The following is a summary of Marc Prensky's keynote speech at GLLS 2008:

Prensky started off who librarians are, stereotypes: past, present, future. He showed clips of what could happen to librarians as they meet gamers. It is a quick and light introduction for libraries.

He challenged us (tongue-in-check) to rename the library "the future."

He talked about his book, "Don't Bother Me Mom, I'm Learning." He faced publisher challenges in getting the book published. Stories as more than traditional books. Stories are spoken, played, acted out. Games are more than just a passive narrative.

 Prensky made the distinction between simple games and "complex games." "Complex games" are not mini or casual games that take anywhere from 8 to 100+ hours to complete. These are multiple leveled games that produce learning through engagement. Games work because of generation of 20 year olds are successful in the workforce. Guild management results in business management. Butch Rosser at Beth Israel Hospital in NYC studied gamers as surgeons. Lawyers as gamers, "Objection" game helps train the twitch speed of recognition of procedure. Gamers managing and running teams in sport games creates a deeper level of understanding.

Players are "role playing experts." Moral questions in games… "Just because you can do something – should you?" Parents engage with the experience of books and movies and can engage their children in a conversation. Parents can play and talk to their children about the games. Start asking questions, "Why do you like them?" "Tell me what you think?" We can engage with the players. We need to ask the "Why, but questions?"

 Prensky was asked, "If kids play, because adults can't?" He responded by saying that they enjoy their level of expertise, but it is more. The experience is more than a have / have not.

 

Simulation is a big part of games, but not all simulations have gaming elements. Prensky does make a distinction between the two. Sims have specific content, games are about an experience. Game are the "most engaging intellectual thing we have." Will Wright's quote of games are the manifestation of a problem and finding the solutions. Gamers enjoy the problem solving and learning experience. "Learning is the real reason we play games."

 

Prensky moved through a number of games and what they learn:

• Collaboration
  
• Effective Decisions
  
• Prudent risks
  
• Ethical decisions
  
• Scientific deduction
  
• Think laterally
  
• System thinking
  

 

Support systems for games, reviews, official sites, mags, blogs, fan sites, and other support structures for learning and gaining information. Prensky talked about a number of strictly educational games as a place to start. But beyond that he mentioned a number of COTS games that have educational content (Civilization, RTS games, Typing of the Dead). He walked through a number of existing serious games "Immune Attack" by the Federation of American Scientists.

 

Prensky provided a large number of examples of serious and educational games for people to latch onto and get interested in. Those listening could walk away with potential games to play and experiment with.

 

"The kids want more games." Project Tomorrow report that games make it easier to learn and understand. Games can be a "bridge" to use as a transfer of skills. [This is a point that I've made and we all should be making - Games are a bridge and it is our responsibility to help make that transfer.]

 

Games empower students. Players are "creating their own mark" and it lets them learn programming tools. He talked about game designers using good pedagogy. Focus on engagement. Don't Suck the fun out. "Kids play because they are the most engaging thing they have."

 

Prensky said "connection to curriculum" is a barrier, but that we are "busters" of those barriers. He talked about challenges schools face in using and applying games. Fun and learning do not have to be separate.

 

The case to make: It's not about games and simulations. It's about ENGAGEMENT. 21^st century learning. Engagement is not about what we do "to" the people, but what we do "with" the people.

He then made the futurist case for "Homo sapien digital" and rapid technology changes within the next century. Changing tools through "21^st century tools." Librarians, teachers, parents need to engage with the digital natives. Digital tech is "their birthright." It is more than just saying "they don't need them." Talked about being locked into the "artifact" versus the "content" within them. 

 www.marcprensky.com and www.games2train.com for the slides of his presentation and additional resources.

Chris Harris asked about "digital natives" vs. "digital immigrants." Prensky stated that he never meant to set up the divide. He responded that he has moved away from that terminology to shift it to "Homo sapien digital." It is bigger than one generation. We can all be digital, it is just a matter of time on when people can get there. And importantly for librarians and educators how we can help everyone get there sooner.

