In the spirit of national celebration, I am declaring Fantasy Sports as the official national sport of librarians. That's right, since I'm not aware of any other "National Librarian Sport" I'm declaring Fantasy Sports (ie. fantasy baseball, fantasy football) the official national sport. On what authority you may ask? None. None what-so-ever. But...

Fantasy Sports require:

• Strong research skills
• Excellent use of information literacy
• Critical thinking abilities
• Social communication
• No physical qualifications

Is there anyone else out there playing fantasy sports? Any educators / librarians interested in forming a fantasy football league?

Now, I've played fantasy football for over 6 years and I'm know there are other librarians (Chris Thomas plays fantasy baseball) out there that play as well. But I've seen very little discussion on fantasy sports and information literacy. A quick search through EBSCO databases turns up nothing relevant on fantasy sports and libraries, let alone anything specific to information literacy. Even a Google search turns up very little. Back in 2003 Michael Lorenzen blogged about his interest in fantasy football and the desire to do a class on it. Last year a student and I put together an information literacy lesson for athletes on fantasy football, but didn't get to implement it. I am looking to do so this year though.

The successful fantasy sport player consistently applies 4 of the 5 ACRL Information Literacy Competency Standards. Every week (and even daily) fantasy football, baseball and other sport players do the following:

• Standard 1: "The information literate student determines the nature and extent of the information needed."
• Indicator 1: "The information literate student defines and articulates the need for information literacy."
• The strengths and weaknesses of the team
• What positions are required
• What player match-ups exist
• Explores general information sources to gain a focus

• Indicator 2: "The information literate student identifies a variety of types and formats of potential sources for information."
• Identifies a variety of sources (printed guides, websites, interviews, peer conversations
• Constructs information from the raw data (game stats) from primary sources

• Indicator 3: "The information literate student considers the costs and benefits of acquiring the needed information."
• Determines what info is available free and what is fee and the benefits of each

• Standard 2: "The information literate student accesses needed information effectively and efficiently."
• Indicator 2: "The information literate student constructs and implements effectively -designed search strategies."
• Identifies what terms (positions, players, keywords) to search
• Implements search through various methods and retrieval

• Indicator 3: "The information literate student retrieves information online or in person using a variety of methods."
• Fantasy players use chats, forums, call-in shows, interviews, email letters to gain primary information

• Indicator 4: "The information literate student refines the search strategy if necessary."
• Assesses the quality the information and determines if they have enough to make roster, player, draft decision
• Identifies gaps in their information and repeats search in order to make informed decision

• Indicator 5: "The information literate student extracts, records, and manages the information and its sources."
• Many players create their own organizational systems (spreadsheets, draft cheat sheets)
  
• Tracks citation sources in order to come back to them ("future reference") during the season

• Standard 3: "The information literate student summarizes the main ideas to be extracted from the information gathered."
• Indicator 1: "The information literate student summarizes the main ideas to be extracted from the information gathered."
• Reads source content and selects the key data that applies to need (roster, team, match-up)

• Indicator 2: "The information literate student articulates and applies initial criteria for evaluation both the information and its sources."
• Determines the reliability, bias, validity, authority and timeliness of sources in order to make roster and drafting decisions
  
• Recognizes prejudice potential in fan based sites compared to professional sites

• Indicator 3: "The information literate student synthesizes main ideas to construct new concepts."
• Recognizes trends and relationships in stats (primary sources) and commentaries
  
• Often uses spreadsheets and tables to construct comparison charts and rankings for drafting

• Indicator 4: "The information literate student compares new knowledge with prior knowledge to determine the value added, contradictions, or other unique characteristics of the information."
• Decides if they have enough information to make a draft / roster decision
• Draws conclusions based on evidence that effect the season/week/day gameplay
• As the season progress, the players integrate new and ongoing information with previous knowledge to make timely decisions

• Indicator 5: "The information literate student determines whether the new knowledge has an impact on the individuals' value system and takes steps to reconcile the differences."
• Players encounter commentaries and information that contract their own beliefs on teams/athletes and their value

• Indicator 6: "The information literate student validates understanding and interpretation of the information through discourse with other individuals, subject-area experts, and / or practitioners."
• Engage in personal and electronic discussions about players and decisions
• Expert opinions are sought through weekly shows and chats conducted by paid professionals (ESPN, NFL, CBS)

• Standard 4: "The information literate student, individually or as a member of a group, uses information effectively to accomplish a specific purpose."
• Indicator 1: "The information literate student applies new and prior information to the planning and creation of a particular product or performance."
• Articulates the knowledge gained in the drafting process and weekly roster moves (end product)
• Manipulates digital data (league websites and team pages) to reflect knowledge

• Indicator 2: "The information literate student revises the development process for the product or performance."
• After every match-up, the player reflects on the process and the results (win/loss) to determine future strategies

I do not think I've ever laid out fantasy football (baseball, etc.) in such detail, but each of these indicators and outcomes are practiced on a weekly basis by fantasy sport players. At this level of information literacy integration and the length of the seasons (lasting at least 5 months), how can this not be the information literacy librarians sport of choice.

Anyone interested it trying out the new "national" sport for librarians?


Information literacy competency standards for higher education. (2000). Retrieved July 4, 2007 from http://www.ala.org/ala/acrl/acrlstandards/informationliteracycometency.htm

Image taken from ACRLog

Here's a news story that made the rounds on Monday and Tuesday. I read it first via Next-gen and they picked up the story from an article in the Scotsman.

Gamepolitics.com picked up the story on here, along with a few other blogs. The study found that online multi-player games help kids understand diversity and allow them the opportunity to experience situations and peer relationships outside of their normal social environment.

