Gaming at church? Yes.
Youth group gaming nights? Yes.
Video games can teach? Of course.
Games as immoral and wasteful? Not on our watch.

A few months ago I was asked by the Library Director of a local seminary to be a guest lecturer. She was teaching a course on technology in ministry and wanted to include video games. I jumped at the chance and now I'm putting the finishing touches on the class session. The purpose is to build awareness and provide possibilities for these future pastors to use and discuss video games in their congregations.

Here is my outline for my class - any feedback would be great:

I. Gaming Literacy Test

a. Awareness builder / Conversation starter

c. Reaching players where they are at

II. Video Game statistics – “Explore the world”

a. Who’s playing

i. Nielsen household data

ii. Pew internet research

iii. Video game report card

iv. Adults playing too

III. What games teach us – “Recruiting your Party”

a. Learning

i. Prensky, Gee, and a host of others

ii. American Federation of Scientists

b. Social Play

i. Man, Play, and Games

ii. Focus on social interaction

IV. Gaming applications in Ministry – “Conquer your World”

a. Youth Group

i. Gaming nights

ii. Social outreach

iii. Opening a dialog

b. Generational Gaps

i. Youth / Mentor

ii. Parent / Child

c. Serious Games

i. Darfur is Dying

ii. UN Disater Game

iii. Educational games

V. Christian games – “Leveling Up”

a. The right path – why Christian games are worthwhile

b. The hidden path – Failings of Christian games

c. The shadow opponent – violence in Christian games

VI. Violence in video – “The Final Boss”

a. Parent perceptions

b. Research data

c. Parental involvement

d. Awareness and Education

VII. End Credits…Too be Continued…

a. Additional sources

b. Further exploration

After spending the last 42 hours searching for my wedding ring... I found it. After 5 years of marriage I've never misplaced my ring for longer than 2 minutes. Our family (3 year-old included) spent our free time (hence no new blog posts) searching every corner, crack, drawer, trash can, and vent possible.

Thankfully, it's found and I'm not taking it off any time soon.

Now I can leave my guilt behind and focus on something other than scourging my house and surrounding area.

It's been a busy week here, over the past 5 days our Info Lit team of 4 librarians conducted 35 research class sessions. Not a bad run and overall pretty successful. We used Turning Point for some of our sessions to gain additional feedback from the students, and created more open ended workshops, but really didn't focus on tying in gaming strategies. As much as I would have loved to play around with the structure, with up to 11 sessions in one day just keeping the logistics of multiple classrooms flowing smoothly eat up most of my time.

My light at the end of the tunnel came today while working with a couple Public Speaking classes. The class assignment is to locate and create a persuasive speech arguing for a current bill in Congress. I love this assignment and my background (2 years working in the MN House of Representatives, 00-01) gives me a lot to talk about with our students. At the end of the day today, I had an enjoyable interaction with two students doing Senator Brownback's "Truth in Video Game Ratings" bill, S.568.

We had a good discussion about both sides of the issue and what the "real" intent of the legislation. It was interesting to hear the student's perspective on requiring the ESRB to play through all game content before issuing a rating. There were students on both sides of the issue and we ended up having a discussion about games as an entertainment media. The students were able find a variety of quality sources, including gamepolitics.com.

Gamepolitics.com has a good intro on the bill here.


photo by pianoforte, via Flickr.com

On Monday, Jenny Levine's theshiftedlibrarian.com featured a story that Chris covered over at Bibliographic Gaming. Great exposure for the blog and hopefully opens up the discussion for others.

Chris, Christy and I have had an ongoing discussion about the use of mods and other video game engines , like Half-Life,for educational uses. Neverwinter Nights is one popular video game that contains a powerful toolset in order to mod the game.

The creator's of the "Revolution" mod for Neverwinter Nights will actually be presenting next week at GDC (Game Developers Conference). GDC is still focused on commercial games, but they've added a serious games summit this year. Check back for any coverage of the event.

I've been reading and throughly enjoying the newest issue of The Gamer's Quarter. It was just released this week and like the previous seven issues is full of enjoyable essays. The Gamer's Quarter is about as close as I've seen to a creative writing anthology for video games. As librarians and others in education, it's worth your time to check it out and see how games transcend the activity of play and settle into our memories and emotions.

Here are some of the articles I've enjoyed from previous issues as well (all of which are available for download)...

Issue #7:
Faith & Fantasy - Heather Campbell
Use Your Illusion - Amandeep Jutla
Mushroom Hunting in Heels - Matthew Collier

Issue #6:
Console Identity - Heather Campbell
A Brief Note on Pacing in Videogames - J.R. Freeman

Issue #5:
I Shoot Therefore I AM - Francesco-Allesio "Randorama" Ursini
Shadows - Brian N. "Antitype" Wood
Why Game? - M. "dhex" O'Connor

Issue #4:
Shadows of an Art Form - Mr. Mechanical
Shadow of the Colossus - PS2
The Hero and the Sleeping Woman - JMG114
Myth and Good Storytelling in Video Games
Controller (R)Evolution - dessgeega
Wall-Jumping for Kicks - Swimmy
The Happiest Time of My Life - Pat the Great

As my students are forming a thesis to show that video games increase short-term aggression, a new study comes out from Texas A&M International University which conducted a meta-analysis of research into violent video games. The results of the study match what our students found. Here are a few comments from the author of the study from the story in gamepolitics.com:

"Overall results of the study found that although violent video games appear to increase people’s aggressive thoughts (which it would not be surprising that people are still thinking about what they were just playing), violent games do not appear to increase aggressive behavior. "

"Thus it was concluded that there is little evidence from the current body of literature on violent video games that playing violent video games is either causally or correlationally associated with increases in aggressive behavior. "

There is an interesting and worthwhile discussion about what players do with the increases in aggression. If we can prove increases in aggression, the question is what do we, as gamers, do with that aggression? Does it result in action? If gamers are aware of this emotional reaction can they prevent violent action? I started this discussion with the English students and I would be interested to know your opinions as well.

