Additional thoughts from Aaron’s presentation
Aaron’s presentation was really good, and I just thought of something I forgot in the last post. He referenced the recent articles on churches who are using Halo to draw in young men who would otherwise have no excuse to attend. And then he noted – surely SCHOOLS and PUB LIBS can use Halo and other “violent” games if churches are using them in this way. I think he has a point there… the number ONE game guys always ask me about is if we’re doing Halo tournaments. And then they get pretty much disinterested when I have to say “no, no Halo” and “no, you can’t bring your own controllers and games in..”
Get Your Game On
presented by Aaron Schmidt — librarian@gmail.com – XxagentcooperXX
Line Rider – YouTube video of INCREDIBLE set up
Eleven BILLION dollars – gaming industry is bigger than books, movies, music – everything.
Games as content and as service – games and learning. Presentation on walking paper after the fact.
Strengths of libraries are to create community. But what about kids electing to be in the library voluntarily? Wii for retirement homes – fun for many generations. 18-35 is core gamer age group. Average gamers – but trending older too.
MMORPGs
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Like Runescape and WoW
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They are navigating HUGE amounts of info at once – reading, constantly changing landscape.
Participatory Culture: Media Education in the 21st Century
Play: the capacity to interact with one’s surrounds to do problem solving?
Research Quest: ACRL studying gaming and matching mapping standards for Halo and Fantasy Football?
Wired article about Yahoo exec who used his WoW accomplishments as his resume.
Questions – asking about violence-free games and games with no competition – one person claims that band concerts are an example of non-competitive collaboration (but nobody speaks up to note that you compete fiercely beforehand to get a better chair!!!!) How much technical expertise does it take to do a LAN party? We want to know what ratings the games are BUT of course no internet so we can’t find out in real time. This is SOOOOOO frustrating!!!!!
(**this is my epiphany that NOBODY has wifi** We are all typing on wordpad or similar programs. I don’t think anybody is online!!!)
Nintendo DS games – Cooking, Trauma Center under the knife, Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney, Hotel Dusk acts like interactive e-book to read and move around to solve mystery.
AZ state game called Quarantined! Started off as a paper board game where you are a student using information resources to save the campus from a virus.
Talks about hosting a gaming event. People have really basic questions about the games themselves, gaming platforms, logistics like how many boxes to have, etc. Public libraries should be collaborating with school libraries to share gaming equipment if they need it.
Conference Notes So Far
Well, the keynote was pretty great. We immediately ran into snags accessing wifi and THEN, to my horror, I discovered that the room for Internet@Schools West has NO internet access. As Carolyn says in her blog, I felt like I was missing a limb. So far, I was glad to hear that schools have bought into Helene Blowers‘ Learning 2.0 program as I was planning to reference that in my Cyber 6 Pack presentations anyway. Excellent reinforcement – I feel as though I have been told “you are headed in the right direction here.”
Practical Mashups
Robert Lackie and Robert Terrio presenting :University folks: Presentation online at http://tinyurl.com/2w2j2g
robertlackie.pbwiki.com; infomaniac
Article in last Internet at Schools mag, references and other stuff full text via database
About 30 people in room, no wifi, squeaky mikes
Useful collab tools used by new folks being mashers
Tumblr examples: musiclibrarian.tumblr.com
Non-editorial style, more faceted. What do you want to share?
Looks like just another style/strategy for blogging? How is this better than embedding a UT video in your existing blog? Must investigate. He references the Gray Album – Danger Mouse– being the epitome of mashup.
Shares with his wife: Looks like a myspace style sort of approach on his template. Has a painting demo mashed with a song by the artist being depicted. Learn to photoshop while listening: Foxytunes. Yackpack for your PBWiki. Like meebo but with VOIP. Would this be allowed in school districts rather than text chat?!?!?!?! Our embedded Meebo modules are blocked. I ask this question: allowing certain things through, like specific video clips and stuff. Yackpack walkie-talkie widget not blocked at any of his schools yet. Video has been blocked widely. Yackpack on a wiki worked and with high quality. Would we have to train reference staff?
Google docs API scripting – lit-trips and stuff
World Geography quiz like the ones we put on Facebook
The Route 66 google maps mashup – YES but NOW I want to know strategies in how to teach kids to code this themselves. They can CONSUME this stuff but ultimately with the new AASL standards they are going to have to learn how to DO it themselves – with the mandate to CREATE information products.. “create new knowledge.” Standard 3.1.4: “Use technology and other information tools to organize and display knowledge and understanding in ways that others can view, use, and assess.”
The EPA report on the Superfund sites – incorporating a Google map onto the page identifying the locations of superfund sites. Yay toxic waste!
AFTER THE SESSION: We realize that a woman with an iPhone has internet access and has been creating a Tumblr about the session! I ask her to email me the link, so I will post it when I get it.
IL2007 picks
I’m finishing up my preliminary schedule for IL. There are too many good sessions I want in on!!!
Monday:
- AM: Keynote: 2.0 and the Internet World. Will outline typologies of internet users, future forecasting, and user types in the library environment. Then, Practical Mashups. Practical mashups for educational environments. Now I need to pick from several academic studies on student users. Yargh!
- lunch!
- PM: Successful Web 2.0 initiatives with Students and Teachers. Duck into Erica’s session quickly, then run back to 21C Libraries – Getting your Administrator on Board. If it’s not useful, then I will hit MySpace and Facebook Pros/Cons. Following that, School Library Learning 2.0 from the CLA and The Future of Blogs OR Multimedia Search OR User-Generated Content. I think I need a clone.