My former Godson experienced these benefits from Runescape and other games as well. He was picked on in school and because of his heart condition could not play sports at the same level as others. Runescape and other games provided him the opportunity to be an equal and experience social interactions not possible in his social situation.

How can this equalization be useful in libraries? Can this diversity help in information literacy? What happens to the social dynamic of a classroom when they go online? Are the students equalized or do the physical world's social class apply?

Last week the Slate.com article "World of Borecraft" made some ripples within the educational video game community. The article raises a very legitimate point about the danger of educational games failing to engage students. I first read about it on Ian Bogost's "Water Cooler Games" site. Bogost responded to the Slate article in his post defending serious game that can teach. The Slate article is too dismissive about the potential of games. Bogost defense is supported by others around the Internet.

Discussion was picked up by John Rice at his blog "Educational Games Blog" and at Virtual Learning Worlds.com.
Gameology posted a lengthly reflection on this issue Sunday which analyzes the issue well.

Chad over at Library Voice also linked to this discussion in his post

I do not have a lot more to add to the issue that the others above haven't covered. My question is what does this mean for libraries seeking to use games? The concerns and fears brought up by Slate are ones that we need to be aware of, just as it is important to understand educational games from the viewpoint of those developing them.

If libraries try to use video games that simply are electronic versions of traditional library skills (call numbers, finding books) how engaging will those be for students? Libraries are using games in a variety of ways and it important for those considering it to ask this question.
There is the potential to use video games to teach information literacy outside what we would normally do.

What would make our students engage in a library video game?

I’ve developed a nasty habit over this past month. And no, it's not giving my child white wine to cook diner with. Between work, the draft of an article and trying to get my 2 year old to fall asleep on his own, I’ve started a lot more blog posts than I’ve published. And even those that I did publish this month came in batches. I developed the nasty habit of starting blog posts and never finishing them.

I’m sorry. And thank you for those of you that are still reading this blog. Sure it’s the summertime and things often slow down. I’ve spent more time on non-video game related information literacy issues this past month. Granted that’s important as well, and as I’ve said before, video games are another potential instructional tool in reaching our students and engaging them in class.

Now, I do believe it is a successful piece of instructional technology and pedagogy. And thus, this July should see an increase in my writing focused on video games and information literacy. With the Games, Learning, and Society conference in Madison coming up in two weeks and the ALA Gaming and Libraries Symposium later this month there should be quite a bit to talk about.

July’s a good month to brainstorm ideas for the coming year, so please join in the conversation and let’s see what kind of ideas we can develop that incorporate video games and gaming strategies in our information literacy programs

Back on June 14th (I know that was a year in blog terms), I co-presented on assessment at an Information Literacy Forum hosted by the Des Moines Area Community College (DMMAC). That's all well and good, but the interesting piece for those reading here about video games and education was the presentation by Lynn McCartney of Heartland AEA.

McCartney is a curriculum and technology director of K-12 schools and spoke on "Digital Literacy, Inquiry, and the Millennials." While the presentation itself was nothing new to those in the field, this was a room full of high school, community college and college librarians and only a few had heard of the technologies she mentioned. Her content was very solid with many of her resources coming from Marc Prensky's work. Even her introduction about students "powering down" was directly from Prensky. Here focus was good and she really connected with the audience (same generation, demographics, experiences as the majority of attendees). It was good to hear the message about the value of gaming and video games strategies out there in a variety of formats. And good to know that she brings that message to high schools and middle school year'round.

She made an interesting distinction between video games and the Wii, separating Nintendo from the Wii. Her comments were a sign of the Wii's mass market appeal and acceptance. My thoughts on it were even picked up by the video game site Infendo. Check out my thoughts on their most recent podcast
I'm about 29:26 minutes in.

At the ALA Conference this weekend, James Paul Gee spoke about the significance of games in learning and how libraries and librarians can and should take a role in that. It's not a new message for anyone reading this blog, but it's great to see it addressed to librarians at a national level.

Insider Higher Ed first ran the story here and then Slashdot.com Joystiq and Wired's Game|Life picked up the story as well. Wired's article adds the most substantial commentary to the story.

And of course some blogs are picking it up as well and other library websites. Ohio Public Library Information Network (OPLIN) picked up the story as well with their post. OPLIN links to a few other stories about gaming in libraries and the ALA.

LIS News covered Slashdot's story too, but doesn't add anything new to the discussion.

Last week saw the "Immersive Learning Environments" conference and EDUCAUSE has a great resource page on the conference. There are a variety of resources for each of the sessions on the main page: podcasts, videos and powerpoint presentations are all there.

I've loaded the conference podcasts into my PDA and they should keep me busy most of the week. Here's the direct link to the podcasts. I enjoyed Richard VanEck's presentation on game-based learning and his slideshow.

Great resources... enjoy

Last week the Des Moines Area Community College hosted an information literacy forum for community college, high school and college librarians. In the morning our keynote speaker, Daniel Callison led the attendees in some workshops on critical thinking. Much of the discussion covered the lack of historic focus on critical thinking and too much of a focus on tools and navigation skills. What struck me in our discussion was the expression by some that students lacked the ability when entering college to do critical thinking.

I question if it is the ability or the motivation that students lack?

Students have critical thinking skills, they are just not used to or required to apply them to educational content. Our students come in with an existing ability to do this – they evaluate reviews on Amazon.com, trusting some and not others (based on an often unspoken set of criteria); identifying “doctored” elements of photo-shopped pictures; and working through a video game.

The Federation of American Scientists identified “critical thinking” as one of the key educational components within video games. Look back at Gee’s list from “What Video Games can Teach Us about Learning and Literacy” many of which tie into critical thinking.

