E-Literatures & Literacies Lab

EL3 is an interdisciplinary lab associated with Game Studies & Design (GSD), an interdisciplinary program, within Informatics, hosted by the School of Information Sciences at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. EL3 invites writers, artists, game designers, programmers, and interdisciplinary researchers from the Humanities, Social Sciences and STEM fields to collaborate on research, design, and pedagogical projects in a range of modalities, ranging from interactive digital storytelling, to gameful pedagogies, to eXtended reality immersive simulations, to serious/transformative games.

e(merging)-literatures

Interactive Narrative
Narrative AI (chatbots)
Collaborative Storytelling
Experimental Humanities

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e(lectronic)- literacies

Game Design
Sociocultural Fluencies
Digital & Programming Literacies
Game-Mediated Language Learning

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e(Xtended)-lab

XR Technologies
Embodied Cognition
Gameful Pedagogies
Serious Games & Simulations

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 e-literatures

The Emergent Literatures component of EL3 weaves together several entwined missions

  • Design

    EL3 supports the creation of works of interactive storytelling, including socially transformative games, interactive fiction , and other emerging media being developed by faculty and students on our campus and in the Champaign-Urbana community.

  • Share

    EL3 provides opportunities for researchers, designers, artists, programmers, and writers to share their work through collaborative projects, reading groups, conferences and symposia. It cultivates an audience through public events and e-publishing initiatives.

  • Expand

    EL3 expands the practice and craft of these emerging literatures through projects involving collaborative authoring, artificial intelligence programming, translations of traditional literatures into digital forms, and interactive historical and social simulations.

 e-literacies

The Electronic Literacies component of EL3 invites interdisciplinary scholars from across campus to collaborate

  • Research

    We encourage research on digital literacies broadly defined, Game-Mediated Language Learning, Second Language (L2) cross cultural digital literacies, ontological thinking, programming literacy, and digital inclusion.

  • Support

    We support curriculum development for innovative courses that promote digital inclusion by teaching programming within the humanities and social sciences, through game design, simulations, and other new media.

  • ENGAGE

    We foster public engagement through K-12 curriculum resource development, community workshops through the CU Fablab, the Champaign-Urbana Public Library and local schools to address a variety of pedagogical and social goals.

 e-lab

The eXtended Lab component of EL3 provides a virtual collaboration space where projects can be envisioned

  • Discover

    We support interdisciplinary collaborations — so that researchers from the humanities, arts, social sciences, and STEM can explore virtual, augmented and other eXtended technologies in all of their transformative potential.

  • Connect

    The EL3 lab supports networking — setting up opportunities for members of the Playful by Design and Games@Illinois communities to meet, share ideas, make plan, apply for grants, engage students, and share their work.

  • Coordinate

    We also address pragmatic institutional objectives, such as securing campus-based or external funding, developing new cross-unit programs, or recruiting graduate students and faculty to initiate or join a collaborative project.