Game Based Learning for Information Literacy Instruction #ecil2013

Andrew Walsh has put his slides and handout on "Game Based Learning for Information Literacy Instruction", presented at the European Conference on Information Literacy online at http://eprints.hud.ac.uk/18825/

From information obesity to digital dieting

I don't always agree with Tara Brabazon 100% (e.g. if I was as organised an information manager as she advocates I probably never would have followed the thread that led to my encountering her article...) but her writings and talks are always thought-provoking. She recently published:
Brabazon, T. (2012) Time for a digital detox? From information obesity to digital dieting. Fast capitalism, 9(1). http://www.uta.edu/huma/agger/fastcapitalism/9_1/brabazon9_1.html
Other articles in this issue (Fast Capitalism, volume 9 issue 1) include:
- They Blog, Therefore They Think: Composition 2.0 and Blogging toward Democracy, by Lorie Jacobs ("Rather than contributing to the demise of academic reason, in my view, the rise of social media signals a transition to a post-consumerist salon culture of discussion and collaboration in a true public sphere. ... By embracing the potential of social media within academic contexts, specifically first-year composition, we have the opportunity to shape new media and consciously engage students as emerging public intellectuals.")
- In Video Games we Trust: High-Speed Sociality in the 21st Century, by Graham Candy.
Photo by Sheila Webber: Winter branches at dusk, Hellingly, January 2013

Making games for libraries

A blog from Andy Walsh, Making Games for Libraries, includes videos from his recent workshop. The video embedded here has one of the workshop groups explaining their game idea. The blog is definitely worth following if you are interested in developing library game ideas. The blog is at http://gamesforlibraries.blogspot.co.uk/
Walsh has also made another library card game available as a zipped file, SOURCES, at http://eprints.hud.ac.uk/16230/

New issue of Education Libraries: video games, preservice teachers, High School programme

Education Libraries (open access) Volume 35, No. 1-2, Summer-Winter 2012 has been published. Articles include:
- Beyond a Fad: Why Video Games Should Be Part of 21st Century Libraries By Kym Buchanan and Angela M. Vanden Elzen
- Information Literacy Outreach: Building a High School Program at California State University Northridge By Coleen Meyers Martin, Eric P. Garcia, and Marc McPhee
- Information Literacy Skills for Preservice Teachers: Do they transfer to K-12 classrooms? By Marcia Stockham and Heather Collins.
http://education.sla.org/?page_id=493
Photo by Sheila Webber: Festive lampost, Toronto, Canada, December 2012

SEEK search skills game

Andrew Walsh has made his card game SEEK available under a Creative Commons license for free download. You have the instructions, notes for tutors and the cards (front and back) ready to print out. The winner is the first person to get to ten points: you gain points by responding to a question from the cards correctly. The cards tell you to do things like identify the most important words in a search question and think of synonyms for searching (see examples on the right, click on the picture to see it larger). The download is in a zipped file from: http://eprints.hud.ac.uk/15377/

2 short research papers: Social Media as Information Source, and; Developing an IL game

Kim, K., Yoo-Lee, E. and Sin, S. (2011) Social Media as Information Source: Undergraduates’ Use and Evaluation Behavior. In: Proceedings of the 74rd ASIST Annual Meeting Retrieved 18 September 2012 from http://asist.org/asist2011/proceedings/submissions/283_FINAL_SUBMISSION.pdf
An interesting short paper that reports on a survey of what sources students used, what they used them for and what evaluative strategies they used. For example Wikipedia was used for initially scoping a topic, and evaluated through looking at the links and sources, whereas Youtube was used for recreation and for instructions on how to do things, and was evaluated through the video quality and people's opinions.

Markey, K. and Leeder, C. (2011) The Effect of Scoring and Feedback Mechanisms
in an Online Educational Game. In: Proceedings of the 74rd ASIST Annual Meeting. Retrieved 18 September 2012 from http://asist.org/asist2011/proceedings/submissions/38_FINAL_SUBMISSION.docx

This describes the stages of piloting this information literacy game, and the changes that needed to be made as a result.

I discovered these 2 papers (and further interesting ones) as part of the October 2011 ASIST annual conference proceedings; http://asist.org/asist2011/proceedings/openpage.html.
Photo by Sheila Webber: Blackheath Farmers' Market, September 2012

Posters at #WLIC2012 Furry ears; librarian image in gaming

A couple of posters at the IFLA World Library and Information Conference in Helsinki, Finland that caught my eye although they aren't on information literacy. The first one is just cute: "Furry ears are listening" from Jani Keranen of Finland. You can read a little more about the programme to encourage reading, by reading to a dog, here: http://www.helmet.fi/en-US/Libraries_and_services/EtelaHaaga_Library/Whats_going_on/Furry_ears_are_listening%281443%29

The second one, Library in computer games: the major discourses, is a serious piece of research into the image of libraries and librarians in computer games, using discourse analysis, by Olga Einasto (Estonia). The discourses were: library as temple; library as order symbol; library as memory institution of society; library as labyrinth. The librarian is always the magical helper and supporter of "good guys".

Here's a short video of the poster session, from the IFLA people.


Photos by Sheila Webber

Reference Services Review latest

The latest issue of Reference Services Review (volume 40 issue 1) is available online. Articles include:
- Demystifying the Data Interview: Developing a Foundation for Reference Librarians to Talk with Researchers about their Data by Jake Carlson
- Training Millennials: A practical and theoretical approach by Kathleen Langan
- Video lectures help enhance online information literacy course by Ed Hahn
- Research skills development through collaborative virtual learning environments by Adrian Stagg and Lindy Kimmins
- Digital Games in Academic Libraries: A Review of Games and Suggested Best Practices Mary Julia Broussard
- Empowered Library e-Learning: Capturing Assessment and Reporting with Ease, Efficiency, and Effectiveness by George Peter Germek
It's a priced publication, the home page is at http://www.emeraldinsight.com/journals.htm?issn=0090-7324
Photo by Sheila Webber: Late flowering scabious, December 2011, Hailsham.