We can help our students be academic critical thinkers by drawing out these experiences and building upon them with educational content.

Daniel challenged the audience to help students (at a young age) ask question, test limits, explore information and be “intelligent selectors of sources.”

Most video games build these skills and design elements into the game.
We just need to make the connections.

Today Amazon sent me a "suggestion" email about upcoming books based on my search history... normally I would quickly hit Delete, but today's message was about Egenfeldt-Nielsen's book "Understanding Video Games: The Essential Introduction." The book looks like a good overview on game research, but there are not many reviews (amazon, Books in Print, journals). I hadn't read anything by Egenfeldt-Nielsen, but it lead me on an article and web search for his work. Based on what I've read from him so far, his book should be worth the investment. Here's his faculty webpage and a long publication list with links and download file.

His dissertation is also available:
Beyond Edutainment: Exploring the Educational Potential of Computer Games
Download his dissertation here

He has a variety of articles in print and online:
Can Education and Psychology Join Forces
Egenfeldt-Nielsen, S. Can education and psychology join forces: The clash of benign and malign learning from computer games. NORDICOM Review, 26(2), 103-107.

Understanding the educational potential of commercial computer games through activity and narratives. This article was published in "Game Research"

Egenfeldt-Nielsen was one of the founders of Serious Games Interactive. The website containsh research and demos of serious games for learning. Their game "Global Conflicts: Palestine" looks very thought provoking. As someone who taught a high school World Studies class, this game creates a great springboard for experience and discussion. There is a free demo for download so give it a try.

Since I grew up in an area of TV sitcoms "clip shows" filled with flashbacks, I felt it appropriate to take a moment to celebrate the 200th post with a series of flashback links. Now while most of the posts were written after the relaunch / refocus of the blog as video game and information literacy research, there were a handful of posts from my personal life circa 2005.

Here's a look back at some posts you may not be familiar with to a time when...
[camera pans, screen image goes out of focus]

• I passed out during the campus blood drive
• I commented on 2005 fantasy football ratings - (fantasy football is all about information literacy, but that's for another post)
• My son prayed for a piece of toast
• I wished those reading a happy Father's Day and reflected a little on my own dad

[screen image goes out of focus]

And so, as another Father's Day passes, I hope those father's reading had a good day. But really shouldn't we enjoy everyday with our children? Happy Father's Day.

Hear me out for a moment on this one...

I spent 4 days last week either prepping or lecturing about curriculum mapping. I also helped walk the librarians at another college here in town through the process of curriculum mapping the week before. And thus, curriculum mapping is on my mind as of late. This afternoon, while mowing the lawn (exciting, I know), I realized that good game design is very similar to curriculum mapping.

Of the following applications, please tell me which apply to video games, curriculum, or both:

• Introduce new skills
• Provide practice opportunities for new skills
• Demonstrate application of skills
• Advance skills by modifying and/or adding skills
• Provide opportunity to demonstrate mastery of skills

Regardless of if a program is introducing, reinforcing or providing mastery of a set of objectives or a video game introduces basic moves/controls, adds to their function and complexity and then has the player demonstrate mastery by advancing through levels and bosses - they are attempting to do (in a rough sense) the same thing - Create new learning that can be retained.

If this model works, what (if anything) does it mean for library instruction?

"Video Games in the Classroom"
The online table of contents provides a pretty good idea about what is offered.

It looks to like a neat application for K-12 teachers. Traditional lesson content with a video game topic. It would be a nice way to get students invested into their topics a little quicker since they would be working on issues they feel passionately about. I would have loved to work on a project like some this. But I wonder how a non-gamer student reacted to these lessons?

I've also ordered two more scholarly books as well...

Good video games and good learning : collected essays on video games, learning, and literacy

By James Paul Gee

Here's the table of contents to Gee's new book. The chapters look good, but many look to be reprints of former material. The "Why Study Games Now?" chapter is very similar to the Games and Culture article "Why Game Studies Now?" Even the subtitles are the same. Granted, this doesn't mean that the information just a simple reprint... Gee could have updated it. Has anyone read it yet?

Gaming lives in the twenty-first century : literate connections

Edited by: Cynthia L. Selfe and Gail E. Hawisher

This is another collection of essays, but from a variety of researchers. Check out the table of contents for a full list. I'm not sure how many of these essays were previously published, but the topic list is impressive. Even though the scope is broad, most have educational applications.

As I get past the article deadline in July and start reading again... I'll post analysis and discussion.

So often I'll dig through the hundreds of blog posts the filter through my RSS reader (Google Reader is my choice) reading some and skimming others as I go, but rarely do I jump back to the initial post. My mindset was that of:

"I read it, got the point of what was being communicated, and wanted to move on since there were still 161 unread posts waiting to be read."

But what I miss is part of the entire significance and value of blogs and a variety of other social software - I'm missing what other users are saying. Last week I read Michelle Boule's guest blog post over at ACRLog.

And while it's over a week old now, so I'm not going to recap it... if you haven't read it - please do so. But when I read it initially on the first day there were only 2 comments. Now coming back after a week there are 14 comments, many of which provide information on other librarians looking at gaming and academic libraries.

There are many names here that I want to follow up with and develop some academic correspondence. But most of it would have been missed if didn't come back today. Maybe most of you are doing this already, but I know now that posts that I saved on the initial read deserve a follow-up.

Today our library hosted a workshop with two other Iowa Private college libraries. Each library shared what they were doing. They shared about marketing, research assignments and faculty collaboration. We shared about curriculum mapping, assessment and faculty collaboration. It was a good day and each library walked out with new ideas. Thankfully, some of those ideas are a result of my presentation on incoporating gaming strategies into instruction.

