Professional Development

Forgive my belated post from Monday’s Gaming in Libraries Symposium. I’ve been traveling ever since with little time to stop and take note. I thought it went very well. It was probably the most enthusiastic group of conference-goers I’ve seen in a while. They asked lots and lots of questions after our talk, which Giz has already posted. We learned that 80% of the group had not done a gaming event before, so they were eager to know tips and pitfalls to avoid. Here is a picture of Giz in action:

I think the conference bore out the fact that gaming in libraries is more than just a fad. Those who think we are cheapening the library brand by associating with gaming need to take another look and reassess exactly what our brand is. A number of speakers talked about the complete revolution in learning that gaming has brought about. For example, one speaker said that educators would do well to note how seven year olds can be enraptured in learning extremely complex language and coding skills but then sit in the classroom completely board with their academic work. I plan to continue to follow this movement with our own modest gaming program. Lynn

I am currently attending the 2007 ALA Gaming Symposium in Chicago! (Actually, it is at the Marriott near O’Hare) Since arriving Sunday morning, I’ve listened to a bevy of speakers, participated in a Wii tournament, and given a presentation with Lynn and Lori Critz from Georgia Tech, and there is still an entire day left in this two day conference!

The conference, sponsored by ALA And ACRL, began on Sunday afternoon with three excellent speakers. The keynote speaker was Henry Jenkins, the Director of the MIT Comparative Media Studies Program. He talked about his white paper for the MacArthur Foundation. It focuses on Media Literacy. He describes how one half of teens have created content on the web.

The next speaker was Dr. Scott Nicholson from Syracuse University. He released newly published survey data of phone interviews with 400 libraries (I’m happy to say ZSR participated in his recent unpublishd SurveyMonkey survey of 313 libraries) You can find a quick review of the data at Stephen’s Lighthouse or read the full report at The Library Game Lab at Syracuse

The final speaker on Sunday was Eli Neiburger, who is my new hero in gaming (along with Jenny Levine of course!) He runs the gaming program at the Ann Arbor District Library . He announced they are opening up their tournament software GT System to all libraries who want to run regional and national tournaments! Woohoo!! Thanks Eli!

Sunday night Amy Harris from UNCG (who is here presenting with Scott Rice) team up with me to play in the Wii Tennis Tournament! We won our first round but lost in the quarter finals! Monday morning Lynn, Lori and I gave our presentation on “Gaming in Academic Libraries: The Why and How.” The program went well, including our clicker questions! (Gotta love the clickers!)

While I could write more, I think the best approach is to point you to the blog of Paul Waelchli, the Assistant Director for Library Instruction and Public Services at the Charles C. Myers Library at the University of Dubuque. His blog, first recommended to me by Rosalind Tedford before I had even met Paul, is called ResearchQuest and he is far more eloquent than I could be. Paul does a great job describing Greg Trefry-Big Fun, Big Learning: Transforming the World Through Play
Discussion of “Big Play” program here.

Check out the photos on flickr by searching for the tag “glls2007″