Information Literacy through Unique Education Gaming Application
Presented by Annie Downey & Kristin Boyett, from the University of North Texas, Denton

Annie and I traded emails this April about her presentation and she stated that:

"What we are presenting on is our planning process. Because quite frankly, that is the stage we are in and I believe after reading some of the stuff going around and talking to other librarians at conferences that the planning process is absolutely essential to making something like this happen. Having one grad student do programming with three librarians giving 10% of their time is far short of the time and effort required according to my tech-savvy colleagues and my research into game development. That is the one thing that is really standing out to me when I look at the work of the schools you mentioned."

The Goal:
"Trying to make them learn, without knowing they are learning"

They started looking planning and designing, but expected the realities that others have learned that it: takes longer than expected & costs more than hoped

3 years to develop and $250,000 planned for develop. They did do a grant proposal for this project (ask for a copy)

Kristin gave a good overview of why we should be involved with gaming, gamers and video games applications in our information literacy programs. She made the point that we "already are involved with these students." We may just not be acknowledging it. Kristin setup a background, which build on all the information from

3 educational elements included in their game planning:
Information Literacy, beyond just library research
Online Education
Educational Gaming

A game requires full participation of the students. It is a student centered experience with inquiry-based learning. The experiential learning:

• enmeshed in real world contexts
• active participant
• experiencing
  
• reflecting
  
• adapting

Games include the ability to make mistakes.

Design Concept:

• Character driven
• requires problem solving
• 1st person
• linear
• modules build on another
• may be full semester course

ACRL Standards:
Story is driven by the Info Lit standards, with the assessment and evaluation is driven by the standards. Make the goals much larger than traditional library instruction

Storyline: RPG based game, adventure game based Grim Fandago, players investigate a crime or event. Plot based around a conspiracy theory. A random student is wrapped up in a conspiracy theory. Conclusion includes a presentation of evidence to Board or Police that requires solid sources. Poor sources do not create a viable arguement.

Willing to sacrifice some ACRL standards for gameplay
"a user needs to find the game fun or addicting in order for it to be successful"
Lack of choice of a character, no individual avatars. Include modules in the game in order to monitor

Program Requirements:

• Students logins
• Ability to save
• Need to monitor to assist & help

Evaluation Plan:
Groups: student usability testing, student focus groups, game designers from UNT faculty, student evaluations, librarian evaluations
What will be evaluated: design, visuals storyline, challenges

Personal: realize that they need to hire a programmer who will manage program team, include part-time development team

Budget: Yr 1 = $259,271; Yr 2 = $359,365

Game is not library specific. It is information literacy. Very scalable once created.

Questions on how this is even useful, "too much time", students finding answers, collecting stats on use

Challenges:

• cost
• sustainability
• grading
• system maintenance
  
• one-shot game
  
• buy-in
  
• compelling and interesting
  
• copyright
  
• tracking use

If there is a federal grant, they will not be able to sell it, make it open shareware? Yes!
They are applying for the grant through the National Education Foundation.

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At the end of the day at GLLS, Stephen Abram moderated a panel of about 10 students. There comments were insightful into their use and creation of media and information. The topics discussed ranged from video games and social software to using the library's website and checking out books. The reactions to the students' comments from the audience were as interesting as the comments themselves. The librarians groaned, laughed, and cheered (my isolated cheering for Castlevania 2: Simon's Quest included) to many of the students responses.

I asked a question about if they used video games in their class (they hadn't) and if they think they would enjoy video games for learning in their classes. Stephen Abrams added the question if they would rather have video games or traditional work for homework.

All the students were stuck in a mindset of "hiding the pill in the marshmallow" or as educational game designer Matthew Weise said when I interviewed him, "medicine in the applesauce."

The students kept talking about being turned off and annoyed by games that make the player "click here and learn a fact." They thought of educational games in a very stuffy traditional edutainment sense.They could only see learning games as tedious, boring and rote. Games like Reader Rabbit and other "educational games" give serious educational games a bad name.

One student did acknowledge that they could see how a game could teach about Aztec history and another said:

If they were fun, I would play them.

And this is really the key for us as educators. We need to think about educational games, as games that help educate our students. Games and gameplay coming first and foremost before the content. We need to focus on games that can be engaging or fun or at least interesting. Even then, slipping in content or facts that take the player out of the experience will be less successful than those that integrate the content into the experience of the game. James Paul Gee discussed this morning about how players are constantly learning throughout a game. Gaming in education is most successful when students are learning through the experience of playing, not just because they can "click here and learn a fact."




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James Paul Gee: Libraries, Gaming, and the New Equity Crisis

Here are my notes from James Paul Gee’s keynote speech this morning at GLLS 2007. I am coming back to Gee’s speech later tonight in order to add some analysis and my thoughts on how we can start applying his recommendations in our academic libraries.

Gee was introduced as his new position at AZ State University

Libraries played a major role in old literacy and have a major role to play in new literacy.

Society develops cutting edge learning environments, but the are not available in schools. Current gaps in our schools & students:

• Literacy Gap: Between 1970-84 the gap was closing, but in 84 the racial gap has widened
• Applications Gap: can students apply knowledge to a problem, rather than just spit back facts; “why do most kids fail, but some get Fs and some get As”
• Knowledge Gap
• Tech Savvy Gap: not afraid of technical stuff, use tech to produce and not just consume; need to be both tech savvy and literate, necessary for success
• Innovation Gap: Friedman’s “World is Flat” if we can’t innovate we will not be an econ power, school kill innovation

Just simply handing people technology will only widen the gap, we (parents, educators) need to help build the scaffolding and mentoring, increasing the knowledge gap translates into increasing the literacy gap.