Last week the fourth Games+Learning+Society conference happened in Madison, WI. Each year the conference has provided a wealth of information, research, and application on gaming in education. GLS services the research community well by recording their sessions and making them available via Mediasite. Some of this years presentations are already up and online... here.

In addition to the video content, there are a wealth of good blog posts about individual sessions. Serious Game Source had a news story about the start of the conference and James Paul Gee opening statements. The Brainy Gamer has a great write up on Gee's speech and John Rice over at Educational Games Research links to Gamasutra's write up of Gee speech as well.

Mark Chen, who's presented at GLS the last two years, has some nice overviews and commentaries of the day by day sessions: Session 1, Session 2, Session 3 , the second day's Session 3 covering virtual worlds, and Session 4. Mark also provided a list of other blogs covering GLS which is a great resource for more analysis on the sessions.

There were a number of sessions that seem relevant to libraries looking at gaming and I'll post some reflections once I view the session. But one session by Erica and Rick Halverson covered fantasy baseball and the learning that goes on within fantasy baseball games. The Brainy Gamer posted his thoughts on the session and GameSetWatch picked up the session and posted about it as well.

With the wealth of scholarship at GLS and elsewhere, libraries looking at gaming and education should take some time to read through these sessions, view a few presentations, and begin the discussion about what this research means for us in libraries.

I want to post an ACRL workshop proposal that I submitted along with Chad Boeninger, from Ohio University & Library Voice, and Jon Helmke from the University of Dubuque. I'm posting in part to seek feedback on comments on our workshop idea. I am eager to keep librarians moving forward beyond just simply talking about "why" libraries should consider, engage, and apply video games and gaming strategies. While I'm happy to talk about the "why" it is the "how" that is really important. How librarians can actively apply gaming strategies into our programs, services, and classrooms. This workshop is a step in that direction.

Leveling Up Your Librarians: Using Videogame Strategies to Increasing Student Engagement & Motivation

Short Description:

As libraries are talking about the value of videogames, the relevance of gaming in libraries cannot be ignored. The challenge is not in seeing the value, but in finding effective and efficient ways to apply gaming into services and instruction. The workshop will help the participants identify and employ gaming strategies into existing programs. This workshop inspires librarians to start small and introduce gaming strategies with traditional outcomes to immediately enhance student learning.

Long Description:

As more libraries are talking about the value of video games in our communities, collections, and classrooms, the relevance of gaming in libraries cannot be ignored. The challenge is not in seeing the value of video games, the challenge is in finding effective and efficient ways to apply gaming into our classrooms and at reference. Rather than investing thousands into longterm game development, librarians can start applying gaming strategies in their instruction and services to improve student engagement and learning today.

The workshop will provide a framework of gaming strategies based upon the work of James Paul Gee, Marc Prensky, the Federation of American Scientists and others to show that the value in gaming is not in the electronic format, but in how students and players interact with the experiences. This framework parallels much in traditional educational theory and provides librarians an existing base of knowledge to build upon. The participants may already be applying some of these strategies within their libraries. The leaders will help the participants identify and apply these strategies jointly in targeted services or classes to create game-based learning experiences. Using video game footage, the leaders will demonstrate how games apply these strategies to teach players and motivate them forward. During the workshop, participants will bring a example of a information literacy lesson or service that they are currently using at their institution and work with the workshop leaders and other participants to identify and integrate gaming strategies into it to improve their teaching and service. This focused and practical application of gaming into our libraries creates opportunities for librarians regardless of gaming experience to obtain the engaging and educational value of video games.

The leaders will demonstrate gaming strategies by actively using them during the workshop. Time is scheduled for leaders and participants to debrief on the process, identify existing hurdles, and brainstorm solutions. Also the presenters are creating an online toolkit to provide continued support to participants after the workshop. This online toolkit will provide examples of lesson plans that integrate gaming strategies and other information sources.

