ABSTRACT
In the wake of COVID-19 closures and restructurings, educational institutions were abrupt participants in a mass experiment of online learning and tools adoption. However, in spite of decades of existing models from digital humanities, educational technology, and game-based learning, most of this adoption centered on tools designed for business: expedience was favored over creativity, and the familiar was privileged over tools and practices perceived as experimental. In this moment, an opportunity was (understandably, given a lack of time and resources) lost: an opportunity to recenter play, and consider how lessons from game-based learning might be brought to bear in reimagining environments and approaches to distant learning. Drawing on humanist models of hybrid pedagogy, and the shared challenge of revising entrenched assumptions in learning, we propose an interdisciplinary model of reimagining play as a much-needed tool for serious times and consider how the acceleration of our reliance on the mediation of online technology and interfaces must be met with reflection and critique as parts of this so-called “new normal” become entrenched.
