This study is designed to explore the applied behavioral research available to designers of educational landscapes and determine what aspects of that research can be extracted and applied to a physical landscape design. Its purpose is to create an awareness and understanding of the issues that designers should take into consideration to make an educational landscape design solution more developmentally appropriate for children. The literature review reveals that play forms the common link between learning and child development. The design considerations being presented in this study incorporate play. Being aware of and understanding the developmental and intellectual needs and abilities of children will give designers the foundation to make informed decisions and design choices in the creation of successful children's educational landscapes. The design considerations presented in this study are part of an exploratory investigation attempting to identify direct linkages between developmental/play activities and physical design elements. They offer a framework for creating landscape environments that meet the developmental needs of children. An existing educational landscape, the Jamestown Settlement near Williamsburg, Virginia will be evaluated in terms of these considerations. This educational landscape will be viewed from the perspective of a landscape architect aware of the developmental and play issues that surround child's learning as well as the potential for creating a site that offers a unique landscape experience. The outdoor learning environment is the site of the highest level of children's activity. It represents, at best, a potential site for investigation, exploration and practice of skills at various levels of complexity. At its worst, it is a static collection of objects offering little toward the developmental needs of the child. The landscape designer has the opportunity to provide a unique environment that supports the ways that children learn. The physical landscape has the potential to challenge children, offering choices in sight, smell, sound and touch. The landscape is ever-changing, providing broad learning opportunities where children can learn at their own pace, in their own unique style. / Master of Landscape Architecture

As a new communication technology, Internet makes users play the role both as audiences and producers of messages. After Youtube published, the trend of amateurs¡¦ works quickly sprung up. Amateurs produce original creations and derivative works, and sharing their ideas by Youtube to hold a carnival in the cyber world. Some experienced amateurs become the favorite of news media, and even get the chance to communicate with professional movie makers. The purpose of this research is to provide Youtube video creators some success examples and key elements to follow. Based on the amateurs¡¦ point of views, this research studied on the ¡§play¡¨ experiences and the communication pleasure of experiences amateurs. By observing Youtube website, this research also found out the carnival of amateur videos. This research takes two qualitative approaches. First, by conducting five interviews, the ¡§play¡¨ experiences and the communication pleasure of experienced amateurs are discussed. To develop an understanding of the carnival of Youtube videos, researcher observed the contents, click rates, and discussions of users. The findings of this research are that the experienced amateurs have long-term accumulations of video making which combine entertaining and learning. Their communication pleasures come from the behavior of creation, and the interaction with online fans and offline friends. As the main strategy of Bakhtin¡¦ carnival theory, parody also becomes a welcomed idea of Youtube videos. But the experienced amateurs emphasized that there lays more serious core ideas in the videos, and those are the main issues should be known.

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This study examines the ways that videogames and live performance are informed by play theory. Utilizing performance studies methodologies, specifically personal narrative and autoperformance, the project explores the embodied ways that gamers know and understand videogames. A staged performance, “Shall We Play a Game?,” was crafted using Brechtian theatre techniques and Conquergood’s three A’s of performance, and served as the basis for the examination. This project seeks to dispel popular misconceptions about videogames and performance and to expand understanding about videogaming as an embodied performative practice and a way of knowing that has practical implications for everyday life.

My degree project consists of several parts: a theorethical essay, sketches, modells, photos, experiments and an installation showed at Konstfack Spring Exhibition 2014. Departing from the infamous Fredric Jameson quote ”It’s easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism” I have investigated the relationship between play, daydreaming and economical system. Political scientist Wendy Brown has argued that we exist at a time in history where we have an urgent need for alternative spaces, both in the physical room and in the mind, where an alternative longing can grow. In my degree project I have taken a closer look at this space – what could it be, how does it work, what would it look like if it was made real? By exploring play theory I try to understand how and if play can be triggered and how this can be translated into a space. By deepening my knowledge about imagination and the relation between imagination and social development, I try to seek answers to how play can be used as a starting point for change. By treating play as a space in a double sense – both as a physical room and a special place inside us, I explore the possibilities this space has for creating new dreams. This is also a project where I try to restore my own belief in storytelling as something beyond escapism. Aiming to create an in-between, a fusion between scenography, illustration and installation, I seek to create a platform where my work can be the basis for new discussions and meetings. By exploring the performative elements of a room I want to invite the visitor to enter the image and merge with the content. I want to create a work that embraces the visitor and that can be experienced on many different levels depending on the visitor’s interest, age and prerequisites. The essay consists of three parts. My project started with an analysis of the current economical situation. In the first part of this essay I make a summary of this research, and give a brief background to my experiences working in the gap of storytelling and economics. In the second part I will investigate the basic functions of imagination and play, and see how our longing is linked to the development of society. In the third part I will talk about the physical outcome of my project - my process, choices, difficulties and conclusions. For practical reasons I have choose to put all images in a separate appendix at the end. These images shows extracts from my artistic process as well as a documentation of the installation showed at the Spring Exhibition.