Students playing video games of all kinds and in all places are actually developing their academic skills by exercising critical thinking and information literacy. Librarians are uniquely placed to build on students’ gameplay experiences to create that vital link between game and academic success. This link is created in classroom instruction by using the very same strategies designed into games to engage and motivate players. Librarians can incorporate video game strategies in reference and instruction to create a relevant and meaningful experience for students. This workshop will allow librarians to start small and targeted gaming strategies, while including traditional outcomes to enhance the learning experiences of students across our campuses.

Learning Outcomes

Participants will:

• Define gaming strategies in the context of educational pedagogy and student learning.
  
• Identify examples of gaming strategies to enhance student learning.
• Create classroom applications of various gaming strategies to increase student engagement and motivation.
• Construct reference service applications with gaming strategies for the enhancement of student access and value.
  
• Develop a lesson plan that integrates gaming strategies for use in an existing information literacy session.

If you have any suggestions for content for the workshop, questions about the format, or any other comments please let me know. The more input on this - the better.

I believe that it is possible to move beyond asking the "why" questions about video games and libraries. Our content does not necessarily need to change to use gaming applications effectively. It is not the "what" that we need to adapt to make gaming work - it is the "how."

After getting back yesterday from LOEX in Chicago, my attention is now turned to LOEX of West. The conference theme is: Successful Experimentation and Innovation in Instruction. I am excited about this conference because gaming was one of the focuses within the theme. Sara and I are presented an updated version of our LOEX presentation. There are a number exciting presentations focusing on gaming, but my concern is that they are all focused on one of the two days.

Friday, June 6th
Chris Thomas and Jerremie Clyde from the University of Calgary are talking about their Half-Life 2 mod for information literacy. More info on their project can be found on their site, Hardplay.

Bee Gallegos from Arizona State University is presenting during the second session of the day on their information literacy game project Quarantined.

This is great and exciting news for information literacy and video games in academic libraries. The problem comes during the final session where 3 of the 5 total video game presentations occur. I'm disappointed that even though gaming was a focus of the theme, the sessions are all grouped together at the end of the second day. This scheduling unfortunately reducing the audience for all three of these sessions. Rather than allowing librarians interested in games for instruction to find out as much as possible, they are limited by scheduling.

The final presentations during the cramped 3rd and final session include:

A Portal to Student Learning: What instruction librarians can learn from video game design

Nicholas Schiller - Library Instruction Coordinator, Washington State University Vancouver

Our students are coming to the university having spent thousands of hours playing games. This presentation will analyze the learning techniques designed into the game Portal and provide practical instruction techniques that are familiar to a generation of games and also appropriate for the rigors of academic research.

Head Hunt: An Online Library Orientation Game

Fred Roecker - Library Instruction, The Ohio State University Libraries

Can 6,000 new students become familiar with a major library before they set foot on campus? They can if they play "Head Hunt," the new online library orientation game from The Ohio State University Libraries. Learn about development, software, testing, and more to create a similar game for your libraries.

The Library Arcade

Dan Hood - Information Literacy Fellow, Carnegie Mellon University

Discover Carnegie Mellon University Libraries' Library Arcade , starting with a brief discussion of educational gaming and ending with the marketing of their final product. Hear how the project addressed learning outcomes, assessment, information literacy, visual literacy, libraries and the "lame factor", gaming culture/millennials, working with outsourced game designers, user testing, and everything else involved in creating these information literacy computer games.

Now for full disclosure, Sara and I are presenting during this time as well, which limits my access. But my disappointment is not personal. I've been lucky enough to talk to both Fred about the "Head Hunt" game and Dan Hood about the creation and gameplay of Library Arcade. And I've emailed Nicholas about his application of Portal.