I say yes, increases in aggression levels does not need to result in violent action. What do you think?

Find the full story on gamepolitics.com here...

Over the last two weeks another librarian and I worked through 3 different scholarly articles about violent video games and aggression with two sections of English composition. The goals of the assignment are to construct and prove a thesis based on proven evidence and to read and dissect a peer reviewed journal article. While forming and proving a thesis is vital, getting the students over the "fear" of a scholarly article is one of the key benefits that helps prepare them for research in other classes. Here is the common thesis the students' developed:

The short-term effects of college students playing violent video games are aggressive thinking and behavior.


Here are some of the student's findings from two of the articles:

Carnagey, Nicholas L. and Anderson. Craig A. “The Effects of Reward and Punishment in Violent Video Games on Aggressive Affect, Cognition, and Behavior.” Psychological Science, 16.11 (2005): 882-889.

· - “Violence in a video game, regardless of whether it is rewarded or punished, can increase hostile affect” (Carnagey and Anderson, p.885).

- “Rewarding violence in video games can increase aggressive affect, aggressive cognition, and aggressive behavior” (887).

Kirsh, Steven J., Olczak, Paul V., and Mounts, Jeffery R. W. “Violent Video Games Induce on Affect Processing Bias” Media Psychology 7: (2005): 239-250.

- Findings show violent video games play brings forth more obvious aggressive behavior in players (p. 247).

- A non-hostile person was brought to the level of a hostile person by playing a violent video game (p. 248). - In short term, aggression with violent video games is a proven fact while in the long term it isn’t proven (p. 248).

The discussion about playing video games and violent games was interesting. The students were able to come up with many "ifs" or "buts" for violent games and aggression. This was very instructive because the students then were able to discover how the research tried to account for these "ifs."

In addition, the students made the important distinction between speculation of violent games creating violent personalities and the evidence that showed only short term increases in aggression levels. The literature stressed the evidence in a variety of studies about the short term, but only could hypothesis about any long term increases in aggression.


photos provided via Flickr.com by:
seizethedave
RichardAM

This past weekend my relatives came for a visit. This was the first time they had come since the death of their son (link here). I love their entire family and was very glad to spend time with them, but I couldn’t help but feel the shadow of my godson Luke. He was so filled with life and joy that his light is sorely missed. If felt this way, I can’t even begin to imagine what his parents feel on a daily basis.

I am glad to know that all of the things we did together were what Luke would have enjoyed as well. Our main activity for most of the weekend was playing video games. As I sat with my son and Luke’s sister playing our DS and Gameboys, I could clearly feel Luke with us watching over our shoulders and playing right along. I miss him.

Luke’s dad and I had good conversations about games, what he likes to play and what Luke played. We talked about the strategy games Luke played and all the logic and skills he used playing. His dad was impressed with Luke’s ability to successful manage resources and run small medieval villages in Stronghold or conduct attacks from three theaters in other RTS games.

I’m thankful for the love and spirit Luke shared with me during his life and I grateful for his continued inspiration.

At the end of January, I taught an instruction session for an upper level Communication class where the assignment was relatively straightforward (find scholarly articles/works to write a response paper on), with a few additional requirements.

I wanted to do something different from what the students "felt" they already knew, while still allowing us to focus and pull out some targeted search strategies and higher level information literacy skills... And thus, I created "Library Dusk" which was inspired by the DS game Hotel Dusk: Room 215

The new Nintendo DS game, "Hotel Dusk," is an interactive graphic novel / adventure game. You play as a former police officer trying to solve a murder through the use of clues and investigation. A lot of the progress is depended on what sources of information you follow (people, clues, evidence) and what the quality of those sources are.

Sources of information, quality evaluation...

It sounded like a nice parallel to some information literacy skills. And so I wanted to try something similar as a review/walkthrough on locating sources for the Communication class. Using the Turning Point technology, I created a multiple path, point & click adventure. Or at least, a multiple path, click & vote research process. The diagram shows the paths the students could take. The objective was to find two sources that could be used for the assignment. The 1st choice was between books, articles, or the web. The 2nd choice was a database/website/catalog decision. Choices 3 and 4 were on search terms and narrowing results. Any dead end paths brought the students back to the nearest choice or "fork" in order to choose again.

Every path was hyperlinked within the Power Point slides, so that any decision the students made could be followed seamlessly. We used turning point to vote on each path and choice as a class. Voting on a class level was beneficial since it allowed for more discussion than if voting was done either in groups or individually.

Overall, it was a pretty successful review. Most of the students stayed engaged in voting, reacting to the results, and discussing the choices. In fact, the students even discussed Boolean searching on their own.

I'll post some more thoughts on it later, after more of the evaluations are back. But I'd love to know if anyone is doing something similar and how it's worked out.

Research isn't that different than a traditional adventure game... we've just got to create the adventure to draw them in.



The game photo is from Ign.com

Over the past few weeks I’ve spent time with a literature review on the issue of violent video games and aggression. I started the literature review in order to find a number of focused articles for a small thesis paper. The goal of the assignment is to help first year students use facts to prove a thesis through scholarly articles. There are a series of posts coming about my literature review, but also on my experience using it as a research topic for two English composition classes.

The students entered the topic with a variety of personal opinions and biases. But part of the challenge of doing the literature review was to recognize and move beyond the personal opinions of the researchers. Published statements like, “the hit Grand Theft Auto for the Sony GameBoy Color,” raise eyebrows and suspicions from students. (Fact #1: Sony produces the Playstation 2(PS2), Playstation Portable(PSP); Fact #2: Nintendo produced the GameBoy Color). Students know these facts through experience and pop culture education. And to give them an article with what they consider an obvious fact incorrect in the first sentence, does not bode well for their acceptance and belief of the remaining research. This inaccuracy not only discredits the research findings in the students’ view, but also leads them to the conclusion that for the writer video games are not even a serious enough topic to make checking a few widely held facts a priority. “They just want to find something to blame,” were the words of one student.