- Hopefully dinner. And editing all the notes I will have taken during the day!
Tuesday:
- AM: Learning and Literacy in a Digital World I@S Keynote. I can’t wait to hear Pam Berger talk. She will be fresh from Reno and can hopefully illuminate some of the new AASL standards. (Which I am already impressed with!) Then we have scheduled exhibit time, and Educational Gaming in Libraries. KidsClick Redesign project, aaaaaaand lunch.
- PM: Exploratorium OR Getting Their Attention: Training and SN Tools. Stroll by the Creative Commons Cybertour… RSS@Schools next, then “Gary’s Latest Web Research Update.” Duck into Kelly C’s session on 2nd Life for Teens to say hello.
- 6 pm – Learning 2.0 dine around
- 7:30 – Session with Delft librarians and Aaron Schmidt. Special documentary screening!
Wednesday:
- AM: Keynote on Future of Search. Search Engine and Handheld sessions all AM, but also cybertours on eBooks and eInk, RSS, and Citation Managers.
- lunch.
- PM: User-based tagging, then Tech Tools for Outreach, and Visual Information Retrieval.
- Exhaustion 😀
Killing Creativity?
(link courtesy of Albert Ip from Random Walk in Learning)
(want more inspiration? Try the TED website.)
Pay particular attention to the spot about 3/4 of the way through where Sir Ken starts talking about epiphany. This is what I obsess about every day at work (and in the shower, on my drive in, etc). I want our library to be a powerful and invisible conduit for young people so they can reach their epiphany. Every time we extend our services to a different demographic, simplify a process, or try to identify easier ways to connect PATRONS with IDEAS, we are speeding their interaction with their true and ultimate destiny. We’re all here to find what it is we are MEANT to do, meant to share with others. The library is either going to be a part of that process in the 21st century or it will very well go extinct.
In the 19th century, we were a civilizing force. A method of sharing the proscribed, acceptable, and palatable mores of society (as it were). But libraries gradually changed over time from the exclusive club for scholars and those striving to attain middle class “values” into something radically different. The moment we unlocked the books and let patrons have open stacks, we were admitting something: you know what you want and need better than we do. And instead of gatekeepers we became lamplighters; fellow travelers who’d been down the road once or twice with friends and who would gladly walk along with you as well.
And in the self-service life of the 21st century, we’re the ones handing you maps to adjacent lands and interesting detours… librarians are the people who want you to consume with abandon– glut yourself in our stacks!– and then we’ll be there when you’re ready to make sense of everything you’ve found. If you need us, we’ll be your Motel 6 and leave a virtual light on for you.
Nowhere is this concept more important than in education. We must prepare for an imminent seismic shift in our educational system that empowers the individual learner to pursue passions and to take intellectual side-trips wherever they may lead… and an entire community must be ready for that. We’ll need both for and non-profit businesses, we’ll need mentors both artisanal and scientific, and most of all we’ll need libraries. We will need massive collections of ideas that people can spark against one another like stone and flint. Libraries will serve as the agora for citizen-learners, throwing off isolation and embracing community in ways that haven’t even yet been invented.
The Five Laws of Digital Education
I’m working on an article and a presentation based around web tools for classrooms… (Adapted from Ranganathan‘s 5 Laws of Library Science)
- The web is for use. Let your students make use of the incredible educational world that is out there! Don’t allow fear to eliminate the possibilities for digital learning.
- Every learner deserves access. And I’m not talking about the very limited surfing that you can do in a typical school… there is a fluency that must be gained for efficient and intelligent use of the internet, and students who have no or limited access at home are not gaining the skills they need to be successful as adults in a digital world. They are not “learning the language” of the web.
- Access benefits learners. Students who are exposed to a variety of sites will begin to develop a more sophisticated visual literacy than those of their peers who are left to surf alone. Educational guidance is needed to create responsible and empowered digital citizens of tomorrow. And when you give your students your trust to begin blogging and researching responsibly, you will help them to develop netiquette that can extend into their off-line lives, too.
- Expand the world of the learner. Why can’t your students correspond with their counterparts in the next town over? Or even a world away? Why on earth would you simply study China in a book when you could swap pictures of your hometowns with other kids your age in Bejing? Imagine students being able to contribute to a class project while at home, or on vacation. Imagine your students’ parents being able to contribute to a dialogue about their learning. Imagine fewer boundaries and more possibilities.
- The web is a growing organism (with our help). Don’t let the web grow without your students. Conversely, your students have a great chance to grow alongside it. Imagine replacing the mute and dusty pictures of students long graduated in your school’s gymnasium with living, breathing digital projects that expand year upon year. Or being able to log on ten or more years in the future to hear the voices of kids long past, to absorb their projects and passions, and to build on the ideas and exploration that they started. The future of digitally-based education depends on educators and students of today– so let’s get started!
Why a new blog?
I’ve been blogging about education sporadically on my personal blog – one I share with friends, where I post randomly about my life and funny stuff and most often of all, LOLcats. This blog is an attempt to separate thoughts and notes about learning from all the rest of that.
Since I’m headed off to Internet Librarian (specifically Internet@Schools West), I figure this is the perfect place to try a little liveblogging and thought-collecting re: education. It’s an experiment.
Erin Downey Howerton 