My disappointed in the scheduling is not for me but for those presenting and every librarian interested in applying video games and game strategies into information literacy. The increased exposure of gaming at LOEX of the West is great, but scheduling problems limit the education and advocacy of video games in library instruction.

Help me LOEX of the West? Or is it too late?

Welcome to those of you attending LOEX. Below you will find a variety of links and documents that were available as handouts. Sara Holladay, the Fantasy Football Librarian, and I thank you for your interest in fantasy sports and information literacy.

We can reach our students where they are at and make their previous experiences and interests valuable and useful in their academic success.

Fantasy Football Mapped to ACRL Standards
Fantasy Football Librarian
Fantasy Sports and Information Literacy on Research Quest

Thank you and we look forward to helping you find new ways to connect with your students.

As I am preparing to present, I want to make my slides available. I will include a link later to download the full slides, since these are trimmed from the conference presentation for size. Later this weekend, the rest of the supporting resources and analysis will be posted.

Thank you for your interest and please check back on Sunday evening for more resources.

My final wrap-up post from the Iowa ACRL Spring Conference is to take issue with one presentation claiming the death of reading. While the content of the presentation was fine, the speakers made the claim that reading is dying and because of the loss of reading many other societal benefits are dying as well.

Is reading really dying?

Or is it just changing?

The statistics given in the session focused on pleasure reading and fiction reading. 21% of high school students in 2004 read little or nothing for pleasure. 39% of 1st year college students in 2005 read little or nothing for pleasure.

Now, I remember my reading habits taking a dive in college because there was so much reading to do for school that I was soured to reading more. But my issue with their claim isn't with some personal experience, it is with the larger definition. Reading for pleasure happens well beyond just novels. How many lines of text do students read on a daily basis? How much of that is online or game based?

I would argue that high school and college students are reading. And they are reading a lot. The text in video games, the online guides, walkthroughs, and FAQs, the discussion boards, and game review sites. Video game players are reading and connecting all these various forms into one common experience. I'm reminded of a post from theshiftedlibrarian from way back in 2003. Video game players read - they are just not reading traditional texts.

Steven Johnson in his book "Everything Bad is Good For You" talks about this as well. Reading is judged on books because books came first. If video games or some other medium came first, it would be our benchmark. Johnson argues that it is unfair do judge reading against different mediums. Each brings unique and valuable assets.

Reading is changing. What our students are reading is changing. How we advocate reading can change a little as well.



Steven Johnson's "Everything Bad is Good For You" image via WorldCat

Earlier this week at the Iowa ACRL Spring Conference, Dr. Roberto Ibarra presented an update from his ACRL National Conference paper. His presentation, "Context Diversity and the Role of Academic Libraries," applied much of the initial findings from his "A Place to Belong: The Library as Prototype for Context Diversity." While his speech had a number of messages for libraries as a whole, I found his "high context" and "low context" discussion important to the appeal and success of video games.

Ibarra described "high context" as a need to have more social and cultural context to communicate and interact with the world. Knowledge and learning in "low context" is isolated and divorced from real world application, it is simply words and tasks. "Low context" learners do not need additional information to make the content meaningful. "High context" learners do. "High context" includes gestures, social setting, history, posture, tone, and status in addition to words and tasks. These learners see the full picture and each part as equally important.

Video games allow a player to be either high context or low context.

Players with a "low context" model can be successful in a game based on the straightforward information a game offers. They can understand the words and text in a game and give it meaning. The task are straightforward tasks the allow the player the ability to keep moving forward in the game. "Low context" players can enjoy the game and be successful with this learning diversity model.

Video games are also "high concept." Players with a "high context" learning style can understand a video game through much more than the information presented in the gameplay. Video games players gain a deeper understanding and meaning of a game with the "high context" elements are applied. Players gain the history of the character, the social tone, and the interactions with non-playable characters (NPCs), in addition to the gameplay and tasks involved in a game.