Gee asks,“What predicts success in first grade?” The answer is early literacy at home; success past 4^th grade = kindergarten vocabulary (academic language). This is the need to know school based words. Our children need to be ready to speak and understand this language. School based literacy is academic, it is not just decoding.

Yu-Gi-Oh & Pokemon: the detail and level of the text and instructions (three “if, then” clauses). 7 year olds reading this at home, they still struggle with simple decoding at school. Kids can learn and learn it well, but school makes it hard. There is no limit to kids ability to learn, it is just a desire. If this learning is possible with our children, how/why should we expect our academic students not to understand the concepts in our curriculum. It is not the content, it is the context.

“If you game, you are participating in the context of those you intend to serve.”

“How do you get someone to stick with something that is long and hard.” Game designers realized that good gaming principles are good learning principles. Gaming principles are better with learning principles than schools do. “The richness outside of school swamps those inside our schools.”

If Gee’s principles are good learning, should we put these principles in our schools & libraries. Gee covered 12 of his 36 principles:

• Lower the consequences of failure; fail early, fail often-credo of IDEO; every failure is a learning event;
• Performance before Consequences; games provide tutorials to help you along when you start, rather than providing text to read first, learn while doing and have help;
• Players high on the agency tree; players choices and decisions really matter, individual choice shape the gaming experience, force players to live with choices; players are someone who matters
• Problems are well ordered; neither immersion or straight instruction doesn’t not work, need some of both, order processes to lead to future paths; this is just level design in games, games need to do this to be successful, games often hide this order
• Cycles of challenge, consolidation, and new challenge (expertise); order challenging problem, do it enough that it becomes second nature, routine mastery once achieved then bump up the challenge, gain mastery through practice, then test it with higher skill
• Stay within, but at the outer edge, of the player’s “regime of competence”; “state of flow” games get players motivated by staying just on the edge of challenge
• Games encourage players to think about complex systems; thinking about the inter-relation of variables;
• Empathy for a complex system; difference between games and simulations- a game is a sim that you are in it; users see it from their point of view
• Give verbal information “just in time;” information when players need and can use I, or “on Demand” when the player asks for it; you get the information when you need it
• Situate “show” meanings of words and symbols and show how they vary across different actions, images and dialogues. Don’t just offer words for words; associate it with situated meanings (images and meanings) that go beyond the simple meaning of words; example multiple meanings of “coffee spilled”; game manuals do not have meaning without context, if every kids played the “game” of geology they would understand the situated meaning
• Modding Attitude; “if you don’t like and think you can do better, then you make it” players make the game, not just expecting the game as is,

Assessment of games, people, schools: games give tests all the time; games provide stats and charts that show what players did, players enjoy the assessment because it is a service to them, not for the education system

Schools are forced on providing service workers, not knowledge workers, public schools create service workers, private ones create the knowledge workers (analyst)

We need to make the connection to what they are learning through games and outside of school, the “real” learning happens outside; don’t split up knowledge, share across disciplines

Quick notes on Gee's responses to audience questions:

• “no middle class left” upper middle class, “in the west or east coast there are only 2 classes”
• "The kids we got are the ones you failed with", from a general using “America’s Army” on why they use games to teach
• Don’t tell kids they are behind, we need to help protect them through that process, why do we label they
• Japanese created anime but the whole world understands and enjoys it, what is it doing? Why is it universal?

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Lynn Sutton, the director of the Z. Smith Reynolds at Wake Forest University, saw a gaming night as a way to reach out to those who do not come for the initial library orientations. Gaming nights was a way to reach out to new audiences. Early in Sept. to help welcome those who may not be finding a place, and fit within the campus. In addition to marketing to new audiences, it was supporting innovation and creativity and helping the library stay relevant.

Gaming goes beyond marketing due to it’s implied social networking, inclusion of complex learning theory, and library instruction. Lynn is excited about the future of libraries and gaming both in instruction and OPACs.

Giz Womack, Manager of Technology Training at Z. Smith Reynolds Library, discussed how they conducted gaming nights and tournaments. They required a sign up to play, but anyone can come and watch, eat and now even play as well. There were worries about the size of the tournament. Giz provided a list of the resources they needed to complete the games, including staff, student partners, equipment, and supplies. Giz stressed the importance of finding people on campus to partner with. Look for outdated technology that is being replaced, used outdated LCD projectors the campus was replacing. All the students brought their own equipment, and it worked. Creating a floor plan to layout where the games, system, and hardware needs to be set up. Giz is a energetic speaker and made the organization of hosting a gaming night seem much less threatening. I hope the presentation helps others feel it is possible.

ZSR library used a variety of marketing techniques to promote: emails, university calendars, flyers, word of mouth, student news paper, attached flyers on dum-dum suckers at the library’s entrance, a student created Youtube video, and viral marketing. First night was expense as a hardware start-up ($425), but events following all leveled out around $170 per event. The open game nights pull in around 50-60 students.

On their last game night, they just said “bring anything” wide variety of systems and a much wider audience. (used zoomerang for survey) Students really enjoyed seeing it on the big screen. There is a necessity to keep changing up the games and formats in order to keep bringing people together. It is important to keep stuff for everybody (DDR, Wii) in addition to hardcore.

