ALA TechSource Gaming, Libraries, and Learning Symposium, Day 1

ALA TechSources Gaming, Libraries, and Learning Symposium runs through Tuesday in Oak Brook, Illinois. I'll be posting recaps every evening. There were no concurrent sessions today; all of the speeches adressed the full symposium. Opening Keynote Marc Prensky "Don't Bother Me Mom, I'm Learning: How Computer and Video Games are Preparing Kids for 21st Century Success and How You Can Help" "I've got a really radical suggestion," declared consultant Marc Prensky. "I think we should change our name. How about if we changed [library] to 'the future' That's what the kids are passionate about." Games are beneficial to education, Prensky said, because they engage students. He offered several examples of professionals who attributed their success to gaming, such as Yahoo executive Stephen Gillett, who gained leadership skills managing gaming guilds; and Dr. James Rosser, who teaches laproscopic surgery and who conducted research indicating that laproscopic surgeons who gamed made 37% fewer mistakes, because both use a computer monitor and a two-handed controller. Children do need guidance for their gaming experiences to be positive ones, Prensky said, although he quickly noted that the same could be said for many things. "I picture some kid being handed the Bible without any guidance and they come to the conclusion that if there's ever a group that bothers them, they have the right to go out and kill their first-born," he said. Prensky added that such guidance should be constructive rather than proscriptive—rather than saying "You shouldn't play these," parents or teachers should find out why kids play the games they do, and what they think about the values the games contain, public opinion about the game, and similar topics. "I think learning is the real underneath attraction to why people play games," Prensky declared. Skills that complex games teach include cooperation, decision-making under stress, reasonable risk-taking, ethical decision-making, scientific deduction, perseverence, the understanding of foreign environments and cultures, and the management of businesses and people. "That's a pretty impressive list. It's not the curriculum, but maybe it should be." Prensky argued that education is splitting into "school" and "after school." School learning is forced on students, teaching a legacy curriculum that kids find boring. After-school learning, conversely, is sought by kids and teaches skills that will be needed in their adult lives. "It's not about games. It's about engagement, it's about turning on the lights for our kids, and it's about 21st century learning," Prensky said. "Teens, Video Games, and Civics: What the Research is Telling Us" Amanda Lenhart, research specialist, Pew/Internet Life Lenhart presented results of the Pew Internet and American Life Project's new "Teens, Video Games, and Civics" survey of 1,102 youths between 12 and 17, each with one parent who also answered questions. Nearly all American teens game in some way, the study found. "Gaming for teens is a way of interacting with other people," Lenhart said, noting that 76% of respondents play with other people at least some of the time. The survey found no relation between simply playing games and a teen's level of civic engagement. However, games that incorporate civic experiences—identified as games where players help or guide each other, think about social or moral issues, or help to organize or run a guild or community—do have a correlation with higher levels of civic engagement, as does playing games with other people in the same room. The survey did not determine whether civic gaming experiences encourage real-world civic involvement or if the relationship is because teens who are more engaged in their communities simply tend to prefer games with similar elements. "We think that both are operational." "The State of the Union: Data from the Annual Census of Gaming Programs in Libraries" Scott Nicholson, chief scientist, Syracuse University Library Game Lab Nicholson presented data from his second annual online survey. Of the 404 libraries that responded, 218 said they offered gaming of some sort. Positive outcomes reported from gaming programs included improved reputation, gamers using other library services, improved social connections, and library publicity. Negatives included 10% who reported that the gaming programs annoyed other library users, although Nicholson laughed that off. "We always annoy 10% of the users," he said. "If you're not annoyed, see a librarian." Average start-up costs in the survey were $650, although Nicholson acknowledged that that was skewed by 22 libraries with no costs because they borrowed games, and by two libraries with $15,000 and $25,000 in funding. (The $25,000 was Columbus Metropolitan Library, which won funding to install consoles at all 21 of its locations.) More accurate was the decreasing price of gaming programs as they go on; the average cost to repeat a gaming program drops to $2 per user, and libraries in the survey repeated gaming programs 14 times on average. "If our goal is to reach underserved users and we can bring them into the library every month, we can start to change their minds about the library offering something for them," Nicholson said. "Mapping Games to Information Literacy Standards" Christopher Harris and Brian Mayer, Genessee Valley BOCES System, and Paul Waelchli, University of Dubuque This trio made short speeches on fitting gaming to information literacy standards. Harris and Mayer spoke about bringing board games into schools. "We focused on board games because we found that board games in school had less of a stigma associated with them," Mayer said. Mayer offered selection criteria for school library games: Is it designed as an authentic game (as opposed to an "educational game," which generally fail when it comes to a gaming experience); does it connect with the curriculum, either in the game mechanics or in the theme; does it fit within school's time constraints (42 minutes is an ideal length, because that's the typical length of a classroom session, although longer games may be justified to play over several days or a full semester); and return on investment. Harris explained how they identified, with great detail, ways that about 50 games met specific performance indicators both in New York State standards and in the American Association of School Librarians Standards for the 21st Century Learner. Their library of games, with the standards that each game meets, is available at http://sls.gvboces.org/gaming/gamelibrary. Waelchli focused on how games could meet Association of College and Research Libraries standards. Gamers must evaluate information, identify gaps in in the information they retrieve, create a system for organizing information, use that information to accomplish a goal, and reflect on successes, failures, and alternative strategies, he said. "GT System Update" Eli Neiburger, Ann Arbor (Mich.) District Library The opening session ended with Neiburger's quick introduction to Ann Arbor District Library's GT system for gaming tournaments. The GT system includes features for tournament scheduling and promotion, registration, brackets and scoring, leaderboards, and the ability to develop custom layouts and use custom URLs. There will be three national events on the GT system for National Gaming Day @ your library: Dance Dance Revolution, Rock Band, and Super Smash Brothers. Upcoming features include a Flash tournament console, video chat, library card swipe-in, additional games, clans and leagues, and a player experience point and level system.