Matthew Farber
LightNews LightNews
banner
docfarber.bsky.social
Matthew Farber
@docfarber.bsky.social
1.3K followers 1.8K following 69 posts
Associate Professor, University of Northern Colorado. Codirector, Gaming SEL Lab. Play theorist.

NEW from The MIT Press w/ Tracy Fullerton: “The Well-Read Game” a.co/d/6oAphWV
Posts Replies Media Videos
Pinned
docfarber.bsky.social
Matthew Farber @docfarber.bsky.social · Mar 25
🚀 It's book launch day! In "The Well-Read Game," @kinojabber.bsky.social & I explore the experiences we have when we play games and how players evoke personal and subjective meanings through a new theory of player response. @mitpress.bsky.social mitpress.mit.edu/978026255223...
docfarber.bsky.social
November 5, 2025 at 11:04 PM
Reposted by Matthew Farber
edutopia.org
“After years of an unchanging gender division in computer science and engineering classes, the balance flipped with the addition of this new class.”

Want to get more girls involved in STEM? Try this novel approach to integrating arts and computer science. 🪡🖥️

#PBL #EduSky #STEM
Bringing Together Cosplay and Coding in High School
In this class, students learn engineering skills as well as costume design and event planning, culminating in a convention that’s open to the whole community.
edut.to
November 1, 2025 at 4:14 PM
docfarber.bsky.social
ICYMI Our latest post for Edutopia!
edutopia.org Edutopia @edutopia.org · 9d
“After years of an unchanging gender division in computer science and engineering classes, the balance flipped with the addition of this new class.”

Want to get more girls involved in STEM? Try this novel approach to integrating arts and computer science. 🪡🖥️

#PBL #EduSky #STEM
Bringing Together Cosplay and Coding in High School
In this class, students learn engineering skills as well as costume design and event planning, culminating in a convention that’s open to the whole community.
edut.to
November 1, 2025 at 4:17 PM
Reposted by Matthew Farber
edutopia.org
We give this school’s Comic-Con PBL experience 5 stars! ⭐

@dupriestmath.bsky.social and @docfarber.bsky.social share all the details of a venture course titled “The Art and Science of Cosplay”: https://edut.to/42UJhEE

#PBL #EduSky
A student dressed as the Mandalorian stands next to a life-sized R2-D2 robot replica at a school Comic-Con event. The student wears red and black armor with a green lanyard, while people browse booths and displays in the background. Bringing Together Cosplay and Coding in High School In this class, students learn engineering skills as well as costume design and event planning, culminating in a convention that’s open to the whole community. A smiling student sits at a workbench surrounded by laptops, wires, and blue LED lights, working on electronics for the Comic-Con project. Another student stands nearby, and workshop tools are visible in the background. Two students dressed in elaborate costumes sit side by side at a school Comic-Con. One wears a handmade wolf mask, fur collar, and colorful patchwork skirt, while the other wears a Marquette University shirt with a dragon mask and red cape. Paper snowflakes and a winter forest backdrop hang behind them. A student stands in a school gym during a Comic-Con event, dressed as a character wearing a handmade watering-can hat with bits of green moss, a white shirt with a large collar, olive-green suspenders, and white tights. They hold a certificate and a small gray prop, smiling for the camera. Behind them are tables, other students, and a “Cosplay Contest Signup” sign.
October 29, 2025 at 1:18 PM
Reposted by Matthew Farber
ideaillinois.bsky.social
We just dropped the Thought Leader lineup for #IDEAcon 2026, and it’s 🔥. These educators and changemakers are ready to challenge, inspire, and co-create the future of learning.
https://ideail.org/IDEAcon2026

#SpringCUEp/profile/did:plc:67y2qd75kcwkzxu2amunwc4o" class="hover:underline text-blue-600 dark:text-sky-400 no-card-link" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-link="bsky-mention">Lisa Moe 🔜 #SpringCUE, ‪Marcus Luther‬, Matthew Farber, Wunneanatsu

#IDEAil #EduSky
Headshots of five thought leaders featured at Idea Con 2026, each framed in a green circle against a blue background with their names below.
October 28, 2025 at 10:35 PM
docfarber.bsky.social
Can't wait!!! #IDEAil #EduSky
ideaillinois.bsky.social Illinois Digital Educators Alliance | IDEA @ideaillinois.bsky.social · 12d
We just dropped the Thought Leader lineup for #IDEAcon 2026, and it’s 🔥. These educators and changemakers are ready to challenge, inspire, and co-create the future of learning.
https://ideail.org/IDEAcon2026