Lori O. Critz from Georgia Tech presented their experience of gaming at the library. Used the gaming nights during the new student orientation week and it helped to create a more welcoming environment in the library and with the staff. They first started (2004) with LAN tournaments, but now they are focused on all populations. They had a great idea about lit dropping the student’s dorms. Lori provided a lot of details for their former LAN parties.

Lori identified that through these events they did gain: recognition with students, partnerships with clubs and organizations around campus, an excellent boost to their image

They have since stopped and started gaming events that include a wider scope of games (DDR, retro games, card and board games, and other events). Brain Matthews, the ubiquitous librarian, has blogged about these events before. Brain's posts go into great detail about the new focus of GT's "gaming" night.

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Interactive Fiction: Christopher Harris(infomancy@gmail.com)

Interactive fiction: text based adventures - choose your own adventure books - Modern MMORPG games all stem from the same family tree.

Text adventure gamers interact with the story through reading and writing. Commands are "parsed" by the game (n,s,e,w, wear, get, eat). The game knows the command in order to move.

Text interfaces are not simple or underdeveloped, they used text to create a rich, detailed world with interactions with NPCs and the world including complex puzzles that could not be possible through graphics... or at least not without heavy system requirements.

Multi-User Dungeons (MUDs) were text interfaces with massively multiplayer online adventures. They were the forerunners of MMORPGs. MUDs created detailed social interactions through the first player vs. player text based adventures... Winning in these multiplayer MUDs was all about how fast you can read and type. MUDs allowed people to move from being a player into a developer. Players were creating content as they went. Players created the scaffolding with each other to learn and succeed.

Inform 7 is a modern text adventure language that allows users to use natural language. Using natural language lowers the barriers for players to not only play but create. Chris took the audience into a game he made with Inform 7 and engaged most of the audience. The audience was shouting out commands for Chris' text game on the GLLS2007 conference.

Text adventures meet most of the ELA Standards from the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE)

Chris's presentation style and demeanor was engaging, fun, but took moments to pull back and make a serious point now and again. I encourage you to check out all his slides and materials on the conference wiki here...

Zork Image via Wikipedia entry for "Zork"

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Making Book: Gaming in the Library

- Natalie Gick from Simon Fraser University

The game room at their library started with a donated collection. Simon Fraser University in Vancouver has a game design program and major on their campus and supporting that curriculum provided additional support.

They have over 400 games and treat them the same as DVDs in regards to policies. "Lock or Loan" policy: consoles are locked down to tables and controllers are checked out. They also loan out Nintendo GBA and DS games and systems. The library designated a specific liaison to work with the students and gaming department. Since they

Copyright right issues for PC games, they created a 4 hour same day loan period in order to account for copyright concerns. There was not any supporting details (case law or literature) on why this period was used. They did struggle with licenses issues both internally and with contacting vendors and publishers for the games. She discussed the challenges with their IT department and the

Natalie become much more comfortable as she moved from the technical aspects of gaming into the library's role. They did do video game collection development based on reviews, publications, local publishers (like EA) and staff and student recommendations. She discussed some of the challenges they've encountered over the years: equipment failures, noise, monopolized(too much ownership of the gaming space), abuse of privileges.

Code of Conduct:

• respect inclusion
• good behavior
• communciation with staff
  
• respect copyright
• no food
  
• exiting promotely

The library is using games for recreational use, faculty reserves, and course research.

Here is the link to Natalie's power point

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Lisa Hinchliffe, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, thankfully filled in for one of the speakers who could not come. I believe the presentation was very similar to her ACRL 2007 presentation.

As the head of undergraduate library, Lisa recognizes the strength of the gaming industry, the social aspects, and the educational applications as a potential strength for their institution. The University's strategic plan identified a need and created one of the library's goals: "gaming for the ages." Gaming ranked high enough to include in the strategic plan. Their gaming collection web site.

Collections for games depository: needs assessment, funding, collection storage, access, policies (1 week check-out, 70-80% of games checked out at any one time; game policies mirror DVD/media policies). The library acknowledges a responsiblities to future researchers to preserve games for primary research. In order to create the historic collection it is important to consider consoles as well as games. Commitment to building a collection as a major research institute. The library is treating it as text to be archived. Willing to allocate book money to help build collection, because of the unique need. As for storage, anything that fits in a DVD case goes on the shelf everything is behind the desk. The libraries takes the attitude that it is willing to loose a few in order to provide access.

Games as experience vs games as object
How does a library archive the experience of the game for future research? Video journals? Recorded gameplay experience? What is a meaningful language for researchers?

Students and support staff are "passionate" about donating their older games and systems for archive. Student Gaming association did a "game drive" to collect vintage / retro games for archive

Faculty put Civilization IV on course reserves. How do you manage the licensing issues, crashes and other issues? The library created a "gaming cluster" in order to run PC games on their computers. Faculty are using it in their own research as well as creating specific modded games for classes. Faculty researcher on video games talked at one game night and it had a huge student turnout.

Librarians rethinking their roles as researchers and teachers through games. The campus is organizing a "campus gaming symposium 2008"

Lisa is interested and hopeful to try to find a way to adapt our OPAC's with game design. Why couldn't students learn and practice skills with a game-based OPAC. The interface design would be engaging, the system would provide feedback loops with a sense of play. What kind of feedback can we give them to encourage their attempts, not discourage failures and let them know with their search was right. OPAC based on game design would also help build community development (social networking apps to keep them connected).

