Posts tagged learning

The Beauty of Halo

1
12 months ago
by JustinLibrarian in , , , ,

Head on over to Just a Bald Man… to read his excellent post “THE BEAUTY OF HALO”

For those parents who believe that video games have no redeeming educational value, I simply ask you to sit down and watch your child for a while – not just once for a few minutes, but over a period of time. If we take the time to really pay attention – to put down our iPhones, step away from the TV, lay aside our book – and really watch them, we can see some amazing things. Some of those things are obvious. The can learn about history, art, music, adventure, and a wide array of other things that virtually all parent views as “beneficial learning.”

Save the Date: National Library Unconference Day ’11

8
1 year ago
by JP in , , , , ,

What?

When?

  • Save the date: May 2nd, 2011, 1pm EST. More info to follow this month.

Where?

  • At your library for a staff development day. Or an unconference for a regional library cooperative. Maybe something hosted at a state library? Or hosted by your state or regional library association. A great place to hold an uncon for National Library Unconference Day ’11 is at an LIS school. It’s totally up to you!

Why?

Who?

We’ll be streaming a free keynote session to all participating librarians, libraries and library organizations. Our confirmed speakers so far include:

How?

  • Soon enough, we’ll have a link up for you to sign up your unconference to receive the FREE keynote lightning talks webinar. For now, mark your calendars, organize your group, and get ready to change the world. Once you sign up, we’re imaging you’d use a computer + a projector to screen the keynote to your local participants, then you’d get to your individual unconference. We’ll have a constant digital conversation on Twitter via hashtag #libuncon. And we’re hoping people share what they learned and accomplished via blog posts and youtube videos!

MARK THOSE CALENDARS NOW, and #makeithappen! signed, JP & the 8bitlibrary.com team.

EIGHT THINGS I LEARNED ABOUT BEING A LIBRARIAN IN TWO ZERO TEN

2
1 year ago
by JustinLibrarian in

HITTING ROCK BOTTOM CAN MAKE YOU STRONGER
I use MercuryApp.com to track my mood twice a day.  I’ve focused a good part of this year on my thoughts and feelings as a public library.  I use a scale of 1-5 (1=low 5=high) and my average for the last quarter of this year is a 4.03.  Before using this site, I just kept a log in Google Docs. While I didn’t use a numbered scale, I can see that I hit rock bottom at the end of summer/start of fall.  I was a wreck and I didn’t want to do this any longer.  But I didn’t stop.  I realized that I couldn’t get much worse and that things would start to look up if I just focused on them getting better.  And they did.  When you want things to be good, you can make them be good.  When you want them to be bad, you can make them be bad.  It’s your choice and from here on out, I chose happiness.

A CULTURE IN CONFUSION IS A CULTURE YOU CAN THRIVE IN
People start to freak out when they don’t have any clue what is going on.  I found myself doing that earlier this year.  I was lost and didn’t have a path.  But when there’s nothing but confusion all around you the thing is this…there is no path.  It’s up to you to pull out that machete and hack your way through the jungle and create your own path.  Open your mind to your wildest library dreams and go for it.  You can’t lose.

BUT MOM I’M A CHEERLEADER…THAT’S NOT A BAD THING
I’m never going to write some eloquent thesis on the state of libraries in the 21st century and implement a twelve step plan on how to save libraries.  I will leave that stuff to smart people like Heather McCormack and Tim Spalding.   What I can do is have dinner and a beer with you and talk about awesome stuff.  I can tell you that you’re awesome (because you are, we all are) and hopefully give you some positive energy.  You are great.  Remember that.  I don’t mind being a cheerleader.

WE’RE ALL IN THIS TOGETHER
Cliques, drama, gossip girls, etc.  Everyone’s picking little fights and forming groups.  I wrote about this idea here this year.  I think it still applies.  Sure, I may not 100% agree with you but who cares.  None of this is about us.  It’s about everyone else.  Let’s make it happen together. (I point to David Lee King’s excellent Rock Star Librarian post and my response to it here)

WHOEVER CAME UP W/ THE PHRASE “KEEP YOUR FRIENDS CLOSE BUT YOUR ENEMIES CLOSER” IS FULL OF SHIT
First up, I’m not a big fan of having enemies.  Like I said above, we’re all in this together.  But there are always gonna be people that you can never seem to relate with.  Keeping those “enemies” close is bullshit.  This idea has been around for ages and it hasn’t worked and will never work.  Keeping your “enemies” aka “negativity” in your mind and soul is just gonna create more bad stuff.  We don’t want that.  Instead, I recommend keeping those positive forces we all have in the front of our minds and souls.  When we put out good things into the world, we get good things back.  This is how we can change the world.