The purpose of this essay is to explore why some children are having a hard time playing together with other children, while others have the ability to play for a long time without interruptions due to conflicts. The stepping stone to this essay has been my thoughts concerning play, which has been inspired foremost by Birgitta Knutsdotter Olofsson. The essay starts with two stories about two children, one of whom is having particular difficulties playing with other kids without getting into conflict. From these examples I turn to three different play theories: play as communication (Bateson and Olofsson), play as transition (Winnicott) and play as developement (Vygotskij). Thereafter comes a reflection, where I examine my stories from the viewpoint of these three theories. But to be able to give the whole picture of play and its conditions, comes another section of theory concerning peer cultures and empathy. The essay then continues into an overlapping reflection, where I scrutinize and critically question my own actions from all these theories. This critical reflection emanates from my own experiences and observations and is also turned against the ways us teachers are acting in general. Working with the essay has given me many new thoughts in how to work with children, such as the importance of being aware of childrens peer cultures, but above all pinpointing on the importance of a present teacher.

With tightening university budgets, never before has the activity level of research grant proposal writing been more intense. With increased proposal numbers, including for the National Science Foundation's (NSF) prestigious CAREER award, has also come increased competition and decreased funding rates. This dissertation has searched for successful and unsuccessful characteristics from funded and unfunded CAREER proposals. The research focused on a study of two key subjects: 1) a corpus of 20 texts that included 12 funded proposals and 8 unfunded proposals from across NSF programs, and 2) an ethnographic analysis comprised from interviews with 14 NSF program officers (PO) from varying programs. Coding elements with the texts to uncover topical chains of content, rhetorical, and document design strategies revealed sound rhetorical moves and rhetorical mistakes. The study also illustrated evidence of adherence to or neglect of NSF-mandated writing/formatting conventions as connected to the likelihood of receiving funding. Moreover, the study revealed conventions that have developed for the genre that are not prescribed by NSF but that, nevertheless, seem to be expected. Through genre field analysis, the study's interviews with program officers (PO) revealed a system of genre-agents and player-agents that interact together in a highly rhetorical and social system. This system, comprised of locales in which a multitude of play scenarios can be enacted to exert influence, operates within fairly exact rules of play. Such rules may be published by NSF or simply be "understood," yet principal investigators (PI) are held accountable for them regardless. The ethnography created from interviews with POs revealed multiple genre field elements (e.g., genre- and player-agents, transformative locales, play scenarios, penalty conditions) as well as common mistakes and best practices. A complete mapping of the CAREER award proposal preparation, submission, and review process resulted from the study, which mapping has offered insightful strategies to expand PI (and other agents') influence on the funding process. The dissertation concluded by offering investigators a step-by-step process to identify and map the elements of the proposal genre field in which they operate.

This research proposes the exploration of intertwining eating and playing in social eating situations. Play theory and literature research in related fields build the theoretical background for exploring how play can unfold in different eating situations. Ethnography, Research through Design and the playcentric design approach are the chosen methods for the practical exploration of the design space. There emerged two sets of experiments. The first set of experiments is concerned with provoking playfulness in different eating situations. The second set of experiments is based on Caillois four types of games and uses flavor as a game design material. Findings suggest further research in the underexplored field and show first ideas on how to intertwine eating and playing through two flavor exploration games.

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