Jenkins GLLS 2007, final reflections II

Due to the length of my final reflections, I've split them into 4 sections

At Games, Learning, and Libraries Symposium last week, Dr. Henry Jenkins identified four sets of skills that students today need. Jenkins stated that, we as librarians and educators, can address these literacy skills. We can help supply these needs and deal with these problems through the following 11 skills:

• Distributed Cognition: Videogames are tools that we, as players, interact with to expand our mental capacities. Granted players may not sit down to play with that goal, but the result of playing and learning still nets that result. Now how do we translate that to our classrooms? William Shaffer's epistemic games seek to teach some of this meaning. Our educational institutions are intended and hopefully designed to create this meaning and expand students’ mental capacities. But because of the lack of some of these former skills (play, performance) our students are not invested or engaged enough to reach this outcome.
• Collective Intelligence: Knowledge and learning is not (and should not be) an isolated process. The ability for our students to pool their knowledge and compare notes with each other to reach a common goal should not be discouraged. Players working cooperatively either in person or online pool their resources and knowledge to succeed. Students working together can do the same, whether in class or online through social software. Educators promoted and advocated this group learning atmosphere for years, but as I mentioned before this meaning should be positioned beyond the students’ assignments. Connecting students to a larger world and showing their worth in that world is important in cultivating that strength of collective intelligence.
• Judgment = ACRL definition of Information Literacy (find, evaluate, & use)