Video games and information literacy;

There is a special issue of Aslib Proceedings devoted to research articles from the Information School at the University of Sheffield, edited by Professor Peter Willett. It includes an article by me:
Gumulak, S. and Webber, S. (2011) "Playing video games: learning and information literacy" Aslib proceedings, 63 (2/3), 241-255. (This is based on research interviews with teenagers who play computer games)
Another article, by my colleague Pam McKinney, is:
McKinney, P., Jones, M. and Turkington, S. (2011) "Information literacy through inquiry: A Level One psychology module at the University of Sheffield" Aslib proceedings, 63 (2/3), 221-240.
The journal's website is at: http://www.emeraldinsight.com/journals.htm?issn=0001-253X
Photo: me taking a picture of myself.

Children's and young people's digital literacies in virtual online spaces

There is some material for those who missed the closing seminar in the Children's and young people's digital literacies in virtual online spaces series (funded by the Economic and Social Research Council, and organised by researchers at Sheffield University, Sheffield Hallam University and Lancaster University). This closing event was held in Second Life (SL), the virtual world.
There is a log of the text chat from the event at http://www.slideshare.net/sheilawebber/chatlog-19-june-v1 (the presentations used voice, but there were transcribers text chatting key points for each speaker, and the text chat also reflects discussion).
A set of pictures of the event in Second Life on 19 June can be found here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/23396182@N00/sets/72157624252095321/
The speakers were as follows:
Peggy Sheehy/ (SL name: Maggie Marat) “I'm not good at Math but my avatar is” (her website is at http://web.mac.com/peggysheehy/MetaVersEd_/Welcome.html
You can see Peggy Sheehy's slides on Slideshare.

I'm not good at Math but my avatar is

Additionally, Knowclue Kidd produced two videos from Peggy Sheehy's presentation: on Body Image and on Exploring identity.

The second speaker was Rebecca Black (SL: Starseed Sodwind) “Early Childhood Literacy in Virtual Worlds.” Her website is at http://www.gse.uci.edu/person/black_r/black_r_bio.php and the text which was transcribed in the event chatlog mostly uses a text that she provided.

The third speaker was Constance Steinkuehler (SL: Constance Carnot) "Virtual worlds at the nexus of a constellation of literacy practice." Her websites are http://www.constances.org and http://www.popcosmo.org. At the moment if you go to the conference venue (you need a SL avatar and the SL browser installed on your computer) at http://slurl.com/secondlife/Infolit%20iSchool/169/173/22 you can look through Constance Steinkuehler's presentation on the presentation board, and you can also pick up the conference pack (including a set of virtual clothes with the seminar logos).

Computer gaming and media literacy

In my final post about the Oeiras a Ler conference in Portugal 20-21 May, I will mention the session from Luís Pereira (Universidade do Minho - Portugal) Contributos dos videojogos para a literacia dos media (Contribution of videgames to media literacy)
Luis Pereira described two research studies: into the opinions of parents about their computer gaming children, and into 10-12 year old’s perceptions of video games. They identified media literacy education needs amongst the children. Building on this research, and on the 20 years of work on media literacy by their group, they produced a colourfully illustrated booklet How to watch TV followed up by one called How to play videogames (both in Portuguese). There are pictures of the covers here: http://comedu.blogspot.com/search/label/Booklet
The booklets are written for parents and children, and give concisely worded information and guidelines (so e.g. it says what really might be of concern or beneficial about videogames, so that it counters scaremongering about them). Very large numbers of the booklets have been printed and e.g. distributed with their regional newspaper as an insert. Their excellent media literacy blog (in Portuguese) is at http://comedu.blogspot.com/ and the Centre’s website is at http://www.cecs.uminho.pt/
Photo by Sheila Webber: Foxglove, Sheffield, June 2010

Librarian's guide to gaming

On Monday the American Library Association launched the Librarian’s Guide to Gaming: An Online Toolkit for Building Gaming @ your library . "The toolkit includes a wide range of resources to help librarians create, fund and evaluate gaming experiences in the library." It refers to traditional games, board games, and not just computer ones. "Games of every type play an important role in developing fundamental competencies for life,” said ALA President Jim Rettig. “They require players to learn and follow complex sets of rules, make strategic and tactical decisions, and, collaborate with teammates and others, –all things they will have to do in college and in the workforce." There is an FAQ, resources, examples etc. The home page is at http://librarygamingtoolkit.org/ and there is a section about the connection between gaming and literacy at http://librarygamingtoolkit.org/literacy.html
Photo by Sheila Webber: Not sure if it's authorised, Sheffield University, February 2009.

Gaming and school library standards

The American Association of School Librarians' Standards for the 21st-Century Learner have been elaborated with reference to gaming by members of the School Library System of Genesee Valley BOCES region. Their document is here: http://sls.gvboces.org/gaming/standards
This is just part of an interesting collection of material about using games in libraries, home page http://sls.gvboces.org/gaming/ It includes a series of Games in libraries podcasts and information about the games they have developed, suitable for school libraries. They say "While these are not 'educational games' all of the games are linked to New York State curriculum standards".
The AASL standards themselves, and associated material, are online at http://www.ala.org/aasl/standards and the basic standards are:
1. inquire, think critically, and gain knowledge;
2. draw conclusions, make informed decisions, apply knowledge to new situations, and create new knowledge;
3. share knowledge and participate ethically and productively as members of our democratic society;
4. pursue personal and aesthetic growth.
Photo by Sheila Webber: Inside Turku City Library, Finland, August 2008