Mobile Impact on Education

The multitudes of D&D resources have allowed for expansive communities to form in online spaces dedicated to forums, blogs,  wikis, social media, and more.

Gee & Gee (2017) would call these areas affinity spaces or distributed teaching and learning (DTAL) systems; they are amazing for education because "DTAL systems are an emerging form of ubiquitous teaching and learning outside school. They constitute a true 21st-century curriculum based in passion, innovation, production, participation, and collaboration," (p. 16).

In these spaces that mobile D&D has created, players are engaging amongst a supportive and meaningful community of learners. They are collaborating, thinking critically, creating, and contributing to discussions of gameplay and the community itself.

As Gee (2007) illustrates, “First, in the modern world, language is not the only important communicational system. Today images, symbols, graphs, diagrams, artifacts, and many other visual symbols are particularly significant. Thus, the idea of different types of 'visual literacy' would seem to be an important one” (p. 13). 

With mobile D&D, not only are players interacting with written language but with an arsenal of visual factors: understanding and being spatially aware of 2- and 3-dimensional maps; using pictures, symbols, and videos to develop story; navigating the complexity of the internet, forums, wikis, and more to uncover answers; and potentially adding to the D&D community on social media. Here, players are interacting with 21st-century literacy skills in amazing ways.

As well, all of the learning is contextual and put into meaningful practice right away which is key for transformational learning experiences (Gee, 2007, p. 16). For example, learning how a spell or ability works affects the gameplay shortly thereafter.

Some may argue that the creativity and imagination of players are more limited and hindered when visual representations and auto-generated content are so abundant. They may be true in a sense; however, the changing nature of expression and artistry in D&D has also allowed for new learning areas to emerge.

Creation, imagination, and artistic expression still take place. They may not be with a pencil or model glue quite as much, but more with digital mediums like photo-video editors and mapping software.

In truth, whole niches and communities have emerged because of these new mobile spaces. Ventures into 3D printing miniatures are countless, shared map designs are limitless, and story-writing ideas are shared more frequently than ever. With dice-making tutorials, wooden table DIY videos, and fun character creation ideas, mobile D&D has creativity and imagination in abundance, and epic ways to practice them.