The future directions at Urbana-Champaign with the potential for a specific video game librarian and historic archive on gaming.

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Random highlights from the 1st day of GLLS 07:

• Struck up a conversation with Henry Jenkins on the airport shuttle about comic books and some of his upcoming projects
• Henry Jenkins keynote was excellent and gave me more ideas for research and applications to information literacy
  
• Met Timothy Greig who I’ve chatted with before on his blog
  
• Met Nemo Neiburger (Eli’s 5 year old son) and found out about his present from the Tooth Fairy
• Got schooled by Nemo in the DDR tourney
• Stole 2nd place from Timothy Greig (a red shell just before the finish line) in the Mario Kart: Double Dash tourney

Overall the first day was filled with some great conversations with attendees. I got some good ideas and met a lot of people I’ve followed online for a while. GLLS07 started off excellent and I’m looking forward to the next to days… stay tuned.

Thanks Beth Gallaway, the information goddess, for the Flickr photos

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Here are my notes, with a few reflections, from Henry Jenkins keynote speech:

It is not about games or books, it's about engaging students, children with the media. The build up of this knowledge and personal connection with culture and media is the core of participatory culture.

How can we as educators tap that excitement and commitment of the culture and turning it and applying it for education?

Jenkins contributes an educational political game for starting him thinking about gaming's connection to education in the fall of 1996. Jenkins' Games to Teach program at MIT wants to start changing the way people think, one librarian, parent, school at at time. Jenkins references Squire's work with Civilization. Talking about process and video game strength in teaching and sharing in that process.

These comment remind me of Matthew Weise's (who started at MIT) comments about games able to teach process. Games that focus on content and specific facts do not engage students as well as those the focus on process... and the content comes through the experience.

Education Arcade is working with NBC for iCue, a partnerships with gaming, news, and education. "Is it more like a spelling bee, or Scrabble?" The focus is on serious gaming, that include a variety of input sources (readings, discussion, reflection). Jenkins stated that the Education Arcade is focused on "what play means as an alternative source of learning. "

His slides include the of results from a MacArthur Foundation report, the quote is from New London Group, "A Pedagogy of Multiliteracies"

"If it were posible to define generally the mision of education, it could be said that its fundametal purpose is to ensure that all students benefit from learning in ways that allow them to participate fully in public, community, and economic life."

The amount of time with screen media is not the real concern, the real concern is the level of engagement with that screen media.
How can we get kids to change the way they relate to it, and how can we use and apply this at the college level?
57 percent of teens would be media creators. Urban are the most likely to be ones doing this, then rural, then suburban. 22% have home pages. 43% do not... What is this gap?
Librarians can play a role in closing this gap.


Participatory culture helps to address this gap :

• Low barriers to expression and engagement
• kind of informal mentorship
• Members feel that contributions matter
• degree of social connection between members

The Participation Gap:
This is more than just the "digital divide" not just with and without access. We've wired our spaces, NOW WHAT?! The idea of "always on" versus those with limited access (home, school, libraries) creates a drastically different experience for users.

Students with constant access look at research as a process, have time to look for creditiblity. Those with limited access are getting in and getting out, less evaluation because they don't have time. What are the components of this gap? And how do we, as librarians battle the gap?

Jenkins talked about a few of the problems and provided avenues to address these problems.

1. The Transparency Problem:
1. How games can translate to learning and content. Need media literacy to get them to think critically.
2. The Ethics Problem:
1. Blogging participation hits it first peak at 17&18 years old. Without the ethics that come from a school newspaper

How do we address and meet these problems? Everyone, parents, culture, schools, libraries all play a role?

Students Need:

• traditional print literacy
• research skills, how to read, understand and "get under the hood"
• technical skills
• media literacy

We can help supply these needs and deal with these problems through:

• Play: the capacity to experiment with your surroundings as a form of problem solving, basic scientific method in an area where it is okay to try and fail
• Simulation: the ability to interpret and construct dynamic models of real world processes, changing variables to see impact
• Performance: the ability to to adopt alternative identities for the purpose of improvization and discovery, letting student/player get into character, collected information for variety of sources outside of the game, Revolution example
• Appropriation: the ability to meaningfully sample and remix media content, remixing is a skill that has shaped human history, not to shy aware from it, but do it constructively
• Multitasking: the ability to scan one's environment an shift focus onto salient details on an ad hoc basis, arcadia - playing 4 games at once
• Distributed Cognition: the ability to interact meaningfully with tools which expand our mental capacities, William Shaffer's
• Collective Intelligence: the ability to pool knowledge and compare notes with others towards a common goal; alternative reality game as example, designed to bring large people together to pool knowledge
• Judgment: the ability to evaluate the reliability and credibility of different sources
• Transmedia Navigation: the ability to deal with flow of stories and information across multiple modalities; ie: Pokemon
• Networking: the ability to search for, synthesize, and disseminate information, Lost Darma mapping
• Negotiation: the ability to travel across diverse communities, discerning and respecting multiple perspectives ad grasping and following alternative sets of norms, not just respecting diversity but valuing it

Project NML helped develop the withpaper on these problems and potential solutions; resources available at projectnml.org

How can we as academic libraries address these problems that Jenkins discusses. Can we incorporate the aspects he discusses in order to reach our students and the coming generation.

Henry Jenkins made the point that for libraries & librarians it is more important to understand how games work and to encourage and use in education, more so than just adding games.

