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Posts tagged pokemon
Technology is not the enemy!
Jul 16th
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.
Pokewalking at ALA Annual 2010
Jun 7th
Hey all,
Since I’ve spent so much time on SoulSilver, I have yet to get around to cracking open Pokemon HeartGold (despite buying it the day it came out). This set of Pokemon games were released with an accessory called a “Pokewalker“, which is like a combination of a pedometer and a Tamagotchi.
The Tamagotchi-like Pokewalker! Looks like Pikachu has taken 367 steps so far :)
It’s a fun device on a few levels. Firstly, in the game, you can take your Pokemon for “walks” and they accompany you in your travels. This is a more literal manifestation of that idea, in that you load a Pokemon into the Pokewalker, and as you literally walk, your steps are counted and your Poke walks with you :)
How to load Pokemon into the Pokewalker!
Second, it’s fun because there are times where you gotta take a bunch of steps before youe Poke can level up. These games came out right before Pax East 2010, and I always knew who was trying to add steps to a Pokewalker, because they’d be frantically running around for no reason. Funny!
Third (and this leads into my “project”), it is a highly visible device, so people can see you are “playing” Pokemon. As the ALA’s resident “King Pokemon Fanboy”, everyone will be SURE that I’m a true Pokefanatic now.
SO I’ve decided to spend some time playing HeartGold before the 2010 American Library Association Annual Conference, and the morning the conference kicks off, I’ll load it up with a Pokemon. I’ll carry the Pokewalker everywhere I go for the entire conference, and by the end, I’ll know how many steps I walked for the entire conference, and hopefully my Pokemon will have leveled up a few times. But I need your help:
Loading ...Here’s pics of the Pokes, in case you wanna see them:
Growlithe
Mudkip
Pichu
Primeape
Gyarados
Also, don’t forget that this Poke will be dancing with me at the ALA DANCE PARTY!
Philly comicon- gaming!
Jun 3rd
Wizard World Comicon- Philadelphia June 11- 13.
TCG Sanctioned Gaming
As part of the Wizard World comicon in Philly, there is a sanctioned gaming– Magic, Pokemon, Dungeons & Dragons. Some are free, some have a cost. These are all games I’m super unfamiliar with personally, but recognize their following! Last year there were also many gaming vendors selling retro systems, games, and there were demo stations for videogaming.
Of course, there are also tons of comic artists, writers, creators, Tshirts, and all geekery! Join me there!
I’m hoping to meet Bruce Campbell!
Bulbapedia
Apr 23rd
The American Library Association had a booth at the Chicago Comic and Entertainment Expo (C2E2) and I had the pleasure of giving two talks for them, one titled “Connecting Boys With Books Through Graphic Novels, Comics, Gaming, and Movie Ties-Ins“, and another ast-minute fill-in for another speaker who had to split early, “Getting Your Graphic Novel Collection Started: How To Select, Shelve, And Promote Great Lists For Kids, Tweens, Teens, And Adult Collections“. What a great time!
In-between talks, I also had the pleasure of meeting some of the great folks of Chicago attending the convention, as well as spend lots of time with ALA staffers at the booth.
My superhero alter-ego with some of ALA's staff & friends!
So while I was meeting & greeting, the dude from BULBAPEDIA(!!!!!) introduced himself, which was a real thrill, considering I am by far the biggest Pokemon fanboy in all of libraryland.
For those of you unfamiliar with Pokemon or Bulbapedia, Pokemon is the second-most-successful video game franchise of all time, and Bulbapedia (http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/) is the internet’s largest (and most reliable) resource for information relating to everything-Pokemon, including the video games, movies, anime, card-game, and books.
Bulbapedia is, to me, the best example of why video games have belonged in libraries for a long time. Bulbapedia is a user-lead information community, with over 16,000+ encyclopediaesque articles about Pokemon. Wherever information communities exist, library should be present. This is why video games belong in libraries.
To illustrate my point, I’ll use Bulbapedia’s article on the Pokedex (http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Pokedex). Pokedex is a portmanteau of the words “Pokemon” and “Index”, and indexing is one of our most basic library skills. The article goes on to use these other library related terms when describing the Pokedex:
- information
- database
- list
- data
- number sequence
- software
- order
- organize
- record
8bitlibrary.com's founder JP with Bulbapedia's Editor-in-Chief TTEchidna.
I can go on about why video game collections are important for library advocacy, why being involved with/around projects like Bulbapedia are important for Information Literacy efforts, etc etc etc, but I won’t ;-P
I encourage you to get familiar with Bulbapedia. The video games-in-libraries ideas will quickly follow.
Pokemon running around the library!
Apr 15th
Hello, 8bitlibrarians! I’ve written so much about Pokemon in libraries that I have ignored how cool it is to see libraries actually using Pokemon! So here’s some fun Flickr finds:
Here are some youngins at a Pokemon card trade-off at Wilmette Public Library in Wilmette, Illinois.
Some older folks playing Pokemon at St. Joseph County Public Library in South Bend, Indiana.
Here is an eye catching awesome advertisement flyer for a Pokemon Rumble program at the Lester Public Library in Two Rivers, Wisconsin.
Here we have a fun display of Pokemon manga at the Ridgedale Library in Monnetonka, Minnesota.
Some adults playing Pokemon Monopoly.
