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Playground games for the Nintendo generation

Tuesday 16 June 2009

The Wii generation

Clapping and skipping games that are popular in the school playground are to be converted into Wii-type computer games as part of a unique collaboration between three universities, the British Library and Nintendo. The ambitious project, which involves the universities of London, Sheffield and East London, will generate prototype games similar to Wii sports games.

The development of Wii playground games, directed by Grethe Mitchell of the University of East London, is one strand of a £600,000 project funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council’s Beyond Text programme.

”Playground games and rhymes are evolving all the time”, said Grethe Mitchell, senior lecturer in UEL’s School of Humanities and Social Sciences, who was interviewed this week on BBC London News. “Our project aims to make this vital element of our cultural heritage accessible to the ‘Wii generation’."

The centre-piece of the project is the important collection of playground games and songs at the British Library: the sound archives of the renowned collectors Iona and Peter Opie. Researchers will convert these into a digital format under the supervision of Jonathan Robinson of the British Library. They will then create an interactive website for the Library so that children, parents, educators and members of the public can access the digitised archives.

The project’s third strand will be a two-year study of playground culture in two primary schools, one in London, the other in Sheffield. The London school is in the multi-ethnic King’s Cross area, close to the Library, while the Sheffield school serves a primarily white, working-class community.

This strand, supervised by Professor Jackie Marsh of Sheffield University and Dr Rebekah Willett of the Institute of Education, University of London, will reveal how playground games, songs and rhymes are being influenced by comics, TV, film and computer games. Children from the two schools will help to create the prototype computer games and design the library website. They will also co-curate the website, helping to select, describe and present its contents.

The project is being backed by the former Children’s Laureate, Michael Rosen, who is a member of its advisory panel, and by Iona Opie, whose archive at the British Library is central to the research.

UEL is among the top universities in the country for research in Communications, Media and Cultural Studies.

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The University of East London (UEL) is a global learning community with over 28,000 students from over 120 countries world-wide. Our vision is to achieve recognition, both nationally and internationally, as a successful and inclusive regional university proud of its diversity, committed to new modes of learning which focus on students and enhance their employability, and renowned for our contribution to social, cultural and economic development, especially through our research and scholarship. We have a strong track-record in widening participation and working with industry.

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