This discovery not only helped me to be more aware of my own fact checking (and those peer reviewing research), but it served as an example for my students as well. If they would discredit a researcher based of incorrect facts – what would (should) their professor do to their work if they use and site facts incorrectly.

I just finished listening to David Warlick's podcast Connect Learning from back on January 8th. David interviews his college aged son while playing Blizzard's World of Warcraft.

While I've never played (two small children and two master's degree's put a stop to the time commitment) I'm familiar with the game and have heard a variety of podcasts on the game. David's interview really shows the complexities and vocabulary of the game. I take a lot of the gameplay and terms for granted, but listening to the podcast gave me the perspective from those outside the game.

There's been a lot written about WOW and the literacy skills involved. But a lot of what I've been reading digs deep into the game. But for anyone just getting started David's podcast is a nice start.

The conversation between father and son and between gamer and non-gamer, isn't all that far off from a reference transaction. "Why are you going that way?" "How come you clicked there?" "What does that label mean?" It's all a matter of perspective.

Image provided by Kingfox via Flickr.com

I’ve been in a blogging drought as of late, with only one post last week. Maybe it’s too cold, maybe I’m lazy and even though I’ve had stuff going (LOEX) and ideas running around, but I just couldn’t get them out. Part of the reason for the drought was my single minded determination to complete Final Fantasy III for the Nintendo DS.

I had started the game at the end of December, but was just picking away at it. Last week I got to the final section and died making my way through the final castle. I first I was frustrated since I was able to handle most other enemies, but the dragons killed me (granted I’ve since found out that they are as powerful as some of the final boss battles). While the game through up high levels of challenge every now and again, I really asked myself if it was worth continuing playing. While I enjoyed the gameplay (it’s a classic turn-based RolePlaying Game), the narrative is incredibly weak. But I enjoyed playing and felt enough of a connection to my characters to spend the next few days leveling up my party. After finally winning a battle against one dragon, I felt ready to tackle the end game. The final areas in the game were easy compared to my “dragon hurdle” and I breezed through the remainder of the game.

While I’d love to ramble on about the old-school RPG fun I had, I’m telling this story for a reason… my frustration, determination and success were not that different to what I see students go through on research projects. The overwhelming hurdles, the idea to give up and call it “good enough” and the rewarding feeling of success fall right in line with a challenging paper. The more I’ve thought about it, I’ve realized that the reasons I stuck with the game could be useful in helping us get students to stick with assignments.

What kept me coming back…

- Intuitive interface: Not only knowing how to navigate, but wanting to navigate as well; if only students would say the same about our catalogs and databases; I felt I could be successful because I knew the overall game system, without that sense of confidence giving up would have come easier

- Personal investment: I cared about these characters, not enough to actually create an emotional connection, but enough to want to know what happens; The game used a customizable character system that made me more involved with each character since I spent time developing their skill sets; Customization, plain and simple; A piece of the game/project/search was mine since I was able to customize it; Systems with customization could provide some of that same sense of attachment

- Determination & Accomplishment: My personal resolve to see it through, might be because I'm stubborn, but it's also because I wanted that sense of accomplishment; our students are not any different - I've spent time at reference coaching students through a tough paper and helping convince them that they could do it and that it is worth pushing through; A little coaching now and again is needed, we all need some help with our egos now and again; If we can not only help foster that determination, but encourage it along the way our students will be better off

Images from IGN.com

I was surprised yesterday to read that the LOEX conference had filled within a few minutes of opening up. Andrew over at library+instruction+technology blogged about the frantic pace of registration as well.

I felt lucky last week when I found out my poster presentation was accepted at LOEX, now I feel incredibly lucky… and nervous. This will be my first national offering and I’ve got a nagging ego. But I do believe in my content and believe that many people can be successful integrating gaming strategies without years of game development. I’ve had success and I hope that sharing my work will help others (Which is also part of the reason I blog).

Here is my initial poster presentation proposal, feel free to give me feedback:

“Grand Theft Information Literacy: Teaching with Video Game Strategies”

Video games do teach. The challenging question is not if they teach, but how. Gee (2003), Prensky (2006) Shaffer (2006), Van Eck (2006) and many others are part of a growing body of research devoted to answering how video games teach. But how can librarians integrate games and game strategies into the classroom? And how do these strategies change library instruction? The answers do not need to be complicated. This presentation examines how the Charles C. Myers Library at the University of Dubuque integrated gaming strategies into the existing instruction program and witnessed increases in student creativity and productivity.

Regardless of if the students are gamers or not, gaming strategies are rooted in educational theory and can create a new classroom experience. Since getting started can be intimidating, the University of Dubuque took small steps. The goal of the program was to integrate the educational benefits of games, without the complex creation of original games.

Through the 2006 report by the Federation of American Scientists and a review of the literature, the instruction program identified 10 specific video game strategies. Over the course of two semesters, the instruction program used these strategies in two sections of a world music course and eight sections of a research writing course. These sessions focused specifically on the research process and website evaluation.

The presentation describes how the instruction program mapped game strategies to ACRL outcomes, created activities based on game strategies, assessed the success and modified the instruction sessions. The program used both qualitative and quantitative assessments to evaluate the gaming instruction sessions. Through these strategies the students were more engaged in discussion, more willing to ask questions and performed more authentic demonstrations of information literacy skills.

This research found that students benefited from these strategies, regardless if they identified themselves as gamers or non-gamers. The how to integrate games and what they teach does not need to be complicated. The poster presentation provides a starting point for librarians wondering how to get started incorporating video games and strategies into library instruction. Starting small, understanding the concepts, and being willing to explore and stumble along with the students resulted in rewarding experiences for both the students and the librarians.

