ABSTRACT

If it seems as though we are reinventing the wheel, it is because we are. Games designed for entertainment by for-profit companies have mastered the ability to teach players a myriad of skills (Gee, 2004, 2008). Educators can and must do better, but the demand to innovate through play comes alongside a myriad of contradictions, many of which have driven learning toward models of assessment and surveillance. Why are we stuck in cycles of educational technology that promise disruption, but deliver monotony? Is there space for meaningful play in the neoliberal university, and might the pandemic inspire the reinvention we desperately need? We find hope outside the technical: in communities of ungrading; in pedagogy that rewards failure; in pedagogy that embraces play rather than incentives and punishments; and in the co-creative play that exemplifies the best innovations of pandemic pedagogy. This is not a playful time, but we need play now more than ever.