Shifting Design Values: A Playful Approach to Serious Content

This article documents the design and development of an online tutorial for student and practising teachers at York University, Canada, that familiarizes them with the ethical and legal aspects of teaching. In particular, it focuses on the key design decisions that were made, emphasizing how these were also deeply pedagogical considerations, including: (1) a modular menu and content structure which, in combination with a user-enabled progress tracking system, allows for non-linear, entirely student-directed progress through the site; (2) accessible and engaging, rather than dense and jargonistic content, redesigned around the spatial economy of the site; and (3) a series of animated legal case stories that moves content delivery from a narrowly propositional mode to one driven by narrative and play. The article concludes with a discussion of how these attempts at enacting ‘pedagogic interactivity’ – a unity of pedagogy and design – were undermined by the introduction of an evaluative component requiring students to achieve and submit a score. The ‘ELSE’ (Ethics and Legal Studies in Education) tutorial site illustrates what types of innovations in instructional design in what has been broadly termed ‘e-learning’ are made possible by subverting the conventional dichotomy between content and delivery.