At the DICE (Design Innovate Communicate Entertain) Summit today, the out-going ESA President Doug Lowenstein had this to say about the educational importance of video games:

I also hope the industry, writ large, will take the games as education movement more seriously. Very serious people in government, politics, and academia see serious potential in games. It's a huge opportunity for this industry…

(via Chris Kohler’s live blog coverage at Wired’s Game|Life)

Read Lowenstein’s comments gaming’s educational uses and the rest of the industry here

I picked up on Timothy's Greig's blog a few weeks ago, and this week he posted about a project that really gets at the heart of gaming and gamer's passions - sharing their stories. The idea of gathering stories about game experiences for others to reflect and draw upon. It's within these stories where the meat of why and how games can assist in education. The passion and excitement relaid in these stories can help us understand what grabs and holds a gamers attention. Even if the gamers are recounting specific in game experiences, there are emotional undertones at work.

Ask a gamer to share a gaming experience... and be open to the response. Also be ready to get a curious look that says, "Really? You want to know?" I asked that question of some of the people I talked to waiting in line back in November for a PS3 & Wii. Once they got past the idea that outside there peer group wanted to know, they shared lots of stories. Stories that matter and have deep roots.

Here's the reference & instruction piece - I had a student from one of my classes this spring stop me on the first day to remind me that I had talked with them in a PS3 line. Any hesitation she had about asking questions or asking for help was gone. Asking about games isn't any different than finding out other interests, but it works. Like any culture, like any interest, stories matter.

The Chronicle of Higher Education picked up the story of Michigan State offering a master's program in serious games. The quick post, here, is on the Chronicle's Wired Campus blog. More and more colleges and universities are offering courses (beyond programming courses) on video games - design, narrative, business, cultural history. While news like this does move me closer to my dream job of a Video Game subject specialist librarian :), it does show progress for video games as an industry and as an artistic expression.

On the same note, today I listened to this week's 1up.com's "1up Yours" podcast, the 1/26 broadcast. It's one of the many gaming podcast I listen to on a weekly basis. The 1up network includes the long standing video game magazine "Electronic Gaming Monthly (EGM)." The podcast is a great way to stay updated on gaming news and trends. This week the group discusses "gaming literacy." They discuss significant and revolutionary games that someone studying games should know. They take they same approach of a game or film studies college course. While there are academic courses out there that do this same thing, it's interesting to hear it from the perspective of people in the industry.

It is a good discussion for anyone interested in games or wanting a historic perspective. The games as required reading discussion starts about 37:30 minutes into the podcast, right after the first break. As a note, the podcast could be rated PG-13 for crude humor and language.

Give a listen and let me know about your gaming required reading.

I just finished listening to 1up.com's Retronauts most recent podcast on video game soundtracks. It's also an interesting (if somewhat geeky) podcast about older games. The history of video game music they discussed brought back a flood of memories and emotions attached to the game's soundtracks. Just like movie soundtrack, (well done) game soundtracks can carry a lot of feelings and even motivation for the listener.

Does anyone out there use music in there instruction? I've been in conference presentations where people have talked about playing music as the class is entering in order to help set the mood. But what about setting a soundtrack or even a few music clips into a powerpoint, lecture, or workshop for dramatic effect?

I haven't tried it, but now I want to. Even a little music to draw attention to certain key points could be useful in grabbing some attention from the class. What do you think?

Thanks Jenny. Jenny Levine's Gaming & Libraries:Intersection of Services from the ALA TechSource just got back to my desk after making the rounds through my library. I've also shared part of this report with a local seminary librarian and have brought it with me to my local public library.It's been out for a while, but I got my copy after returning from the holidays. It's a great resource for libraries interested in getting involved in gaming and finding out more information.The report pulls together background on video games, educational uses, and how public, school & academic libraries are using video games. While I was very pleased that there wasn't a lot of new information for me (good to know that I am current on my research topic), it is great to have it all combined in one place. The report is a great lead in for librarians interested in learning more and getting started with video games in their libraries. Since it's an ALA publication, even the few librarians who are pretty negative about video games were willing to pick up the report and read. Levine writes to a variety of levels of knowledge and experience. She leads off slowly and allows those new with the subject the ability to understand most everything that comes after.

Jenny's first chapter "Why Gaming?" sets up the justification for gaming in librarie collections, programming and scope. It digs into one of the most important aspect of games - what they teach and how we learn from them. Jenny's use of Johnson's "Everything Bad is Good for You" made me go back and review my notes from this summer on his book. I was pleased see the detailed references which provided me a few more articles I hadn't read. Our library also used the case studies to help plan out our stalled gaming night. There are a variety of examples of setups, promotional ideas, and other helpful pieces to help everyone get started on gaming in their libraries.

Jenny's blog, theshiftedlibrarian, is a great read if you are not already, and her ALA report is not any different. Levine's put together a great resource for all librarians and is a must read. Thanks for continuing to push gaming in libraries to a broader audience.

If you are interested in ordering it or finding out more information click here.

Today a coworker showed me a rather alarming blog post sent to her by a faculty member. The post was by a professor at a private Christian college (I’m not linking to for my own emotional well being). His short sighted and uninformed point was that “information literacy” was nothing but tech savvy and computer know-how. He felt there wasn’t any literacy without books and “information literacy” wasn’t teaching books.

Even after coming off of a few days worth instruction sessions where I felt we didn’t stress books enough, I see flaws in his argument. One look at the ACRL standards can tell us that. But his shortsighted post reminded me of another shortsighted post from earlier this week. EDUCAUSE blogged about too much emphasis being placed on digital natives and “eductainment” and more focus needs to be on critical thinking.

I don’t argue with the need for critical thinking, in fact I would say that most people would agree with the need for critical thinking and discussion. Games and game based strategies are a great way to engage and motivate students, but like any teaching strategy it can’t succeed alone. Textbook reading and individual assignments are not any different. These traditional teaching strategies only take a student so far, and classroom discussion and analysis provide additional learning opportunities. Students learn and grow through games, but also through the analysis of what they are playing and why.