Much of what I presented was pulled from my LOEX and Iowa ACRL presentations, although refined more as a research of continued research and discussion. The key refinement that resulted from this workshop is the importance of the entire package.

The success of applying video game strategies into information literacy is a result of the entire package. The educational strategies that video games imply (critical thinking, practice, motivation, personalization, feedback, problem solving) are not unique. Librarians have worked on these for decades. The reason that video game strategies work for instruction is because the lessons do not just target 1 or 2 of these, but the lessons incorporate many of these skills at once and allow students to apply them together.

Video game strategies improve information literacy instruction, not by simply labeling a skill set we previously taught as a "game."
Video game strategies improve IL instruction when they are applied in unison and the lessons look at the strategies as an entire package.

I could blame the summer time on the lack of posts in June. I could blame vacation trips for not posting since the first of the month. No lay the blame squarely on Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney.

Phoenix Wright is an adventure game for the Nintendo DS, where you play as a lawyer investigating crimes, locating evidence and cross examining witnesses in the courtroom. The core gameplay is really based on reading comprehension. You are provided with evidence (assuming you find the evidence by talking with people and examining the crime scenes) that points out inaccuracies in the witnesses testimony and your job is to point these out in court and ultimately trap the guilty witness in their web of lies.

It's a great information literacy game. You check different sources, determine the accuracy of them, and decided what the information need is in a variety of situations.

So yes, the librarian is wrapped up in a game that tests my information skills. I'm in the 3rd of 5 chapters and they get longer as they go. The game's a great value, but it's not perfect. The evidence gathering scenes get long and tend to drag on. And while the courtroom scenes are the most fun, they are very linear and force the correct choice before moving on.

Phoenix Wright is guilty as charged of stealing away my free time.
Any objections? If so, try out this fun page and create your own objection... Like this one.

What do you think your students would choose to join?

Over at the video game news blog Kotaku there was a post about starting a video game club for players to play and then meet online to talk about and analyze the game. Even the Chronicle's Wired Campus blog picked up this story.

This is another great application of use games for social interaction. As I mentioned back with the Quarantined game, there is a lot of potential for social discussion through gaming experiences.

I'd love to discussion the high and low points of a game with others that had just experienced the game, but finding the time would be the hard part. Anyone interested?

I've read Mark Wagner's blog for the past few months and it is a wonderful resource. Mark is working on his dissertation and is publishing the planning, content and revisions. Mark's blog is a great research based resource for anyone interested in video games, education and learning. With over 400 posts about "Games and Education" it is a rich blog.

His most recent entry provides a link to download his 12 page "Video Games in Education" section of his work, including a good bibliography.

This is the fleshed out version of that post, complete with examples, citations, and quotes. This long version is also different from the other long segments I’ve been posting because it’s more based on the presentations I’ve been giving than the formal notes I’ve collected.

It's worth your time to download and read through his work. It is a good introduction for those new and for those of us entrenched in this subject the 16 page bibliography is excellent.

MIT literature professor, Dr. Alice Robison, discusses video games and education on a podcast on Byte Speed.

Dr. Robison discusses gaming & learning and general learning practices that are reflect in the act and experience of video games. Video games are not about the content, but they are about the process. This line of thought is in line with Gee and Shaffer's work, that while games do not teach math problems they do teach students how to think link a mathematician.

Games are designed to encourage social interaction for success. I've talked about this before, but she provides support to the general discussion.

She also makes the point that thinking is traditionally separate from doing, while most students are used to think and do at the same time. Mulit-tasking is not a distraction, but is a natural practice. I makes me think of the complaints I've heard from others about all the distractions the students get into once they sit at a computer. Would they be any less distracted in a traditional classroom if the content was not either engaging or relevant?

Okay, last weekend I took a physical vacation and since I've been back I've been on a mental vacation. So sorry for the lack of posts.

Now here's my sad story. As I was preparing for vacation, stressed about the upcoming article I need to write and generally distracted. I feel victim to an Amazon scam. I wanted to believe and wanted to sell the Gameboy, and even though something didn't quite fell right I shipped it out anyway. Unfortunately, I discovered the scam too late to stop the package. Scammed.

Now, here's the lesson (you know just like at the end of most cartoons from the 1980's): I was just like my students. Sure I checked the links and they all traced back to real places. But I didn't go far enough.
How often do our students settle on quality because they just want to believe this is right or just need it to be done?
I paid the price in losing a GameBoy Advance. What price do our students pay?

While I have no idea who this photo is of, that's pretty much how I felt.
Photo via Flickr.com by M J M

By now you have probably heard about the most recent issue of the Escapist. It's been covered on Game On, Jenny Levine's theshiftedlibrarian, and others. And rightfully so. The Escapist is an alternative online video game magazine that provides weekly theme based issues. Issues are quick reads and provide unique and insightful essays and news stories.

This week's focus is on education. The article on DDR and libraries is a fun read. It shows what is being done in public libraries with games to a whole new audience. I was also interested in the Whyville: Saving the Children article. I have not seen it discussed in library blogs, but it is worth your time.

What sets Whyville apart is not what it teaches kids about the world around them, but how it teaches them. Whyville takes a hands-on approach, introducing kids to the science they take for granted.

I do not have experience with "Whyville" but it gets the video games and learning piece correct. Games succeed in teaching because of how they teach and help us (or force us) to learn, not because the content needs to be revolutionary.

Since I'm on a GTA: San Andreas as a reflection on society research kick, I've read two very different articles that look at GTA from two distinct directions.