We need to know why we want to use and be involved gaming. Then through the application of Jenkins' suggestions we can work to create a more participatory culture in our libraries, campuses, and with our students.

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Eli Neiburger – The Payoff, Up Close and Personal

Eli’s presentation was very focused on what and how public libraries can do to host console gaming tournaments in libraries. His presentation itself, his style and demeanor, was wonderful and very fun. He will be well received as he makes the rounds of the library conference circuit. In addition, his presentation slides used a great, retro arcade font, which was fun.

Eli makes the great point for both public, school, and academic libraries, that gaming in libraries serves everyone. Traditionally, libraries that are book focused do provide what all people need. Public libraries are not just for serving those who only want books. Public libraries can and should speak to people at all stages of life… and even if they are not at a recreational reading stage in life now, they may be there someday.

Eli showed how the tournaments bring in both kids and parents. The tournaments resulted in a variety of positive interactions:

• Teens take mentor roles
• Brings in new users
• Breaks social barriers (gender, race, class)
• Results in positive social interactions between kids and librarians

Eli hit on the detail and knowledge that playing and succeeding at Pokemon requires a large investment and learning ability from players. I agree with Eli’s advocacy of Pokemon as beneficial for kids and it fits with a post of mine from January.

The announcement of the upcoming launch (July 2008) of GT Systems (gtsystem.aadl.org) video game tournament software was exciting and seems like there is a lot of potential.

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Nicholson, S. (2007). The role of gaming in libraries: Taking the pulse. http://boardgameswithscott.com/pulse2007.pdf

Here are a few of the statistics that stuck with me from the presentation Scott Nicholson, associate professor at Syracuse University School of Information Studies. Follow the link above for the full report.

Scott takes a inclusive view of “gaming” in libraries, from board games and chess to casual computers and console gaming tournaments. Of the 400 public libraries he surveyed, the largest category were libraries that serve 30001-10,000 patrons:

• 77% acknowledged that they support “gaming” in their libraries
• 43% of libraries surveyed run gaming programs; most of these were traditional board games
• 24% run console gaming programs
• 20% of libraries surveyed circulate games
• The #1 goal public libraries identified for gaming programs was to bring new users into the library

Scott is working on creating a Library Game Lab that seeks to be a resource for all parties involved with gaming. The long term goal of the Library Game Lab is to develop collection development guides for librarians to use.

Scott’s presentation contained more relevant to public libraries, but he did survey some academic libraries in one study. The idea of treating all games as “gaming” is not bad. As I’ve said before, I’m thankful for the wide scope that people are taking to apply and use games (traditional and electronic) in the library.

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Is there a better way to get ready for the ALA TechSource Gaming, Learning, & Libraries Symposium than to have Jenny Levine, theshiftedlibrarian herself, speak highly of you?

I am hoping that some of you out there are planning on going. If so, I would enjoy meeting you are sharing ideas about incorporating gaming strategies into information literacy. If you are not going, please check back frequently, I will be blogging about the sessions I attend (as I'm sure many librarians will). Or if you want a conversation, I will be using the Symposium's Meebo Chat Room. My meebo screen name (also AIM, Yahoo, & Google) is "dbqhams." Hopefully I'll talk to you soon.

I am thankful for the feedback and positive comments today from Jenny Levine and Mary Jane at ACRL. Thank you both. Thank you for the work you are doing Jenny. I'm honored by Mary Jane's request to add myself to the ACRL member's profile page. It's a page with filled 60 names that I respect. I am humbled to be considered among them. Thank you.

As I mentioned earlier in the week, finishing up an article for College & Undergraduate Libraries on information literacy and critical thinking opened doors to understanding video game play as critical thinking. In addition to video games fitting the elements of critical thinking, there is additional support within critical thinking theory that connects to video games.

Hughes (2000) reduced the various educational benefits of critical thinking to four key gains:

• Awareness of incomplete arguments
• Gamers realize when their internal "arguments" and decisions are incomplete because they are unable to progress further in the game without a complete argument (often requiring additional information or items, puzzles, interactions with characters)
• Example: I was unable to solve a puzzle The Legend of Zelda without a specific item and realized my "argument" and chosen path was incomplete without it
  
• Challenge conclusions and beliefs
• Well designed games often intentionally challenge the conclusions a player makes; the assumptions, decisions, and paths chosen by the player will be challenge not only in plot twists, but in twists of logic and game design that make a player question those choices
• Carroll (2002) writes about how students face the developmental challenge of being able to move beyond their “one right answer ( p.68)” to consider the evidence and develop a reasoned conclusion. Video games challenge and break this concept of "one right answer" since there is often multiple paths through a game
  
• Example: The choices a player makes in BioWare's Star Wars:KOTOR and their upcoming Mass Effect change the direction and story of the game
  
• Develop a sense of intellectual worth
• Players gain this intellectual worth by successfully solving the puzzles, quests, and stories; completing a challenge in a game can not only develop a gamer's sense of self-worth but also their intellectual worth
• Example: Players investing over 80 - 100 hours in games like Final Fantasy XII, develop that sense of worth (and gain satisfaction) by completing the quests and story; I am currently over 45 hours into an old game on the GameBoy Advance that I've played on an off for over a year, but now all the logic puzzles are clear and I'm reaching the game's conclusion
  
• Develop persuasive skills based evidence rather than feeling
• Game players develop this evidence based persuasion both internally and externally; internally gamers use evidence gather throughout the game that persuade themselves to make internal choices; externally gamers are persuading their friends and other players about strategies and other gameplay related decisions
• Game players are also in a position to persuade non-gamers and critics about the value of gaming (and specific games) based on evidence within the game(s) rather than on reactionary judgments
• Example: Controversial games like the Grand Theft Auto series and Bully are lightening rods for critics, but age appropriate players of these games can provide evidence of GTA as a social satire or the social dynamics & consequences in Bully
  

Video Games do provide opportunities for players to develop and practice critical thinking skills. As librarians and educators we have the ability to use these developing skills to build a bridge (as David Warlick stated) from these gaming skills to educational and academic ones.