Richard Halverson’s Innovate article What Can K-12 School Leaders Learn from Video Games and Gaming? (2006) makes the same point. He uses the example of the off-the-shelf computer game “Rise of Nations.” Students learn through playing, managing resources, and strategizing battles, but a large content piece comes from the research and discussion about the individual nations and events depicted in the game. The critical thinking component is key to pulling the full potential out of the game. It’s important to have both sides for the education of any student, digital natives included.

My co-worker used the naïve information literacy blog as a way of marketing to the faculty who passed the post along all that the library does for students. The EDUCAUSE blog allows us the same opportunity – We can take the chance to discuss with others not only the success and impact of games in education, but also the importance of discussing the games used. Games are not a magic bullet, but they are wonderful teaching strategy; one of many successful strategies for digital natives.

I’m not a big fan of long rambling blog posts, and since my last one was turning into that I decided to stop. I was the first person on campus to use Turning Point in a class and like any new technology we had a few hang ups along the way. After going through the "Choose Your Own Lecture" with Turning Point 9 times, I felt very confident with the technology and the content. Thus, yesterday our library director asked me to give a presentation about the “clicker” technology and it's uses for our local area library association. Since I’m always up for a challenge, I said yes.

It was a nice opportunity to not only present the technology in front of librarians from 7 other libraries, but it was a good platform to advocate some gaming strategies: engagement, motivation, choice, & personalization. Using Turning Point is really just another way for the students to interact with their environment and influence their surroundings.

I had positive feedback from a couple people and one librarian stated that she knew her campus had technology like this, but hadn't thought of too many ways to apply it to information literacy instruction.

Making other librarians aware of the successful application of gaming strategies is always a good time.

Choice. Personalization. Freedom. Exploration. All are game based strategies and all helped keep students interested and engaged in the classes I’ve taught over the last 3 days.Over the past days at work, I’ve taught 12 class sessions and I’ve run around like crazy (a good thing). Why? And how does it relate to gaming… read on.

The Librarians meet a total of 9 times, 3 times per paper with each Research Writing class. The first meeting is to provide them with some context and background on the geographic region they will be writing about and introducing them to the research process.

I’m responsible for that first lecture that provides the context and process to each class (another reason I’ve been MIA during the first week of the semester). Putting together a 45 minute lecture that provides an overview of the social sciences and potential topics within the Mississippi Watershed area would be challenging enough, but add the entire scope of history into the mix – from prehistory to today, and it’s impossible. Like any lecture it can fall into the trap of being pretty straightforward and not all that exciting.

So to make an already long story brief, I knew I wanted to do something to keep the students involved as we touched on bits and pieces of history. Enter Turning Point. Some of you may have used Turning Point or other instant polling software for classes or meetings, but briefly it allows you to create quizzes or polls within a Power Point presentation that the students can vote on. I used it to engage students and allow them the ability to direct our discussion during the lecture. In addition to having slides about whether or not they had ideas for topics and slides to evaluate the lecture, there were multiple slides that allowed the students to choose their own lecture.

As the diagram shows, I created slides that allowed the students to choose between a few different topics in order to determine what we were going to focus on. Each student voted and we followed the topics of those with the most votes. By creating a branching content presentation, each class focused in different topics, but the overall content and research information was the same. The questions were created and then I linked the text to each of the corresponding slides, so that the class could directly jump to the topic they choose – hiding the rest of the information.

Well the approach meant that I did not cover the same information with class, but the individualized branching paths resulted in more students being engaged. Voting on the path four different times during the presentation resulted in keeping most students interested and involved in the discussion. I had one student say, “This was great, it kept me from falling asleep.” Although I wasn’t quite sure how to take that… coming from an 8:00 am class, that was pretty good. I had another student tell me that she was thinking about dropping the class, but now she is interested in the topic and was glad to be involved in the presentation.

Using game strategies to create a personalized path, allowing students the freedom of choice and a reason to stay involved, helped to create a lecture that students were interested in and had a stake in.

Another small, but successful application of gaming strategies.

We will not go softly into the night, or at least quietly into the future. It’s a new semester and our library using technology for some wonderfully innovative (at least for us) purposes.

Two of my co-workers spent time last semester developing a blog for one of our research classes. We see the students in each class for instruction sessions about 12 times during the semester. It’s great to be able built and more importantly sustain relationships with these students throughout the semester. The blog will provide us with one more way to build that relationship.

One of the same co-workers worked with me to modify an existing lesson to incorporate GoogleDocs. The instruction sessions help students research the various aspects and impacts (both positive and negative) of a specific charity organization. We traditionally divided them up into groups to work together on a series of questions, and regrouped at the end of class to discuss our findings. Using GoogleDocs to creative a real-time document of their research seemed like a natural fit. The students add their information to the document, and all students then have acces to return to it as they are working on their projects. In theory it is a great way to share their knowledge with each other, to expand all their horizons.

Theory - yes; first try – not so much. Like any first time there are kinks, even after we tested it and played aroundThe problem was that even after inviting the class via email to join the document, very few of them received the email. We think the mass emails from a “@gmail” address got hung up in the networks spam filters, but we’re still looking into it. So, where everyone should have be up and ready to work on their shared document, they entered clueless and unable to access the page. Fortunately, since it was a new technology many were willing to be a little forgiving – or they were just happy it was Friday and they were doing very little in class. Regardless, I’m very thankful to my fellow librarian who stay cool in a time of classroom chaos, worked through the technical issues, and ended up with a good class.

I’m sure I’ll check in about how the course blog is going, and we have more classes for GoogleDocs so we’ll see what happens next. I’m very thankful for my co-workers, they are amazing. It’s great to be able to push each other and technology for the student’s benefit. Call it “Library 2.0” or whatever; I’m calling our student success.