Barrett, P. (2006). White thumbs, black bodies: Race, violence, and neoliberal fantasies in Grand
Theft Auto: San Andreas. The Review of Education, Pedagogy, and Cultural Studies, 28:
95-119.

The article takes a very critical view of GTA and the racial issues it represents. It looks at the representation of body, sex, gender, and class as shown through GTA. Barrett discusses how Rockstar's game portrays a negative stereotype of African Americans through the characters and environment of the game.

Murray, S. (2005). High art / low life: The art of playing Grand Theft Auto. Performing Arts
Journal, 80: 91-98.

The article views GTA: San Andreas as a mirror and dissects the gameplay, characters, and environment as a satirical commentary not only on the early 1990's society it depicts, but also on today's society. Murray views Rockstar's use of providing the African American main character with the ability to rise above his surroundings an achieve a jaded version of the "American Dream" as a satire on institutional racism.

The criticisms that Barrett makes about GTA reducing the African American male down to nothing more than a physical commodity and thus promoting racial stereotypes is viewed by Murray not as continuing racism but as a "reminder of a shameful history of genocide and slavery." Both points are valid and anyone playing GTA: San Andreas should welcome a discussion of these issues as depicted in the game and how they are played out in our current society. Rockstar created a very mature game, both in the content and themes, and we (as educators) should treat it maturely. While there is certainly content that is objectionable, there is a unique opportunity to use that content as a jumping off point for a serious, meaningful, and mature discussion about race and class in America.

The video game violence research unit that I've mentioned before is part of a research component for our English composition classes. The library created and leads this unit in collaboration with our writing center and the faculty. It's resulted in some interesting discussions from the students. My co-worker drafted an proposal for an article and it just got approved last week. Now we just have to write it. I'm digging into the literature now, as my co-authors are, but here is an overview of the article:

As part of an ethics initiative on the University of Dubuque campus, the librarians created and implemented a collaborative project to incorporate ethics, information literacy, and critical thinking into a beginning composition course.The course is a required introductory English composition and rhetoric course, equivalent to English 101 at most institutions. This article focuses on the process for the creation and implementation of this collaborative unit, and the qualitative data collected through the first three semesters of integration.

Hopefully, as we are digging through the literature and writing the article I will find some new critical thinking applications to apply video game strategies to.

I've been off for a few days with family in town and home improvement projects, which means I've been too sore the past few nights to do more than log a few battles in Puzzle Quest (download the free PC Demo here).

But I did start playing around with modding. I started playing around with the game editor for Freedom Force, a 2002 super-hero role playing game. I choose it based on a few key reasons that would make it easy to use at my library and ideally other libraries as well. The game has:

• A solid 3D engine
• Low system requirements
• Robust modding editor
• Mouse based game interface
• NPC characters in modern clothing
• Pre-existing urban maps
• Existing modding community

Based on these factors I feel that Freedom Force is a good first start. It may not result in a final product, but it should at least help me test out some design ideals and create a proof of concept. Now I just have to get over my intimidation of all the fields in the modding editor. Wish me luck.

This week John Farquhar from Western Washington University, posted an email to the IL listserve about an upcoming alternate reality game designed to teach critical thinking and info lit skills.

During the fall term of 2007, a team of faculty, librarians, instructional designers and student volunteers will be hosting an internet-based alternate-reality game (or ARG) designed to teach critical thinking and information literacy skill. The game will be targeted to college students, yet will be freely open and promoted in order to attract a broad range of participants

The only thing I know about alternate reality games comes from Jane McGonigal's I Love Bee's success. I know very little about the entire concept behind alternate reality games, but I am interested in knowing more about what they hope to teach and how it would happen.

Since I'm habitually behind on my IL listserve (really who isn't), if anyone knows anything more about the project please let me know.

Yesterday over at Tame the Web, hosted a guest blogger Michael Westfall who shared his concerns over school libraries and video games.

But beneath my game racism – my gamecism – is a fear. What frightens me is that many of my students have significant difficulty reading and comprehending text online, whether it’s a Wikipedia entry, an advertisement, or even detailed directions for a game.

He also states his concern about the learning that happens from games since...

The tangible product doesn’t exist after playing a game.

His post got me thinking about how he and others could use the experience of playing video games to address his comments and concerns.

What about an activity like, let one group play for a few minutes, then have them write down what the game is, where it was found, and how to play it... the next group would rotate in but only use the written content. Their task would be to determine if they are able to read and understand what the previous student wrote, what's the game and how to play it. Then give them an equal amount of time to play and see if the directions were accurate.

This activity could be repeated for additional groups. If the instructor could use the student's gaming desire and gameplay to have them create some of their own content (reflections, directions, descriptions) the students could see the connection and relevance with reading and gaming. Tapping into the students' knowledge base and having them share it opens the door to a wide variety of information literacy and critical thinking skills.

If you read my last post, I hope you were thinking, "Well of course that worked - that's just good pedagogy." That's what realized during the planning of the session at least.

Unfortunately, I spent time preparing for conferences and trying out creative instruction sessions this past semester. I pushed some instruction sessions to the side. There were only a few sessions that I went into auto pilot, but there were others, like the content lecture, where I tried to improve it only within the existing framework. In my defense, part of that limited view was a result of the time requirements on all 4 instructions librarians as we taught over 190 sessions this Spring semester.

But regardless of reasons or excuses, now is the time to take that long look in the mirror. How is my teaching? How is my pedagogy? What sessions, classes or disciplines can I improve for the coming year? I'll be sharing my mirror reflections on my teaching and I encourage you to do the same.