"High context" diversity, according to Ibarra, includes a personal commitment, is a nonlinear process, and applies comprehensive thinking. Many researchers have said similar things about why video games are engaging and attractive to players. The player has the choice to engage in these aspects of a game and add meaning their.

This is one reason why video games are engaging across cultures and ages. If a player is from a "low context" understanding of the world and knowledge - video games work. They appeal to the factual and direct tasks of learners. But they also work if players live in a "high context" understanding of knowledge based on the comprehensive experience that video games can offer.

Now, I'm not arguing that video games create diversity. Video games do allow all contextual diverse players to be successful. Video games can connect with players regardless of their cultural background. And this is why understanding video games' application of contextual diversity is important. Video games provide a valuable common cultural experience.

Ibarra's keynote was insightful and he pushed that we as libraries can create spaces of both "low" and "high" contextual meaning. Video games are creating diverse learning experiences and our classrooms and libraries can too.

Yesterday I wrote about the questions from the audience. There were a number of good questions that both clarified some points from my presentation and expanded the scope of applying fantasy sports to information literacy. Below are two of the questions asked and the my comments and reflections on them.

Challenges & Roadblocks
1. "What about women?" Yes, fantasy sports are dominated by males, but the gender gap is shrinking. Granted, it's a huge (95% male) gap. The truth is that female interest in football or in other sports should not be discounted and assumed to be nonexistent. While fantasy sports outreach should be targeted across genders, there are other ways to apply bridging real life experiences to information literacy.

Last fall, The University of Dubuque applied a similar lesson as the fantasy football one to movie reviews. Students were asked to choose which movie they thought scored the highest and then had a little time to dig and report the results. The same evaluation criteria that were discussed in the fantasy football lesson applied to this lesson as well. Any way that we can connect students' existing experiences to information literacy we can help them not only understand the concepts but the applications as well.

2. Doesn't this promote gambling?
I told the person in the audience the truth - "It doesn't matter if it does or doesn't, what we do will not stop students."

Now while this is easy and rather glib to say, it doesn’t answer the question. I did go on to truly answer the question, and it really depends on what the attitude and concerns are of your campus and community. If this question is being raised, gambling is a concern. And in places like this, talk about fantasy football as an example and application of the information tools students and patrons need to be successful.

The University of Dubuque framed this as a way to help students understand information literacy skills and gain confidence in their ability to apply them.

Now if you are at campus or in a community that isn’t raising the gambling question – then run with it. Promote your library’s involvement to students and patrons in terms of “build a better fantasy football team” or “how to succeed in the draft.” Talk about it in terms that is meaningful for the audience. But keep the information literacy talking points handy for faculty and administrators wanting more information.

Thank you again to everyone that's written and expressed comments. The more that we can make information literacy relevant and real in our students' lives through fantasy sports, video games, and others - the more meaningful it can be in their academic life.

Thank you. Thank you for everyone that came to my presentation this morning at the Iowa ACRL conference. I was incredibly pleased with the turnout and the questions from the audience. The energy that the audience had was wonderful and it really seemed that people left with some new ideas about connecting information literacy to students.

The bridge metaphor isn't new. And I have to thank David Warlick for introducing me to the bridge metaphor. Fantasy football, video games, and many other cultural experiences contain useful information literacy skills that we can help our students recognize and build on.

For those asking and for everyone interested, here is the link to the powerpoint slides I used. Granted they were in widescreen format, so a few images might be off if you are not using 2007.

As always, any feedback, questions, or comments on the slides is welcomed.

Note: I started this post on Monday, but for a number of reasons it is going up late.

This past week, I've been scrambling getting two presentations ready for an Iowa ACRL conference. One presentation follows up the C&RL News article on Information Literacy and Fantasy Football.

The opening of my presentation is below. Because the audience has various experience with fantasy sports, I am connecting it to Carol Kuhlthau's library research process. Fantasy football is a research process and putting it in the Kuhlthau model makes that connection even more clearly.