Wow, what a fast week. We started the spring semester on Tuesday and it feels like I've been running since. Actually, it feels like I've been running since the new year. Running isn't a bad thing, actually I thrive on it. But sometimes it's okay to step back.

I've developed a nasty blogging habit of starting a post and not getting back to it on the same day. I started a post on Monday because I wanted to preview the semester, but as I was writing my 18 month son climbed up in my chair and kept repeating, "Games, games." And really how can I as the "video games are good for you" guy say no. And so they played and I watched... and learned.

Video games are a social interaction, or at least they can be. Over the past week, I've had two good conversations with local librarians about the social nature of games and game players. We are not just playing games for hours on end, in our basements, staring at a screen, alone. Since this is the week of the new World of Warcraft (WOW) massive multi player online game (MMPOG) - at least we are not playing alone. 8 million monthly subscribers to WOW, means that as a player you are not alone. Even progressing beyond level 20 in the game is not possible without others.

More and more, video games are a social experience. PC gaming is dominated by gamer to gamer interactions through the games. The XBox 360 Live features connect gamers from anywhere. Players join not just for the freedom and control, they join for the social interaction as well. Granted like any group interaction, everybody contributes something different. But the creation and enjoyment of the social community is a draw. MMPOG's are group projects that our students want to be part of. There is no worry about someone not pulling their weight within an MMPOG, the alternative is game death. Our students can live with those game consequences because the goal that they are working toward is desired. The goal is worth the struggle.

There are education pieces and contributions that we, as librarians, can and should take part in. We need to help find ways to tap into that social enjoyment, if we can create or utilize existing social spaces to foster this sense of social interaction. We will be better off. I'll return to this post tomorrow and talk about a few ways our library is doing that.

Paul

In my post earlier this week, I talked a little about the Utne Reader article on video games. While I agree with the majority of the article, I disagree with the thesis Suellentrop states at the end:

"Our video-game brains, trained on success machines, may be undergoing a Mr. Universe workout, one that leaves us stronger but less flexible. So don't worry that video games are teaching us to be killers. Worry instead that they're teaching us to salute. "

Suellentrop argues that games teach players not to think outside of the system, to accept the framework they are given and try to succeed within it. Games reinforce living within the rules of the gameworld and this translates to living within the rules of society. Thus, decreasing innovation and potentially critical thinking.
If this thesis is correct, what does it mean for using games within higher education? And why would a professor use games within the tradition of the creative thinking and challenges of a liberal arts education?

But other studies applaud games for pushing players to test the limits of the systems and understand how to use it in order to succeed. The Federation of American Scientists (in my posts from October) found that games are educational because they push players to test the physics of a game and succeed within the system. The FAS report stated that these skills help prepare gamers to be more successful within the existing corporate and business worlds.

I believe that games successfully to both - help players succeed within existing systems and challenge them to them to find new and creative paths. Yes, games encourage and reward the player for exploring the physics of the game and testing the world for success. But there is not a gamer around that at some point has wanted a game to do more. The "If only I could do..." pleads that frustrated gamers can make are a good example that gamers do not settle. They want to innovate and do more... are presented with an opportunity to do so in a real world environment would. The success and frustration within games (the testing and exploring required) has empowered them to propose and try new ideas. Yes, innovate.

The path a gamer goes through find success in a game looks something like this:
- Engagement in the game and interface
- Motivation and desire to succeed and advance
- Testing of the system, discovery of game physics
- Analysis of limits and boundaries
- Evaluation of successful application
- Discussion (internal or external) on desired physics and gameplay
- Generation of new ideas/applications = innovation

The final two steps can often take place outside the game and away from the act of playing. Players often are engaged enough to continue thinking, planning and enjoying the game away from the physical act of playing. It is in this reflection time that creativity and innovation often occur.

I love the college where I work. There is a devotion and caring for the students and their well being that I really respect and appreciate, and a day like Thursday, really helps remind me of that. I spent most of the day Thursday in a faculty and staff seminar/workshop on success of at risk students from under served demographics.

My background in politics and teaching are paths I chose to help people succeed, and this topic is a wonderful extension of that. There was a variety of ideas and actions points discussed. Some of which myself and the other librarians will be trying with our students this semester. But there were a few statements about higher education trends that applied to us here about the use of video games.

Robert C. Dickeson, one of the presenters, is a researcher and policy analyst for higher education. He discussed 7 trends within higher education, 3 of which apply to using games within education:

1) "Not taking advantage of innovation"
He discussed about a gap between teaching research and actual practice, and that this gap leads to the lack of innovation. Using games and game strategies bucks this trend. Video games in the classroom is taking advantage of innovation. It is a growing area us as educators and an innovation that our students consider second nature. While all our students are not gamers, surveys show that the vast majority have tried a video game and all had some exposure to games. As I'm trying to show (and have found in my own applications) that using games and game strategies is a great innovation that results in more engaged and motivated students.

2) "The trend of decreasing quality"
There is a trend of a lower level of commitment by the students for the content discussed within classes. Again, games are part of the solution to this trend. One reason for this lack of commitment is that students are not always engaged with the content. If they do not care about the content, they often do not care about the class. The creative use of games in a variety of classes can help engage students and get and keep them interested in the content. If the students care about what they are doing and are committed to it - the quality of their work should rise.

3) "Too few students are prepared to particpate and complete higher education"
Here again, games can be part of the solution. If our classes are filled with a variety of students all at different levels of ability and preparedness, we as teachers/instructors need to find ways to connect with all our student. Games are one medium that almost all students have experience, regardless of socio-economic backgrounds. As I stated above, games can and should be used to help increase interest and engagement from students who traditionally struggle. Video games can also be used to help bring those under prepared up to an average level. Games are self directed, naturally assessing and engaging - all 3 are good qualities for a tutorial. Using games to help increase skills, also encourages discussion with the student about their progress, challenges and successes.