Hughes, W. (2000). Critical Thinking: An Introduction to Basic Skills (3rd ed.). Peterborough, Ont.: Broadview Press.
Carroll, L. A. (2002). Rehearsing New Roles : How College Students Develop as Writers. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press.

All images via IGN.com

I responded to a post over on Gameology a few weeks and now I'm reviewing two chapters for the upcoming book: Handbook of Research on Effective Electronic Gaming in Education. One of the chapters I've read about before on the internet, but I'm looking forward to reading a more in depth analysis.

On a different note, thanks to John Rice's post over at Educational Games Blog, I spent some time reading an article in Discover by Steven Johnson "This is Your Brain on Video Games." Johnson's "Everything Bad is Good for You" was an solid non-scholarly analysis of the benefits of pop culture and video games. I strongly agree with Johnson's thesis about the complexity of today's TV & video games is making us smarter by cognitively engaging us more than traditional media. I see this thesis play out in my children on a regular basis. His new article is worth the read. Enjoy.

One of the results of working the past weeks on an article about critical thinking and information literacy was that it provided additional research for video games in education and information literacy. During my literature search, I continued to come across the work of Norris and Ennis (1962, 1989) in defining critical thinking. Here are 9 of the the 14 elements Norris and Ennis (1989) identified and a few brief examples of how the experience of playing video games achieves them:

Grasping the meaning of a statement

- Video games require players to understand the meaning of text within the game, information on where to go/how to play, and puzzles

Judging contradictions in statements

- Puzzles that provide contradictions, multiple non-playable characters(NPCs) who provide conflicting evidence to challenge the player, and players are required to decipher visual contradictions in landscapes and characters in order to proceed to higher levels

Judging if a conclusion based on the evidence is clear

- Game players use available evidence (both in-game and previous gaming experience) to constantly draw conclusions (where to go, what to target, what to collection, who to align with) to progress through the game

Judging if the material is reliability

- In order to make decisions, players make reliability judgments before making a decision on the actions to take; given a choice of paths in a game the player will take the one more trusted and reliable in order to succeed

Judging if a conclusion can be induced

- Inducing conclusions are done naturally and almost automatically in many cases in games, which action happening in multiple locations simultaneously players make logically judgments based on observations often without any formal set process

Judging if the problem is clearly stated

- When a player is stuck or presented with a challenge they could not complete, backtracking and reanalyzing the problem determines the clarity of it and helps players identify information gaps

Judging if the statement is an assumption

- If the chosen action a player takes is based on an assumption the game may punish that action if not all the required information is collected; although games often require assumptions and players’ experiences to provide a low barrier for entry to the game

Judging if the specific definition is acceptable

- A specific definition, choice, action is acceptable if it is successful and the player advances

Judging if a statement is authoritative evidence

- In-game authoritative evidence is based on the characters and settings and while a player will not think of information sources (text, NPCs, other players, etc.) they are making judgments on which is the most important and reliable as they move forward in the game

What other examples can you think of?

Norris, S. P., & Hugh, E. R. (1989). Evaluating Critical Thinking. Pacific Grove, CA: Midwest Publications.

I am digging through my growing stack of research:

Katz, L. (1999). Another look at what young children should be learning. Champaign, IL: Clearinghouse on Elementary and Early Childhood Education. ERIC Document #ED430735.

The Katz article doesn't discuss video games, but does provide a set of criteria that any children's learning activities should be judged. The four criteria needed for promoting learning are:

• Skills
• Knowledge
• Dispositions
• Feelings

Do some video games reach all four of these? Can they?

A successful game does try to reach the player on all four of these levels. A game does teach the player skills: from higher level skills like critical thinking & planning to practical skills like time management & reaction. The challenge of parents and educators is to try to connect these skills to the world and education.

Knowledge is gained by the player through the trial, failure, and success of the gameplay. What that knowledge is though, depends on the game. But the process of learning and gaining that knowledge (even game specific) is important.

I game can change a player's disposition, depending on the seriousness of the game's content. Serious games & persuasive games (like The McDonald's Game, PeaceMaker, or Food Force) attempt to change the players understanding and viewpoint on a specific subject.

Video games try to evoke the emotions and feelings of a player. Whether those emotions are tension and adrenaline or aggression or compassion and empathy, every video game is designed to connect with the player on some level of feeling.

So, yes, according to Katz's (1999) criteria video games are activities that promote learning. Okay, that thesis is not new, but Katz's criteria provide another useful perspective in defining how video games assist in the learning and development of children.

I heard of this report about a week ago on Next-Gen, but I just read it today after Gamepolitics.com ran a story on it. The study was published in Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine.

Jenny Levine over at theshiftedlibrarian provided some detailed posts on a variety of the presentations at Games + Learning + Society. The summaries are detailed and well worth the read. Many of you may have already seen Jenny's posts on GLS, but here are a few other worthwhile links for those interested in the sessions at GLS.