#SpringCUEp/profile/did:plc:67y2qd75kcwkzxu2amunwc4o" class="hover:underline text-blue-600 dark:text-sky-400 no-card-link" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-link="bsky-mention">Lisa Moe 🔜 #SpringCUE, ‪Marcus Luther‬, Matthew Farber, Wunneanatsu

#IDEAil #EduSky
Headshots of five thought leaders featured at Idea Con 2026, each framed in a green circle against a blue background with their names below.
October 28, 2025 at 10:51 PM
docfarber.bsky.social
Latest for Edutopia! edut.to/4nFiKCZ
October 26, 2025 at 8:24 PM
Reposted by Matthew Farber
edutopia.org
Coding meets cosplay in this school’s project-based learning experience! ⚙️🧵 Students build engineering, costume design, *and* event planning skills as they organize a community-wide Comic-Con.

@dupriestmath.bsky.social & @docfarber.bsky.social explain how to launch a similar project!

#PBL #EduSky
Bringing Together Cosplay and Coding in High School
In this class, students learn engineering skills as well as costume design and event planning, culminating in a convention that’s open to the whole community.
edut.to
October 26, 2025 at 1:43 PM
Reposted by Matthew Farber
docfarber.bsky.social
🎭✨ High school students at Compass Community Collaborative School take a course called “The Art and Science of Cosplay.”

They’re sewing, crafting, coding in Python, and even organizing their own cosplay convention!

Check out our full story on Edutopia 👇
🔗 www.edutopia.org/article/teac...
Bringing Together Cosplay and Coding in High School
In this class, students learn engineering skills as well as costume design and event planning, culminating in a convention that’s open to the whole community.
www.edutopia.org
October 23, 2025 at 11:08 PM
docfarber.bsky.social
🎭✨ High school students at Compass Community Collaborative School take a course called “The Art and Science of Cosplay.”

They’re sewing, crafting, coding in Python, and even organizing their own cosplay convention!

Check out our full story on Edutopia 👇
🔗 www.edutopia.org/article/teac...
Bringing Together Cosplay and Coding in High School
In this class, students learn engineering skills as well as costume design and event planning, culminating in a convention that’s open to the whole community.
www.edutopia.org
October 23, 2025 at 11:08 PM
Reposted by Matthew Farber
mitpress.bsky.social
"With the foundation provided in 'The Well-Read Game,' players now have strong guidelines to experience their games to the fullest." — The Journal of Popular Culture

Matthew Farber (@docfarber.bsky.social) and Tracy Fullerton's "The Well-Read Game" is available now: mitpress.mit.edu/978026255223...
Hand holding a copy of "The Well-Read Game: On Playing Thoughtfully" by Tracy Fullerton and Matthew Farber. The book features an illustration of a girl reading a book while floating in the sky. Two winged game controllers fly behind her.
October 6, 2025 at 11:40 PM
Reposted by Matthew Farber
anzal.bsky.social
Psyched to get into reading The Well-Read Game by Tracy Fullerton and @docfarber.bsky.social for our book club! We got so excited when we found out about the toolkit for book clubs (and an upcoming card game!)
An e-reader displaying the book cover for "The Well-Read Game: On Playing Thoughtfully." The cover shows a stylized animated character floating in the clouds reading a book.
October 2, 2025 at 5:23 PM
docfarber.bsky.social
Our book was just reviewed in The Journal of Popular Culture - Wiley Online Library! onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
The Well‐Read Game: On Playing Thoughtfully. By Tracy Fullerton and Matthew Farber. By Tracy Fullerton and Matthew Farber, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2025. 244 pp. $40.00 (Paperback). ISBN: 978‐0‐26‐255223‐3
Click on the article title to read more.
onlinelibrary.wiley.com
September 30, 2025 at 3:53 PM
Reposted by Matthew Farber
docfarber.bsky.social
My latest for Edutopia: edut.to/4fqC7gf
August 12, 2025 at 2:06 PM
docfarber.bsky.social
Just over one week left to submit an abstract for this special issue of the Well Played Journal based on the ideas from our new book, The Well-Read Game: On Playing Thoughtfully!! More info here on the call for abstracts and submission process: playstorypress.org/2025/06/16/w...
Well Played Journal CfP: Well Read Games – Play Story Press
playstorypress.org
August 23, 2025 at 8:04 PM
Reposted by Matthew Farber
czamboni.bsky.social
I will be speaking on August 21, 10-11:15 am in Beefeater about building playful communities of research and practice through the example of the recent playable volume "Roll for Learning" that I co-edited with @docfarber.bsky.social and Will Merchant.
August 19, 2025 at 8:08 PM
Reposted by Matthew Farber
edutopia.org
Want to foster the mindset students need to appreciate great literature? Try approaching video games as texts! 🎮 📖 Here’s how.