After a busy week of teaching and shoveling out of more Midwest ice & snow, I'm finally catching up on my RSS feeds covering the GDC conference. I wrote earlier in the week on a couple educational focused sessions and some coverage on Nora Paul's mod of NeverWinter Nights. Some of the mainstream video game press covered the session about the University of Minnesota's journalism game.

Kotaku's Brain Crecente (who the game is named after) had a detailed write-up of the session and some more background of the game's history:

"The idea was to develop a game that would reinforce good reporting practices."

In the game, the players take on the role of a reporter (no, not me) who is covering an accident in which a train carrying anhydrous ammonia hits a truck and derails, forcing the evacuation of the surrounding neighborhood.

"We had to create the city...22 different characters," she said.

Students had to figure out what story angle they wanted to take, covering the health, public safety, transportation safety or environmental issues, before getting started. Once they figured that out that have to identify the important questions, collect the necessary background information, find the right sources and interview them, keep notes, and eventually return to the newsroom to write and file a story to the paper's website.

Christ Baker over at WIRED's Game|Life had another write-up, including some personal observations:

Paul says that they were pleased with the result, though there were some bugs and bad design choices. Students didn't like that their avatar didn't have a cell phone, and needed to go back to the office every time they wanted to call a source and set up an interview. The sword and sorcery trappings of NWN were minimized, but still present. For instance, the editor character is built off an ogre-like NWN character type. (Some reporters who consulted on the game said that seemed entirely appropriate to them.)

Due to a programming bug, the ogre/editor will block the virtual Crecente's exit from the newspaper office, and the only way to leave is to do battle hand let him kill you.

It looks kludgey and low tech, which Paul freely cops to. The team at the University of Minnesota are reworking the game on a newer engine. Still, the game seems like it has the potential to be a useful teaching tool.

I look forward to reading more about the experience of creating the game and how the application works out. Last year, presentation slides and other materials were posted about a few weeks after the conference. So I'm hopeful that the session's slides will appear sometime in March.


Photo by Kotaku

This story comes from Serious Games Source and provides a lot more detail on the University of Minnesota program that's using a mod of NeverWinter Nights to teach journalism skills. You can find the full story here.

The principle behind the game is to teach the method and reasoning of information-gathering and synthesis, and communication-related analysis skills. As video games are, as a medium, essentially a simulation of the decision-making process, they provide a powerful tool for exploring the hypothetical implications of the player's choices. In contrast to the typical academic model of learning, where success is measured in terms of making the correct choices, video games follow a more naturalistic method, where every mistake adds to the player's overall sense of understanding, leading to a more nuanced grasp of the problem at hand.

Paul's game involves a crashed tanker truck, leaking a poisonous gas that has forced an evacuation of a downtown area. The player has to interview subjects, cross-reference accounts, and generally figure out how to interpret a broad and conflicting pool of information, much of which takes specific skill and nuance to wheedle out of subjects.

Today starts the Game Developers Conference and part of the conference is the Serious Game Summit. Last year there were quite a few sessions with educational applications. Matthew Weise, one of the designers of Revolution spoke last year. I'm looking forward to a couple of sessions at the Serious Games Summit and the conference overall. GDC usually posts conference materials and even video from the conference on their site (here are the proceedings from previous years).

Here are 3 sessions from the Serious Games Summit that I'm looking forward to reading more about:

Greg Trefry spoke at last summer's GLLS about big games and libraries. GAMESTAR and looking at teaching students to how to design games could have applications in helping students create games around content from the curriculum. Any game that helps teach game design could also be useful for librarians interested in designing their own games and learning the basics of design.