The latest issue of the Utne Reader contains a well written article on the positive and educational effects of playing video games, Playing with Our Heads. The author, Suellentrop, spends most of the article summarizing much of the positive video game research out there and how gaming is mentally stimulating and beneficial. It's a good overview of some of the past topics covered here on like the work of Johnson and Gee. Overall the article is very positive and helps support the statements of myself and others, that games (even violent games) have mental and educational value.

Suellentrop cites Paul Trachtman, from the Smithsonian magazine, who encourages non-gamers to "ignore the dubious content, the "surface or the imagery or the story line." Underneath that layer, as Trachtman states, is a medium that is "a test of your facility for understanding the logic design that the programmer wrote into the game." The value of games is not about the atmosphere, violent or not, that players exist in. The value is in the analysis, critical thinking and problem solving that games require in order to be successful.

Suellentrop supports this point by stating, "Games, in short, are teachers. And electronic games are uniquely suited to training individuals how to navigate our modern information society."

Read: Information Literacy Skills.

note: this post was written on Wednesday, but due to meetings and a conference at work it is posted a day later.

This radio story from the BBC came through my feeder today from Gamepolitics.com. It compares two controversial media both of which were said to "corrupt the youth" - novels and video games. It's a fitting news story since the UK is currently working to pass video game regulating legislation.

Long View

The story is also fitting since our library walked into a little controversy over video games as well. We are planning on doing a gaming night in the library using a variety of games (Wii Sports, Guitar Hero, DDR, Madden, Halo, and maybe Gears of War). The library staff involved in planning (including the Director) are excited about the possibilities of a gaming night, but we are getting questions from above about the appropriateness of including "M" rated games in an academic library sponsored event.

While these questions delay our gaming night, I am looking forward to the engaging in the discussion about the value of video games. This provides an opportunity to expand the assumptions people hold about video games and advocate the positive aspects of gaming and what it bring to learning. The work of James Paul Gee, Mark Prensky and others including The Federation of American Scientists provide a variety of justifications for the positive applications of games. So I'm pulling together some research and I'm looking forward to discussing video games which others on campus whose opinion I greatly respect.

The Escapist - Shark Bone or Snake Oil?

With the success of games like Nintendo's Brain Age, there is a growing interest in using games to stimulate and increase brain activity. The market has proved these games to be successful and is creating more interest from mainstream publishers.

Games are not a cure, but more importantly they are not the curse either. Even though the "brain games" focus on more traditional skill sets, all games involve brain activity. Whether or not some object to the content of the games is a point for another discussion.

NPR covered this same topic last week

For a Healthy Brain in Old Age, Start Early

Both are quick reads and provide examples of games used as teaching tools outside of traditional education settings...

Life long learners = Life long gamers

Happy New Year everyone! I hope everyone started the new year off as exciting as I did – jumping out of bed post midnight to the sound of a large explosion (due of course to my “fun” loving neighbors).

The new year brings a few site design changes, like including the tag links on the right. I'm also now registered on Technorati. I’ll continue to tinker with the layout and color, so let me know what you think.

I spent part of my New Year’s Day discussing Pokemon with a friend’s 8 year old son. It turned into a wonderful conversation as he fleshed out the details of playing his Pokemon game on the GameBoy Advance. He discussed, at length, the strategies needed to capture different varieties of Pokemon and train them. From choosing different Pokemon based on elemental match-ups, to completing multi-tiered quests, to battle commands, he was thinking multiple steps ahead and making decisions based on the information available. And he was loving every minute of it.

Pokemon just finished celebrating their 10^th anniversary and really launched onto the American pop culture scene around 1998 with the release of the original GameBoy games and the first movie in 1999. Kids from ages 6 to 16 were playing it, and are still playing. Many of the kids that started playing Pokemon, are now our students and will continue to be. There’s an opportunity for instruction and application in the “gotta catch’em all” world of Pokemon.

If the 8 year old student sitting at my kitchen table (and others around the country) can evaluate and maintain up to 386 Pokemon, then keeping track of a dozen specialized databases for research should be a breeze. If he could recite the attributes, strengths and weaknesses of a handful of Pokemon, then understanding the strengths and weaknesses of the resources and databases used by our students should not be a challenge.

Our students are up to the challenge, we just need to help them want to. The sense of completion, social interaction, and motivation to catch just one more all help to make Pokemon popular – now we just have to tap into that. Of course, we’ll never be a pop culture fad, but we can take steps to make us more engaging.

Pokemon makes me believe our interfaces do not need to be more simple, they just need to be more interesting. If a student can play out and navigate a world to catch a Bulbasaur, they can "play" through quality research.

Thanks Fuzzcat for the photo, via Flickr's Creative Commons

I meant to post this back on the 26th when the book was released, but here it is...

How Computer Games Help Children Learn

David Williamson Shaffer's new book focuses on using video games to immerse students in learning. I just finished reading his article Before every child is left behind which gets at the thesis of his book. He advocates for games not for fun, but for education. Games that help students think like doctors, lawyers, engineers and other professionals as they play out those roles in the game. His example of Yu-Gi-Oh trading cards being more complex than much of the reading done in elementary school fits right in with video games. If the students are interested in the content or the interface, they are more willing to stay engaged and motivated to succeed. Shaffer identifies that many students can learn facts, but are failing to apply the concepts or to develop new ideas.

Shaffer advocates for the creation and use of "epistemic games" - games that immerse students in real world professional activities in order to get them to understand, create, and innovate within those applications. In other words, he attaches meaning to assignments making them not only relevant to their lives but relevant to their future careers. Shaffer states, "Epistemic games are about knowledge, but they are about knowledge in action-about making knowledge, applying knowledge, and sharing knowledge." The games are there to get the students thinking, acting and caring about real issues.

Sound like information literacy to anyone else?