James Paul Gee kicked off with the conference at breakfast on Thursday morning. Headway Strategies has a summary of his comments that tie nicely into Jenny Levine's.


Mark Chen, who I've mentioned before, presented his paper at GLS, but he's also been blogging his experiences as well... check them out here.

Another presenter, Lisa Galarneau, posted her presentation slides over on her site socialstudygames.com. Her presentation was about online gamers and their learning abilities. Her work is a great resource and it opens doors for changes in lesson plan design and how we interact with students.

Here are some additional links on feedback and experiences from other attendees:
Dr.B's Blog has quick summaries of most of the presenters. The post is a quick resource and overview of some key ideas presented

Over at mamamusings, Elizabeth Lane Lawley posted her reflections on the conference as well.

There's a lot of content to sift through on this conference and hopefully we'll continue to hear discussions on the applications that can come out of this conference.

Welcome to everyone who's stopped by because of my discussion on fantasy sports & information literacy. My post was picked up on a variety of sites from information literacy blogs to fantasy football sites, the most notable link is from The Chronicle's Wired blog.

Research Quest is a daily blog (usually) focused on using video games and gaming strategies in information literacy. This includes comments on video games industry news, and the larger discipline of video game studies & research. I'll occasionally discuss topics outside the scope of game-based learning, like the fantasy football post that brought many of you here. Since my traffic has spiked over the last few days due to this post, I want to take a moment to welcome new readers and provide a little background on my site.

The focus on instruction started with a post that would become the foundation for my application of video gaming strategies. I followed up that post with 5 steps for using games. The analysis and similarities about "Why Our Attempts Fail" both in research and in gaming is another starting point for gaming application.

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 opened ended /branching lectures 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; subscribe to the RSS feed and 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 for reading and I hope that together we can find ways to use video games and gaming strategies to increase our students' success.

Over the past few weeks, I've exchanged messages with Andrew Bub from Gamerdad.com about a project he is working on. I was happy to assist in the organization of his project and now it looks like it is turning into a more formal relationship.

Gamerdad needs research assistance on a variety of video game related topics and I'm the guy. I can't say too much about the project yet, but I know I'll be talking about some of the results from my literature search here on ResearchQuest.

I respect Andrew's work, and I'm glad to be a part of something that will really expand the message of Gamerdad. Here's a segment of that message from the gamerdad FAQ:

GamerDad exists because I think there are parents out there who want straight talk about gaming. Want to share games with their kids or at least learn about what their kids are playing. Maybe they want to talk to other GamerParents and kids about why they love games, why their kids love games, and what games are good.

This Wall Street Journal article about the Nintendo DS used for educational purposes was picked up by John Rice over at his blog. John adds some good analysis about using the Nintendo DS, like a PDA.

I just mentioned the growing possibilities of using the DS for educational use last night. I'm excited by the educational potential this exposure and discussion could bring. With 200,000 to 300,000 DS units selling in North America every month, how many students already bring their systems to school?

What opportunities do hand-held video game systems, like both the DS & PS, with wireless internet connections provide libraries?

Over the last 24 hours each of the big three video game companies (Microsoft, Nintendo, & Sony) held press conferences at E3. Major gaming sites like Gamespot, IGN, and 1Up all streamed the events for free. The conferences were full of upcoming games and hardware, but very few surprises. I was able to watch some of each conference, but read most of the coverage through live blogs from Kotaku and Wired's Chris Kohler.

While I wasn't overly excited about anything at the event, there were a few items that I feel hold some educational possibility:

Handheld Systems:
1) More educational / brain games on the Nintendo DS like Flash Focus: Vision Training
The DS is a great platform for kids and casual players. If more people are picking up education-lite video games and playing in general, the audience of people interested in gaming and education will grow. Someone picking up a Touch Generations game, may have a more open mind to gaming and learning in a larger context.

2) The PSP Slim with an improve battery life, faster loadtimes and lighter weight. There are already schools starting to use PSPs in education and this hardware refresh makes the system more versatile in a classroom setting. (I'm personally excited about the PSP Slim as well)

Console Systems:
1) Sony's PS3 Home will connect and integrate mobile phones.
EDUCAUSE just released a podcast on using mobile phones to create a more comprehensive learning environment inside and outside of the classroom. Sony's Home social networking will tap into this "take it everywhere" mentality and may provide examples of successful applications. Connecting with our players/students in the classroom, virtual through course management pages and even through cell phones or text messages give us the potential for very rich student shaped learning environments.

2) WiiFit for the Nintendo Wii looks like an excellent application of the motion controlled technology. The balance board controller (which looks like a step pad) is a great addition to the causal gaming market. The board has a low barrier for use and by the looks of the videos the gameplay is designed for everyone. With reports like this out of the UK that fit virtual exercise just as healthy as traditional, WiiFit is nicely poised to tap into that market. If schools and nursing homes are already using Wii Sports for activity and fitness... WiiFit should be quickly adopted as the next step.


Both the PSP and WiiFit photos are via Kotaku

Games + Learning + Society is the other big gaming conference going on this week (July 12th & 13th). In years past the conference blog provided interviews, videos, and slides of the presentations. I'm hoping that there are similar resources this year as well. Unfortunately, I am not heading to Madison, but I'll still be posting relevant news stories and blog posts from others here.

Take a look at the daily program, there is a wide variety of sessions for designers and educators.

Zimmerman was just mentioned in an EDUCAUSE article and his session on Game Design as Model for Literacy looks incredible interesting.

