ABSTRACT
Knowledge is created through the experience of digital play where interacting with computer games, given their fundamental role as cognitive artefacts, can prompt epistemic experiences, thus promoting new ways of formulating and transmitting knowledge. The activity of digital play entails both reflection and experience, thus conceptualizing it as an epistemic experience where players analyse situations, enact strategies and apply significant knowledge in these virtual worlds. In addition, computer games encourage a participatory culture that can create communities whose main purpose is the generation of collaborative knowledge. Furthermore, digital play is an epistemic experience because players exercise problem solving skills and abstract thinking through simulations and ongoing participation. The playful interactions with computer games can give rise to epistemic experiences because they encourage a cycle of reflective and experiential generation of knowledge. Computer games allow players to analyse situations through play, where different scenarios can be safely explored and diverse hypotheses can be actively tested. This may be seen in Eyewire, an online game designed to map retinal neurons through a series of puzzles. Analysing how knowledge is created and shared through digital play will help us to develop novel ways to incorporate computer games in learning environments.