Image via www.artandantiqueemporium.com

Today's lesson was a success, all but one student left the session with a narrowed topic. As I mentioned yesterday, I felt there was a need to modify our instruction lecture to change it from a traditional lecture to something that engaged the class more. I took the 50 minute class time and broke it into 3 sections (brief overview lecture, individual topic exploration, and reporting findings) each were about 15 minutes each. The short introduction provided the class a framework for approaching topics and developing a thesis question, but surprising to some of the students in the class... I stopped talking.

I like to talk as much as the next librarian, but by turning the topic discovery and teaching back on the class they were instantly more engaged and tied into their assignment. Each student was focused on finding a topic and exploring the region. I was pleased that no one was really out on a limb doing their own thing.

Taking a look in the mirror and analzying what we already are doing is a great place to start incorporating video game strategies. Today again showed me, that we can gain the benefits of video games through modifying our existing sessions to increase student choice, and personalization.


Photo via Flickr.com by Automania

I'm surprised by the amount of recent interest in what I've done with "the clickers" / Turning Point classroom voting technology. I've had interest from some LOEX attendees and the IL list serve on creative uses for "clickers." I'm also surprised by how unique my application was. The multiple paths, branching lectures and decision tree review activities like Library Dusk were new ideas. My co-worker also received an email request from the UW-Madison libraries about how we are using the "clickers" on our campus.

I'm excited about the interest others are showing and I hope that more people will adapt this strategy. If you are at a school with some type of classroom voting tech, I encourage you to play with it, be creative and think about how it could engage your students.

A few nights ago, I got sucked into the world of Grand Theft Auto: Vice City. After all the conversations in my classes before the end of the semester, I wanted to explore the world from a societal reflection of violence and culture. My challenge with GTA: Vice City is that I wanted to play it as a Role Playing Game. I tried to converse with the people walking down the street, testing the limits of the law enforcement, and exploring the city. I wanted a living world with consequences for my actions.

Although I was disappointed playing GTA this way because Vice City was mission focused, I continued to come back to explore. I wanted to see what kind of life choices I could make within the framework of the game. GTA as a social commentary is not a new idea and there's a body of work about it. One article that stuck with me recently was a post on MIT's Henry Jenkins blog.

The article was on research done by Kurt Squire on teenagers perceptions of GTA: San Andreas. You have to scroll down to get to the article via the link here... but it is well worth it. Here are a few quotes that peaked my interest:

In fact, these kids were a little offended that white researchers would focus on gaming violence rather than the real violence surrounding them... These same kids were concerned that white kids might also think that it's easy to leave the ghetto:
"The most unrealistic part of the game is that as a black man, you can't just up and buy a house."

The social dialog on race and class in America that GTA: San Andreas could stimulate would be a great discussion. Unfortunately, too often it is easier to target and attack the violent depictions, rather than engage in a discussion about the acts and circumstances depicted.


Photo via Flickr.com by Gem

Since returning from LOEX, I've felt creatively drained and tapped out. This past week I scrambled to get caught up. And with the summer classes starting on Monday, I am diving right back into instruction. Monday morning I have an introduction section for our college's Research and Writing course which is focused on the region of Oceania. Over the past few semesters, I've opened their first research paper with an overview of the topic and lecture on potential topics. This past semester I modified it to incorporate student choice and gaming strategies.

Although those sessions went well and the student feedback was positive, as the semester went on I grew more uncomfortable about the long lectures the librarians were giving at the beginning of each paper. If I'm an advocate for video game strategies, like personalization, multiple paths, decision making and feedback, as ways to engage our student - a 45 minute traditional lecture didn't use any of those strategies.

Instead of a traditional format, I'm designing the session to focus on student exploration of topics and having them share the topics they found. The ideal is to get me out from in front of the class and have the students more engaged and sharing with each other.

Over the past year I spent time developing instruction sessions with specific video game strategies in mind, now it is time to go back and look at the other sessions and see how they can be adapted.


Image via Flickr.com by Rob Surreal

There's nothing quite like being gone for a conference (LOEX) during the last week of the semester. Yes it was a huge recharge for my energy level, but the back load of work piled up quickly. Given my last post on the social nature video games, this post from Tuesday at Gamepolitics.com ties in nicely.

Halpin as president of the ECA disputed the results of a study by the "Save the Children" organization. As my previous post stated, I agree with Hal Halpin on why and how games can be a social experience.

The survey itself is a nice example of information literacy. The "Save the Children" organization is not an unbiased group. And the "study" they refer to is based on interviews of 100 teachers and their perceptions. There isn't any experimental data with a sound methodology to support the "findings" of the study... sounds like a good place to start an article search.

As a result of the comments from the AZ State University Gaming project presentation, I’ve thought about my experiences growing up at the arcade. Gaming in the arcade was a social experience. I was reminded of this yesterday upon walking into the arcade here at the hotel. Suddenly memories of my childhood came rushing back at me. Playing the games, like The Simpsons side scrolling brawler, now make me realize one key fact:

I didn’t sink dozens of quarters into these machines because the gameplay was good, I did it because the experience was fun.

We shared the experience with friends and strangers alike. Quarter after quarter we came back for more. We played the game through with people standing next to you, commenting, condemning and commending along the way. Under this model, even single player games were a community experience.

But the question is, how can we adopt that social experience for library video games? The AZ State librarians were discouraged about the initial feedback (but thankfully they are still moving forward). George Washington’s Muckrackers game and staff are discouraged as well. GW was trying to make the game multi player, which is an excellent idea, but costly in terms of creation. The development time and money that is required to develop a multiple player game raise the barrier of entry for libraries. And that does not even take into consideration the logistics of administering to our students.

