Gina Bloom (University of California, Davis) and Lauren Bates (Educasions) are no strangers to the Shakespeare ZA network! Bloom and Bates have been collaborating since 2020, developing resources, methods and materials to help South African high school teachers present Shakespeare’s plays to their learners.
Play the Knave is a digital theatre game developed by Bloom and her UC Davis colleagues. It provides a new way for students to encounter Shakespeare, getting them up on their feet to design and perform scenes using avatars in a Mixed Reality (MR) format.
Bloom and Bates have previously introduced Play the Knave and related classroom practices to teachers and learners in Cape Town. Now schools in Johannesburg have the opportunity to discover the world where Shakespeare and gaming technology meet!
Gina Bloom
Lauren Bates
Two teacher workshops will be held in August:
On Saturday 5 August at Christ Church Preparatory School and College in Midrand
On Saturday 12 August at the University of the Witwatersrand in Braamfontein
Both workshops will run from 9:00-12:00, followed by lunch.
Watch this BBC News video to see Play the Knave in action
Workshop participants will try out a Play the Knave lesson and discuss how it can be adapted for their own classroom use. Four lesson options explore violence in Shakespeare’s tragedies and in students’ own communities, focusing on Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth, Hamlet and Othello.
There will be free, ongoing support for workshop participants who wish to implement these lesson plans, including the equipment required.
CLICK ON ONE OF THE FLIERS BELOW TO REGISTER !