GAMESTAR MECHANIC: Learning through Game Design
Speaker(s): Katie Salen (Parsons School of Design), Greg Trefry (Gamelab)
Time: 10-10:30am
This session takes on serious games from the perspective of thinking, creating, and learning through making games. GAMESTAR MECHANIC, a commercial online game produced in a unique collaboration between Gamelab and the GAPPs group at University of Wisconsin at Madison, is designed to teach players the fundamentals of game design. Designed to teach young people how to design games by giving them the tools and learning space in which to do it quickly, collaboratively, and easily, GAMESTAR proposes a model for learning that extends traditional notions around game-based learning.

In GAMESTAR players are invited into a narrative world situated within a social network to design, trade, and modify their own small, web-based games. In building games in this environment it is hoped that students not only learn about game design but about how to essentially build literacy about the systems and/or content that their games are based upon.

This session will demo the game and discuss strategies for assessment of the design-based skills that emerge from game-play, offering models for understanding what and how players are learning.

I've talked about The Redistricting Game and how well it hits the actual practice of redistricting right on the head. The creators are talking about their experiences in two different parts and will be adapting the game based on feedback from the audience. It should be interesting.

Make this Game Better: THE REDISTRICTING GAME (Part I)
Speaker(s): Chris Swain (University of Southern California)
Time: 10:30-11am
In 2007 Chris Swain lead a USC Annenberg School team to design a serious game with the purpose of helping the public understand the process of legislative redistricting and reforms related to redistricting. Redistricting is the process of producing defined geographic boundaries of population which are represented in Congress or the state legislature. As more and more powerful demographic systems and mapping software have become available, redistricting has grown into a very elite game of optimization also known as gerrymandering. Each side in the process (essentially the two major political parties) attempts to push a slate of designed districts it feels are advantageous to their party's candidates through the legislative and negotiation process. The results can sometimes be astoundingly bizarre shaped districts and ultimately result in voter confusion and disenfranchisement from the entire process.

THE REDISTRICTING GAME tries to capture the core yearning for optimization process that exists in redistricting but then attempts to show users various proposed reforms in the process as new constraints on the rules of the game. Users are then given links to various reform sites as well.

The game is now out and fully playable. Like all games there are many ideas that never made it through the final cut. In this session, Chris will present the full version of THE REDISTRICTING GAME. Two leads from the audience will be announced and then each lead will have over 24 hours to compile ideas into a quick presentation for the following day detailing an imagined 2.0 version of the game and associated project. The goal of this session is not to just make the game itself better but to figure out new ideas the potentially improve the impact of the project's mission. After the presentations the audience will be given a chance to respond. Chris will then offer some rebuttal and comments to the efforts allowing insight into why certain ideas may or may not work from his standpoint as the team lead.

Finally, I don't know much about this application of NeverWinter Nights, but I'm looking forward to learning more about another application and mod of the game.

Being Brian Crecente: Using an Off-The-Shelf Role Playing Game to Teach Journalism
Speaker(s): Nora Paul (University of Minnesota)
Time: 5-5:30pm
This session details The University of Minnesota's efforts to develop a role-playing game to teach journalism. Working together, professors Kathleen Hansen and Nora Paul lead a team that modified Bioware's NEVERWINTER NIGHTS to teach interview techniques and more to budding journalism students.

The process of using an off-the-shelf game engine offered unique challenges and insights into how others might attempt to build future serious games. Matching common RPG play (especially Bioware ones!) to journalism was a perfect fit. In the game, students move around Harperville and cover the story of a toxic spill caused by a train derailment. Students must investigate and find their angle to the story and file it. NPCs will offer no comment and react to your style of questioning as well.

After detailing the project, discussion will turn to lessons learned and how the next version of the project is moving along providing insight into the iterative learning process many serious game designs require of their proponents.

all session descriptions from Game Developers Conference 2008

Since it's the end of the year and I'm in the process of tying up unfinished posts from the fall. Here's a post from Educational Technology and Life that's worth bringing back up to highlight. Mark Wagner’s work is usually excellent and worth discussing. Back in October, Mark posted his NECC 2008 proposals, including one on learning and school classrooms as MMORPG.