#EduSky #literacy
Video Games Are a Playful Way to Guide Students to Unlock Meaning in Literature
By approaching games as texts, teachers can foster the mindset students need to appreciate great literature.
edut.to
August 14, 2025 at 1:25 AM
docfarber.bsky.social
My latest for Edutopia: edut.to/4fqC7gf
August 12, 2025 at 2:06 PM
docfarber.bsky.social
By approaching games as texts, teachers can foster the mindset students need to appreciate great literature. My latest for @edutopia.org: www.edutopia.org/article/inte...
Video Games Are a Playful Way to Guide Students to Unlock Meaning in Literature
By approaching games as texts, teachers can foster the mindset students need to appreciate great literature.
www.edutopia.org
August 6, 2025 at 6:19 PM
Reposted by Matthew Farber
nishadevasia.bsky.social
In current work, we're building tools for helping kids reflect more deeply on their gaming to hopefully spur some of the processing required for those experiences to become personally meaningful. Fullerton & Farber's theory of player response is a huge inspo here. (see bsky.app/profile/docf...)
August 5, 2025 at 12:45 AM
Reposted by Matthew Farber
septimusbrown.com
Decisions, decisions...
difficult decision meme button one: get some writing done button two: post memes about writing
July 30, 2025 at 3:40 PM
Reposted by Matthew Farber
docfarber.bsky.social
🚨 New blog alert! "A New Theory of Player Response," about Tracy Fullerton @kinojabber.bsky.social and my new book! clalliance.org/blog/a-new-t...
A New Theory of Player Response - Connected Learning Alliance
In Tracy Fullerton’s and my new book, The Well-Read Game: On Playing Thoughtfully, part of The MIT Press’ Playful Thinking series, we propose a new framework of interpretive play. This framework is a ...
clalliance.org
May 20, 2025 at 7:56 PM
Reposted by Matthew Farber
docfarber.bsky.social
🙌
thecllab.bsky.social The Connected Learning Lab @thecllab.bsky.social · May 26
Video games, like novels, can give meaning through its playable narratives and provide a mirror to its players, or a sliding “glass door” into other cultures.

⭐CLA Blog - A New Theory of Player Response: connectedlearning.news/cla052025

@docfarber.bsky.social

#LearningThroughPlay
May 26, 2025 at 4:52 PM
Reposted by Matthew Farber
docfarber.bsky.social
Tracy Fullerton's (@kinojabber.bsky.social)j blog post for Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop, in which she shares key ideas from our new book! Check it out!
cooneycenter.bsky.social Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop @cooneycenter.bsky.social · Jun 6
🎮 We're delighted to share Tracy Fullerton's latest blog post, about her new book with ‪@docfarber.bsky.social‬ exploring how co-playing video games can foster empathy, cooperation, and meaningful connection among players of all ages. Read here: joanganzcooneycenter.org/2025/05/29/p...
Playing Well Together: The Possibilities of Co-Play in Well-Read Games
Back in 2008, when my niece was a pre-teen, I spent a lot of time thinking about how to nurture our relationship as she moved beyond childhood into those precarious years when children and their…
bit.ly
June 6, 2025 at 2:45 PM
Reposted by Matthew Farber
docfarber.bsky.social
📣 Play Story Press is accepting submissions for a special Well Played journal issue based on the theories and techniques proposed in Tracy Fullerton @kinojabber.bsky.social and my book, The Well-Read Game (The MIT Press). playstorypress.org/2025/06/16/w...
Well Played Journal CfP: Well Read Games – Play Story Press
playstorypress.org
June 16, 2025 at 9:10 PM