I ran across Mark Chen's blog today and he will sitting on a panel about gaming communities. It looks interesting and I'm eager to read Mark's comments as someone presenting at GLS.

What looks interesting to you?

The "new" E3 Media & Business Summit starts this Wednesday, July 11-13th. Now I won't take time to explain the "new" part of this media event, but most major video game producers and publishers will be there to show off products to the media. This event is worthwhile for librarians and educators, even if you are not interested in the new announcement about Rock Band. Trends games, and industry developments are useful in finding new and creative ways to apply video games in our teaching.

Because of this event and the massive amount of news stories and blog posts that it will generate, I want to encourage you to grab a few RSS feeds from video game sites. MTV recently posted a list of the top 10 video game blogs. Any top ten list will alway generate controversy, and this is no exception. Dan Dormer, of Video Game Media Watch, wrote an article criticizing some of MTV's picks and suggesting his own top 10.

I'm thankful for Dormer's list in part because I respect the intentional journalistic integrity of VGM Watch, but also because I agree with his suggestions. Many of Dormer's suggestions are more professional and approach gaming journalism as such. While I do not subscribe to all of the sites on either list (6 of the 10 on Dormer's list, 2 of 10 on MTV's), I grab feeds from elsewhere as well (if you are interested in my list let me know).

I encourage you to check some of these out and subscribe, if you don't already, and get ready to see what happens at E3 this week.

After finally making my way through Wesley Fryer's posts on NECC 07, I discovered his post on lessons from video games. Fryer shares his thoughts on video games, both from a parenting and educational standpoint. The post touches on variety of issues (some I'll come back to in another post), but one is about the idea of balance. Fryer states:

As human beings, we generally need to seek “balance” in everything we do. Most things, taken to an extreme, can take on a negative and harmful influence.

This holds true for me both as a parent and as an educator. It is important to balance the time my sons spend gaming, but the balance is not different than any other media. In fact I'm more inclined to tip the balance in favor of video games (over TV) given the nature of the the interaction.

Balance in education and information literacy is also important. This summer I am discussing information literacy with my co-workers and planning for the fall. In these discussions, I am not focused on bringing more gaming applications and strategies into our program. I am focused on how to make our program more active, engaging and meaningful for the students. Yes, I believe video games are a component in the success of that focus. But only one of many components that can make our instruction more meaningful and successful for our students. That awareness allows for a balance in lesson planning that keeps library sessions unique and engaging.

The idea of balance and not using video games for sake of video games, is an idea I've touched on before. And I'm not alone. Raj Boora just wrote a well developed post that supports this same idea of using games effectively and appropriately.

Even though games are great for some instructional purposes, they are not the be all and end all. If they are not used in an appropriate context, they have no value. So the trick is to understand those contexts, and these contexts do not include “edutainment” that forcefully grafts “learning” into a game. Kids don’t like the overt learning that is forced on them, not many people do, people like to feel that they are, on their own or with little help figuring out things.

Boora's final five paragraphs of his post provide his main argument about the successful application of games in education. Thank you Mark Wagner of Education, Technology & Life for the link. His article is worth the read, and Mark's blog is an excellent resource as well.

As we plan, create, and use video games in our classrooms and library instruction, we need to consider these issues. Why do we want to use video games and gaming strategies? If the pedagogical reason is something more than, "Because they're fun," then we are moving in the right direction.

I'm making my way through the essays within "Gaming Lives in the Twenty-First Century." One essay ties in nicely with the discussion in my video games & identity post from earlier this week. It provides a strong example of how video games shaped the identity and relationships of some casual and serious gamers.

JoAnn Griffin's "Relationship Gaming and Identity: Stephanie and Josh"

Griffin describes a relationship between Josh (traditional gamer) and Stephanie (an occasional gamer) and there use of video games identities. They played Tiger Woods Golf together as a shared experience, discussing and enjoying. For Stephanie, gaming was also a chance to mix up the traditional social roles within Josh's family. She was able to play with Josh's father and develop a strong relationship with both Josh and his father. Gaming allowed Stephanie to hold onto her existing self identity while creating a new virtual one and using that virtual identity to join a new social group (the "boys club" of Josh and his father).

This case study discusses the benefits that Stephanie received when she created a virtual identity that was not an alternative identity, but was merely an extension of her existing self. The virtual identity levels the playing field in existing social groups (limiting class, race, and in this case gender), but the strength and growth is found in validating each person's existing self and personality. Griffin discusses video games' ability to shape real-world identities based upon the overlap (not the differences) in the virtual self and the real-world self.

Games do need to be a place where people create an alternative personality, games can be a place where people's personalities can finally shine through.


Image from Amazon

Now I know this is very 6 months ago, but we've never had the chance to use Mii's before in student orientations. And thanks to the Miieditor we are incorporating them into our planning for the fall semester.

Our library will create Mii cards of each staff member (and yes, each staff member will be able to create their own Mii if they choose) and use them to help introduce the library staff (professional and para-professional) to the incoming freshmen class.

The Mii card activity involves the students matching up each staff member's Mii to the real person. The goal is to get to know each staff member, what that staff member does, and how it helps you (as a student) succeed. We are planning a Mii card collection activity very similar to what I outlined in April as a librarian trading card game.

I know our library is not alone in creating trading cards, but this is more than a substitute business card. What other ways are you tying in trading cards, avatars, or Miis to your information literacy or orientation programs?