Our role, as librarians, in these games does not even need to be fundamentally different - information literacy skills are vital to succeeding in these games. They are researching within the context of their game goals. Students playing these games still need to know what information they need, how to find it, and how to evaluate it - in order to apply to the problem presented within the game. One of Shaffer's games, Madison 2200, deals with urban planning and the students need information from a wide variety of sources. The game could give them that information or the game could allow them to determine what information they need... and here's where information literacy comes into play. Our role is to help them through the process of determining what information they need, finding it and evaluating it.

Research for a game that students want to succeed at is a lot more fun and productive than researching for an assignment they don't care about.

Check out the article link or the book and let me know what you think.

The Chicago Tribune also did a nice article on him back on Christmas day and it also gets at the thesis of his book - check it out here

Here's a gaming research news story that was picked up by the video game media today about a study conducted by the University of Rodchester on 1000 gamers:

A reason why video games are hard to give up: Kids and adults will stay glued to video games this holiday season because the fun of playing actually is rooted in fulfilling their basic psychological needs.

I love the connection here to the educational strategies in games. Many of the driving desires to play and find enjoyment are the same as those educational benefits found by the Federation of American Scientists:

- opportunities for achievement (assessment)
- freedom (choice and personalization)
- connection to other players (social interaction)
- autonomy (self achievement and goal setting)
- relatedness (real life applications)

It's good to see the motivating factors that keep players playing are many of the educational factors as well. This bodes well for us as educators looking to use games and game strategies. If and when we can weave our content into gaming formats the research is there to show that it may not only be educational but also successful in keeping the students engaged.

I hope everyone had a good holiday. Since it is the holidays and many of us recently finished writing and ripping tags, I'm starting to add my own. Last week I updated to the new Blogger software and it includes tagging labels.

So I'll be going back through the old posts (since the relaunch) and tagging them so they are easily sorted for those interested. Once that's done, I'll get the tags incorporated into the right-hand column. And with the new Blogger software... look for a layout update sometime in the near future (or at least some late night). Let me know if these are helpful or if they are too broad/narrow - I'll never claim to be a catalog librarian.

From my digital natives to you and yours - Merry Christmas.


Are your patrons or students are getting video games for the holidays? Find out... and find a way to incorporate it. At our Christmas, here are the games given as gifts for my niece & nephew, each game has applications to learning and research...

Guitar Hero 2: A fun rhythm game with classic rock music, great fun for multiple players of all ages; 40 year olds played alongside 10 year olds; the co-op mode is a nice parallel to any group work where each player has a role and strengths; without teamwork the game can't advance.

Kingdom Hearts II: The loved the first KH game which mixes classic Disney characters and locations with Final Fantasy characters into a fun and light action-rpg; although the game doesn't do anything new it still requires players multi task to balance and manage multiple characters and items; while there are some critical thinking strategies involved in some of the quest, unfortunately it often breaks down into simple button mashing;

There's a danger in games just being seen as button-mashers - just as there's a danger in research being seen as simple Google. Games are not that simple, and we all know that research is not that simple.

Madden 07: There is a lot of analysis, prediction, logic and strategy involved in most sports games and Madden excels here, the depth of options and management actually involves in-game research to exploit each teams and players' strengths and weaknesses.

These games are just the 3 PS2 games my niece and nephew opened on Christmas day. I received my own Christmas video game for the Nintendo DS, but I haven't had too much time yet to dig in... There are a wide range of systems out there all with games that can be tied into learning and research - we just need to try.

So ask and explore, find out what your students and patrons are playing or received over the holidays. Find out why they like it... and use those answers as the gateway to link games and learning in their minds.

I found out on Thursday that my presentation proposal for the state academic library conference got approved. I also got another proposal approved that a fellow instruction librarian from work and I put together. I'm excited for both. Of the 12 presentations at the conference, I'll be leading 2.

With that in mind, I'll be keeping the ACRLog post in mind... Higher Expectations For Presentations

Steven sites a good post by Dave Paradi and both discuss issue that I'll factor in as I'm preparing my presentations.

On a related professional development note, I'll be getting a review copy of Jenny's "Gaming in Libraries" report. I love Jenny's work, but I'm also excited that I was contacted to get a review copy... I'm excited someone out there is reading this.

Paul

I meant to get this post out late last night, but I was up past 1:00 with a sick baby. Tis the season for snow, lots of family, spreading joy and germs. Anyhow, I trying out a new story idea by posting some of the video game news stories I'm reading. I'm still using the "What I'm Reading" column on the top of the blog to highlight what I'm reading, but since there's starting to be more traffic on this site (from none to minuscule) those of us using RSS feeds may never get those. So here's my gaming wrap up for the past couple of days. The column will still feature other articles that relate to gaming and education/instruction.

These are a few bigger topics that while not directly related education or libraries but are significant and potentially useful.

Teaching Thinking Skills Through Game Authoring
Serious Games always does a nice job covering educational issues.

The Designer's Notebook: PS3 versus Wii
Here's a nice comparison, from a designer's perspective of both the PS3 and the Wii. One reality that seems to pop up in article after article is that because of the cost of development for each console (tens of millions for PS3 vs. hundreds of thousands for the Wii) developers can take more chances on Wii games since it will be easier to recoup the costs of development. This means more creative original games that take chances.

Brief History of Game Console TV Ads
An interesting feature from PC World magazine that shows the changes in how video games are portrayed over the years.

Video Game Media Watch's Review of Time Magazine's PS3 Coverage
Video Game Media Watch is a good watchdog blog on video game journalism.

West Virgina University Studies WV Schools Use of DDR in Gym Class
Game developer Konami partnered with WV to introduce DDR in gym classes... here's the first studies to see how effective it's been.

Gamasutra's Quantum Leap Awards
It's the end of the year and lots of gaming sites have "Best of" awards out now and most are worth checking out. Gamasutra's awards are nice since they are about advances in the industry. Enjoy.