So in the short term, increasing reflection discussion time and promoting conversations throughout the game can promote that social experience for our students. Gamers are not silent people. We just need to tap into that natural desire to share and critique during gameplay into to create that social feeling of community.

Library games may never give players that same feeling that sinking quarters with friends at the arcade. But we learn from those experiences to engage our students more fully in gaming and learning.

I spent some time playing AZ State University's game on Monday after posting about Quarantined over at Bibliographic Gaming. I enjoyed the game and was able to complete it under the 30 minute time frame both with and without contracting the virus (which then reduces the amount of time allowed in the game). It does a nice job of introducing students to citations and how to begin searching for sources (books, articles, web). If you haven't tried it for yourself, I've provided the link with login and password here.

Take a moment and give it a try. Unfortunately, I only asked for permission to post the free trial for the Bibliographic Gaming blog, not over here. So please bear with the link jumping. The game itself still has a few improvements, but most of what I experience the team of Tammy, Bee and company are already working on them. There were a few times that I thought I needed to explore more, only to realize my path was very limited. Exploring buildings, library stacks and other locations are either not allowed or result in nothing. Although I assume this was a result of either time or programming. Overall I an very encouraged and excited about the work they did on the game.

I am disappointed by the feedback the students provided on the game were not as positive as the team expected and hoped. They found the results “kind of depressing.” I agree with Tammy's statement at LOEX that much of the current frustration and lack of enjoyment may stem from the multiple bugs in the current build.

The students also found the board game more engaging and successful, but why? Is it the content? The gameplay? Was it the social nature of playing the board game that motivated the students? What did you think of the game?

I just got home from LOEX and worked on these notes on the plane... there's more to come on this session, including my opinions, but this post is strictly informative.

For anyone not familiar with the project, the librarians initially developed a board game which they planned on being a testing ground for the video game. The many in the audience appeared to be more interested in the board game than the video game. The physical game has gone through four versions board game and the student feedback is positive. The students enjoy creating their own teams and get rather competitive about it.

Their powerpoint presentation was very similar to their presentation at the Internet Librarian conference last fall. The information was still very useful since it included their feedback from this spring semester. Spring 2007 was the semester they used the game within the class.

The video game project itself started with specific learning objectives that included:

• Library as physical and virtual space
• Services the library offers
• Online catalog
• Types of sources
• Evaluation skills

Game Design

Tammy and Bee provided their timeline and game design process. Tammy stressed the importance of versioning a game and realizing that multiple builds are necessary to get the feedback needed to improve the design. While Tammy had some flash programming knowledge, they needed someone with flash game design experience. It was also important the flash programmer have educational game design experience. Both Tammy and Bee highly recommended Rollings & Adams “Game Design” text as a foundation and overview on how to begin planning, designing and developing a video game. Their High Concept document was their sales pitch to the Library Director and others. They commented multiple times that their director was not only supportive about the project but also highly energetic. After the approval of their high concept they developed their 15+ page game treatment, where every choice and decision tree consequence was outlined. The timeline for development was as follows:

• 7 months spent on plots and character story, a lot of time
• 2 months for design
• 1 month for character interaction
• 2 weeks for animation
• 2 weeks for information retrieval / game catalog and database
• 2 weeks for sound creation
• 1 month for bug tracking

The process took over a year and they are still working on correcting bugs and suggestions identified by the students. Students got confused about what was the next step… not as evident as thought and thus the beta testing and in class use provided critical feedback. Some of the specific bugs and improvements included:

• Inability to leave library after checking out books
• “Copy & paste” option for storing articles
• Need to include “mission” screen to help keep
• Hot spots for interactions, more event based encounters
• Better visual doorways to make navigation easier

Tomorrow I'll post the reflections the AZ State Librarian's had on the project, but I'm off to bed.

Thank you for everyone who stopped by my poster presentation. I enjoyed your questions and I hope the information was useful. Gaming strategies are a place that all of us can start without having to commit the time and cost to developing a game. I commend all of those working on gaming projects, but regardless of where your institution is at I hope you gained some ideas about how to start applying video games into your information literacy sessions.

If you are first visiting here, I encourage you to look at the previous post as an introduction with links to the classes discussed in the poster session.

Here are the links for the assessment tools that I used in the instruction sessions. Each link will lead you to a page to download the assessments.

• Website Evaluation
• Review Activity Rubric
• Research Writing Assessment

I will post the poster as soon as I can get the publisher file small enough to upload. Any feedback or questions on my session is welcome. I'd love to know what you thought.

Thank you.

Thank you for attending my poster presentation and I hope that I was able to provide you with some ideas and information about using video game strategies in the classroom. Since this may be your first time here, please take a moment to subscribe to the RSS feed on the right. I want to provide some additional information about the classes and reflections from my poster presentation.

Let's start off back in the fall with a post that would become the foundation for my application of gaming strategies. I followed up that post with 5 steps for using games, some of which I echoed in my presentation. The analysis and similarities about "Why Our Attempts Fail" in both research and in gaming is another starting point for gaming application.

Last fall, I wrote a series of posts (starting here) reflecting on the results of using open ended game strategies for a research writing review session. The results really opened my eyes about how we teach and how we could teach. I included some student reaction and comments in the final post as well. There are also some detailed notes on my branching / decision tree lecture and my branching "choose your own adventure" article search from this spring as well.

Finally, there are is a post on how the frustration playing games can help non-gamers understand what our students might go through with library interfaces.

Take a few moments to dig back through the last few months here at Research Quest.
I'd love to get your comments on these ideas and any others you want to share. Thank you and I hope that together we can find ways to use video games and gaming strategies to increase our students' success.

