of the Canadian Game Studies Association. Working with Professor Suzanne de Castell (Dean, University of Ontario Institute of Technology), Dr. Nicholas Taylor (NC State University) and a team of students in her CFI-funded Play:CES (Play in Computer Environments) lab, she has designed a series of educational games including: “Contagion”, “Epidemic: Self-Care for Crisis”, a Baroque music game, and an iPad game for early readers, Compareware (available for free in the app store). She has completed 2 longitudinal studies of gender and digital gameplay, and held a Partnership Development Grant, Feminist in Games, since 2011 to support women and others who wanted to play and make games. She also completed a 3-year, mixed methods study of massively multiplayer online games and their players in partnership with SRI International, Simon Fraser University and Nottingham University, UK. She has published widely on education, technology, gender, design and development of digital games, and technology policies and policy practices in K-12 schooling. She has considerable experience working on and with teachers in relation to technology, pedagogy and curriculum, and authored a report for the Ontario Ministry of Education entitled “21st Century Skills, Technologies and Learning“. She has also worked with school boards, colleges, and technology companies to support the integration and implantation of technologies in the K-12 sector and she has considerable experience designing online learning experiences in higher education.

Dr. Jenson has been described by a colleague as the perfect combination of smart, perky, and vulgar.

 

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