EMBRACE THE ICKY STUFF
That line was the first thing I wrote in my article “Have Degree, Will Travel” for the October issue of Library Journal this year.  I stand by it 100%.  Get messy and do stuff that might make you feel weird.  In the end, everything works out and you come out as a stronger person.  The other good thing?  When you try something new and unique, the people you’re doing this stuff for appreciate what you’re doing.  I think about Leah White over at Morton Grove Public Library.  She’s sticking her neck out to win $10,000 for her library in Picture This! contest sponsored by Playaway by trying something new.  Leah told me once about her going out into the community to raise support for the cause.  That’s not something they teach you in library school.   I dig that.  

THE REVOLUTION HASN’T BEGUN.  IT’S ALWAYS BEEN HAPPENING
Let’s forget about “this generation/that generation/our generation” because here’s the deal:  Every generation had their revolution.  Every generation succeeded on some parts and didn’t get as far as they’d like with others.  There’s a damn good chance that our generation is going to have the same luck.  We shouldn’t be dissing other generations of librarians for what they’ve done.  We may not see it as carrying on other’s work but in a way it is.  Like I said above, we’re all in this together.  The revolution is ongoing and it will never end.  We’re evolving, not failing.

Your homework!

0
1 year ago
by JP in , , ,

Hey 8bitlibrarians,

I’m teaching a webinar today for Infolink, NJ’s regional library cooperative, titled “Pokemon, Learning, and Libraries”. Once the talk is archived I’ll pop the link in this post for all to see!

Here’s the “homework” from the talk. This stuff is valuable even if you aren’t going to the webinar:

Let’s start with the link to Bulbapedia. Those guy are terrific!

Next is an amazingly inspirational talk about what motivates us as humans, send to me by the fantastic @pcsweeney.

Next up is video-games-in-schools guru James Paul Gee talking about how the communities that video game players build are effectively identical to our professional communities.

In the September 15, 2010 issue of New York Times Magazine, they ran a cover story on “Learning by Playing“.

James Paul Gee again, on the PBS show Frontline, describing how video games can help schools (and how the modern library could be considered “competition” to traditional schooling.)

My article in Booklist on starting a video game collection & running video game programming in your library.

And, last but not least, the slides, which look strange in the Google Doc viewer:

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Review: NHL ’94 (Sega Genesis)

1
1 year ago
by JustinLibrarian in ,

WHAT? Bursting onto the scene in 1993, NHL ’94 forever changed how we envision sports games (particularly hockey, duh) on home video game systems.  The perfect blend of strategy and fun, NHL ’94 showed the world that it was possible to have a game that took time for a gamer to master but at the same time could be played by anyone just picking up the controller.  NHL ’94 showed the world that multiplayer gaming could open a whole new world of competition, community, and enjoyment.

WHY? Retro gaming shows the world where we came from and how we ended up where we are today.  Playing NHL ’94 will give gamers a glimpse into the evolution of multiplayer sports gaming and how the balance of fun and competition is a struggle for sports game developers.  You want a bit of statistics geek mixed in with a little casual gamer in sports games.  Getting that mix is tough, but NHL ’94 manages to get there.

WHO? Everyone should play this, sports fan or not.  You get a glimpse into just how much care is put into a title by the developers.  I recommend checking out NHL ’93 before playing this game.  To the untrained eye, they’re the same game, but if you look closely you see the minor tweaks the development team made to give NHL ’94 that slight edge.  It’s all about learning, and boy oh boy, you can learn a lot from this title.

Go here for a pretty basic but informative wiki entry on this most excellent title.

PS GO HARTFORD WHALERS.