I left this morning with my family for the LOEX conference in San Diego. I thought I remembered everything:

• Poster Presentation - check
• Laptop - check
• Clothes - check
• Family - check
• Nintendo DS - check

But it was at the 3 hour mark of a 4 hour plane ride with my two sons that I realized I forgot to pack the DS Battery Charger. For a long flight the DS was a wonderful solution. Explaining how to steer and accelerate in Mario Kart DS to my 3 year old was a great way to pass the time.

We made it here (without any the classic Hollywood "switching of poster tubes" drama) and I'm looking forward to spending the day with my family before the conference.

Hot on the heels of the New York Times article about the success of using Dance Dance Revolution in physical education classes, our library staff "tested" DDR out today before our staff meeting. After all my talk of using games for education, this was my first DDR experience (as it was for most of the staff). I can easily say it will not be my last. In fact, I hope we will do it again as a staff over the summer.

Unfortunately, there were no cameras to record the event, but almost all the staff got involved and had a fun time playing DDR Supernova. The event drew many student and staff witnesses, as is bound to happen playing DDR in a classroom with glass walls.

Everyone laughed and enjoyed themselves. Now I hope the students will do the same on Wednesday night when our library offers up a "Finals Prep Study Break" with snack food, a root beer keg, and DDR.

My recent focus on violent video games and their effects is a direct result of two factors:

• First, the English class research unit on violent video and their effects on college students, means that for the last two weeks from 8 - 12 every Monday, Wednesday and Friday I've talked about nothing but violent game research on aggression.
• Second, as my advocacy for video game applications and their value in education has grown stronger, I've encountered resistance based upon the "overwhelming" negative aspects of video games.

By understanding the research, and what it does (increased aggression, desensitization, difference in responses based on age group) and what it does not (violent action, large effect on stable personality types) show I am in a better position to defend the use and value of video games. Knowing the research also creates a better dialog with those who have concerns.

It is with this in mind that I continue to build my annotated bib on the effects of violent video games and aggression. It is also with this understanding in mind, that I direct you to the story in Slate.com from Friday: Don't Shoot: Why Video Games Really Are Linked to Violence.

Over the past week and a half, I lead four different Composition sections doing a research based paper on whether or not violent video games increase aggression in college students. I’ve talked about the findings of the articles before, but what struck me during the past week was the discussions the students had.

Students that disagreed with the findings of the articles didn’t just right off the conclusions as wrong or false. They began asking questions about the method and sample size. They started looking for variables that were not controlled for and could affect the results. They were engaged and motivated in the assignment. If we can start students asking the critical questions now and thinking critically from the beginning… then they are better equipped to do so on their own. And that is a pretty good gauge of success.

The other key to student success in this research unit, is making sure they move beyond the point I just mentioned - and use the data from the articles. The students should critically analyze the information and question it, but they still need to rely on the data that was reported... and not their own opinion. The classes have done a pretty good job of pulling out the key data (and understanding most of it), but now they are off to write their papers and that is the real test.

As a class, we decided on a class thesis and outlined how they could set up their paper. Their thesis is a variation on this statement: Playing violent video games increases short term aggressive thought and behavior in college students.

This thesis still generated some debate among the students today, but as I told one student who approached me after class,

"The evidence is there, time and again, now the question is what do we do with this increased aggression? How and if we act on it is the test of our character."

And that is a much larger debate.

I’m feeling guilty about not posting too often last week. I was really on a roll this month, but things should pick up later this week as I head off to the LOEX conference tomorrow.

I spent last week running between teaching classes in the morning and working on my LOEX presentation (I wanted to thank Diana again for the help with the layout). Even this weekend I spent most of my time finalizing my poster, updating my resume and playing with my kids. With LOEX coming this week and some summer projects on the horizon, I hope you will stick around.

Given some of the feedback that I've received from my last post, my stressful week bled into the crabby post. I'm tense and feeling all in knots. I am pushing to get my poster presentation for LOEX finalized before the weekend. Thankfully, I have our administrative assistant helping me with the layout... she is currently working on her Master's of Communication so she's able to apply some of here coursework. Once the poster is finished tomorrow, I'll post it here for additional feedback.

Not much more to say, I'm back to finishing the poster...

Should there be a distinction between "games" and "video games" or even "computer games" for librarians? I often use the term "games" here, but I almost always refer to video games. A recent article on "games" makes me think twice about how we are talking about and using "games" in our libraries.

Earlier today I read the post on The Information Literacy Land of Confusion about a new article about "games" for information literacy, and now it is popping up elsewhere. While the article itself provides nice instruction sessions, I feel called to speak up about the articles use of "games."

While I am very thankful that this type of research, instruction and application is going on, I feel that it sets our sights so low as educators. Felicia's article does provides a handful of useful example games and positive student feedback to go along with them. But I feel that it falls into the trap of basing the genre of library games around what traditional librarians are comfortable with... not what are students are. Yes, doing a crossword puzzle on the computer, counts as a "game" and it is more engaging than a traditional lecture. But is it truly as engaging for students as it could be?

I am thankful that there are librarians developing information literacy games for all ends of the gaming spectrum. But I want to make sure that the more interactive and engaging end of the spectrum, those of video games, gets seen and heard from as well. For my instructional time, I would rather offer my students traditional lessons that incorporate gaming (video gaming) strategies that engage and motivate them. Traditional games do work, but we cannot just throw a computerized word game at our students and blindly trust gaming strategies to work.

There is a lot that video games can offer and teach our students, we just need to be willing to reach out and try. Granted if you are reading this, you know that already... we just need to keep spreading the message.

The article and image are from Library Philosophy and Practice 2007 and is written by Felicia Smith of Notre Dame. Games for Teaching Information Literacy Skills