Critical and ethical dimensions in digital literacy practices in a digital educational game

ABSTRACT In this research, digital literacy practices of High School students in a digital educational game were analyzed, considering the ethical and critical dimensions. For this purpose, our research is mainly based on discussions about literacy in digital environments (Cope and Kalantzis, 2000; Lankshear and Knobel, 2007; Rojo, 2012; Capurro, 2015; Janks, 2018; Pinheiro, 2018) and digital games (Coutinho and Alves, 2016; Pinheiro and Cavalcante, 2019; Pinheiro, Lima and Araújo, 2020). The methodological course consisted, first, of the application of the game Digital Olympics with students of the third year of High School; second, of the watching process of the users’ game experience, recorded with a computer screen-capture software; third, of the application of simple self-confrontation interview. The results showed that the digital educational game used in this research contributed to the expansion of digital literacy practices, through the development of a critical/ethical view about interactions in the digital environment and the use of digital technologies.