PPS I reviewed the Sega Genesis version because, to this day, I still maintain the belief that the Sega Genesis was far superior to the Super Nintendo in terms of sports gaming.  Why?  I don’t really know.

Why Does the Media Still Think Video Games are Bad for Kids?

1
1 year ago
by JustinLibrarian in ,
Why Does the Media Still Think Video Games are Bad for Kids?
Experts say video games can help children develop complex critical thinking skills, experiment at their own pace, and learn from their own mistakes. So why does the media still focus only on the negatives of video gaming?
To read more of this article, click here: Why Does the Media Still Think Video Games are Bad for Kids?
JP’s edit: Coinciding with today’s #libgaming chat is the twitter meme hashtag going around: #gamingis Let’s try to merge these convos!!
I wrote this post a few weeks ago which sort of touches on this same subject

Thanks to Bobbi Newman for pointing this article out.

Technology is not the enemy!

15
1 year ago
by JP in ,

Let’s talk about education.

We’ll start here. This is an old old 8bitlibrary post that leads to a video of James Paul Gee, one of the world’s experts on using gaming as a teaching tool. His idea that the traditional schooling structure now has “competition” was one that resonated with librarians. By competition, he meant this: in the past, if you wanted to learn something, you had to go to “school”. NOW, you can go lots of places; I’ve managed to get things like “Login with Facebook” and mobile “touch” integration on this site without ever going to school to learn it. Gee goes on to list LIBRARIES (along with the internet) as one of those “competitors” to schools.

But what does this “competition” mean for the traditional educational system?

This leads me to something I shared on Facebook a few days ago. It is just a short article from the New York Times that suggests cheating in K-12 schools isn’t just a problem, it’s an epidemic. We had a lengthy discussion on the topic, which was launched with the comment I made:

As someone who was a HS student just as the internet rose, we  never thought of it as “cheating”. IRL, you use all the tools at your disposal to accomplish a task, including working with others (aka “sharing answers”), using multiple information sources (aka “pasting from the web”), and choosing the fastest means to solve a problem (aka “texting”). All of my post-HS accomplishments (like 8bitlibrary.com) were partly because I employed the same “illicit” skills I learned in HS.

While in the traditional, 19th-century notion of “school”, these things might be considered cheating. But let’s analyze the skills that these students are learning in this process: they have learned to solve problems by communicating quickly and effectively (in their case, via txt message & sharing answers). File that under working with a group, team building, and effective communication skills. They are learning how to think outside the box. You know who else thought outside the box? EVERY INNOVATIVE HUMAN BEING, EVER. When Pink Floyd sang “we don’t need no education” on The Wall, they didn’t mean they didn’t need to learn. They meant they didn’t need that traditional learning structure. Our students are learning valuable life skills in many cases despite of the education system, rather than by it.

That leads me to the next link. It is another article from the NY Times that summarizes research on the relationship between student achievement and access to a computer at home in low-income households. The results were (seemingly) pretty dire, with a noticeable achievement gap by the low income students at school when a computer was introduced at home. One of the findings was that the students spent their time playing games, which is presented as a negative in the article. Our readers are here at 8bitlibrary.com because they know games are not bad, and this leads us back to the first link where James Paul gee suggests that using games to teach is the wave of the educational future. I could link you to my School Library Journal article on using Pokemon as a Teaching Tool, but I won’t, because I’ve done that already.

So in that NY Times article, there’s just negative comment after negative comment about low-income students who have computers at home (and, let’s not forget that old basic rule of comparisons “Correlation does not imply causation“). So in one of the studies, there were strict filters put on the computers so the students could only use them for what was deemed “educational” by those performing the study. What the most interesting line in this article says is:

When devising ways to beat school policing software, students showed an exemplary capacity for self-directed learning.

That line was buried all the way in the last paragraph of the article. The sentence that follows it is:

Too bad that capacity didn’t expand in academic directions, too.

This is what is wrong with the education system. When teachers have students who show “an exemplary capacity for self-directed learning”, if they can’t direct that capacity into “academic directions”, we have a system of failing teachers, not failing students.

And this is what Gee talks about in that original link. If the education system doesn’t “reform”, these learning “competitors” will constantly put the education system in deeper and deeper irrelevance.

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