Mark provided an overview of his proposal, but the more interesting information is included in his complete NECC submission including:

Purpose:

The goal of this study is to identify potential applications of massively multiplayer online role-playing games as constructivist learning environments in the context of formal K12 education. The purpose is to identify the potential benefits and drawbacks of such applications and to recommend courses of action for future research by academics, future game development by industry professionals, and future instructional decisions made by public educators.

Questions Posed:

- What are the potential benefits of using MMORPGs as constructivist learning environments in formal K12 education?

- What are the potential problems related to using MMORPGs as constructivist learning environments in formal K12 education?

Additionally, based on the literature review the following six research questions will be used to focus the study:

- Engagement and motivation: How might MMORPGs be used to motivate and engage students, and what problems might be associated with using MMORPGs for this purpose?

- Context: How might MMORPGs be used to provide a context for student learning, and what problems might be associated with using MMORPGs for this purpose?

- Inquiry: How might MMORPGs be used to provide students with opportunities for inquiry-based learning, and what problems might be associated with using MMORPGs for this purpose?

- Social Negotiation: How might MMORPGs be used to support social negotiation of meaning (including facilitated collaboration, cooperation, and competition), and what problems might be associated with using MMORPGs for this purpose?

- Reflection: How might MMORPGs be used to encourage student reflection and metacognition, and what problems might be associated with using MMORPGs for this purpose?

- Social Change: How might MMORPGs used in formal K12 education be used to effect positive social change?

Mark's blog is an excellent resource for these questions and discussion around them. Much of Mark's thesis content and research is contained within Educational Technology and Life. Thank you Mark for sharing your work.

I was fortunate enough to be asked to present a paper for a panel at the upcoming American Comparative Literature Association (ACLA) Annual Meeting in Long Beach this April. Here is the abstract of the paper. I'm interested in any thoughts and/or suggestions since the scope is a little beyond libraries and information literacy.

"A recent study out of the United Kingdom showed literacy rates down among children. Other reports show the Millennial generation reading less printed media. These signs and others suggest dark times for the narrative and reading in general. But times have never been as bright. Our students are not only readers they are now producers and writers of narratives as well. Video games and the fan fiction around them create unique opportunities to connect students to the narrative through engagement and creation.
Media Studies researchers recognize students’ passion in gameplay and in the worlds around the games. As game narratives are becoming more advanced, more is demanded of the player. Stories build to the conclusion where the emotional payoff is often 20 to 30 hours in the making. Not only are games providing a narrative for players to engage in, they are creating an opportunity to create additional stories within this game world through modding and fan fiction communities. Researches at the University of Wisconsin Madison and elsewhere are studying these fan created stories and the writing skills acquired through them.
Video games present our students with new opportunities to explore and create narrative writing. This paper explores those opportunities and discusses ways for faculty to apply those abilities to classroom settings. "

Thanks to the link from Serious Games
which in-kind links to the Mobile Learning blog which has a useful post linking to a variety of content from the conference.

Here are some of the direct links to:
video clips
podcasts
slides of presentations

I blogged about Nintendo becoming a sponsor of the conference back in September (before my hiatus) and John Rice's excellent Educational Games Research blog ran another story on the conference as well.

I've downloaded a couple of the podcasts, including Marc Prensky's keynote speech, and I'm looking forward to listening along with the ppt slides.

After finally making my way through the 1000s of stories in my Google Reader from the last few weeks. This story only came up once. Thank you to the folks over at Serious Games. Way back in the middle of August they posted a link to the videos from the 2007 Games + Learning + Society Conference in Madison.

While the story may be aging, the videos/webcasts are still not posted on the GLS website. So for those of us who could not make it or need to refresh their notes or just want to relive the joy that was a July of gaming conferences... here you go.

Serious Games' original post or the direct link to Mediasite will bring you to the videos.