Here we have Gaming-in-Libraries guru and author of Gamers…in the Library?! The Why, What, and How of Videogame Tournaments for All Ages, Eli Neiburger, running a Pokemon event. Pulled off the American Library Association Flickr account!
Is your school or library including Pokemon? Let me know! jp@porcaro.info
Pokemon in the Library? Controversy, Content & Literacy.
Mar 11th
I’ve written a basic intro to Pokemon for teachers and librarians, a more in depth look at gender roles and violence in the game, and lesson plan ideas using Pokemon as a tool to teach “habitats”. With the USA release of Pokemon HeartGold and SoulSilver coming on March 14th, the time is definitely right for another post.
Let’s start with the controversy. This controversy transcends Pokemon. The controversy is: “What does Pokemon have to do with reading!?” Or, on that larger scale, “What do video games have to do with literacy?!”. This is the stigma that libraries face not only with video games, but with many forms of media. This is why we have Banned Books Week; this why we are constant advocates for our own roles as librarians. What the controversy almost always entails is a single person (or group of people), without a proper understanding of the specific story’s context of the content they oppose, trying to censor material from all users of a public or school library. The outcome of most of these well-meaning censorship attempts is that the person who tried to censor the material reads it, understands the content in the context of the story, and actually likes the story and withdraws the censorship attempt. This is a very frequent occurrence and I think that Pokemon’s detractors would feel the same way if they spent time within the story, playing the game.
That brings us to content. As a follower of Marshal McCluhan, I always try to hip people to the fact that a distinction must be made between the content of media and the media itself. In this case, the media is “video games” (arguably, “handheld video games”), and the content is “Pokemon” (and more specifically, “The story contained within Pokemon HeartGold”, or whatever Pokemon game you are speaking about). If we understand this distinction between content and the media transmitting the content, we have already raised the legitimacy with which the “gaming-in-schools-and-libraries” discussion takes place.
And as that discussion is raised, it reaches the level that OTHER media has reached in schools and libraries: the literary value of gaming. I don’t need to rehash it completely, but games now have a plot, character development, thematic elements, and interactive narrative devices. This is why the Pokemon franchise can release Pokemon Silver in 2000, and release Pokemon SoulSilver in 2010: SoulSilver is a game with a similar plot and theme, retold using the new character development & narrative devices possible that technology allows for 10 years later. THIS is what Pokemon and gaming-in-general has to do with reading. 8bitlibrary’s Craig Anderson has written more on that subject in LibraryGuyCraig’s review of Batman: Arkham Asylum.
Some library yougins at a "Pokemon Trade-off" I hosted last year
As a little addition to the article (I didn’t know where else to put this), I think the release of HeartGold and SoulSilver is an interesting one. As technology moves forward and more can be “done” with video games, Pokemon as a franchise has taken to “retelling” stories. HeartGold and SoulSilver and RETELLINGS of the stories contained within Pokemon Gold and Silver, which were released for play on the “inferior”-to-DS hardware system Gameboy Color. These new game are not really “remakes” of the old games; these are new games telling the same story. This reflects the true nature of video gaming: a modern storytelling medium. One of the library’s most important roles in the community is “storyteller”. From baby storytime lapsits to book discussion groups for seniors to archiving the local history of the community, libraries are a place to tell story. This is why Pokemon belongs there.
Pokemon Project Based Lesson Plan Idea: Habitats.
Feb 1st
Here’s an idea for those of you familiar with my previous efforts in Pokemon 101 and Pokemon 102.
A big movement in K-12 education is Project Based Lessons (or Project Based Learning, abbreviated PBL). Those of you who aren’t familiar with this concept, it’s a lesson that is based around students learning-by-doing (instead of sitting and listening to a classroom lecture).
Step 1: Advocate for funding to purchase 10-20 Nintendo DS’s or DSi’s and copies of Pokemon Diamond, Pearl, or Platinum for students who don’t own the game or handheld. Odds are, many students already will. This is a great idea for a grant, too, if you can’t get “real” funding ;) For $3000, you can purchase 15 DSi’s and 13 copies of Pokemon.
Here’s my lesson:
Compare habitats in Pokemon with real-world habitats.
“A habitat is an ecological or environmental area that is inhabited by a particular species of animal or plant or other type of organism. It is the natural environment in which an organism lives, or the physical environment that surrounds (influences and is utilized by) a species population.”
Chose a Pokemon and its habitat. Using internet sources, encyclopedias, library databases, game guides, wikis, and your own play experience, research both its game habitat and (your opinion of) the real-world animal and real-world habitat it is based on. Write a 3-page paper comparing how the “real world” animal interacts with its habitat, and how the Pokemon interacts with its habitat. Some questions to think about while writing the paper:
- What are the differences between the real animal’s behavior and the Pokemon’s behavior?
- How is the Pokemon habitat realistic, and how is it unrealistic, when compared with a similar real habitat?
- How would the Pokemon be different if it was in a different habitat? How would the real animal survive in a different habitat?
- What part does the animal play in its ecosystem?
- How would your Pokemon survive in the real-life habitat you’ve chosen? Who would be its predators and who would be its prey? If it is an herbivore, is there sufficient food? Would it be doomed to extinction or would it threaten other life?
I bet your classes would go bananas over this assignment…
Pokemon 102: Controversy! Gender Roles & Violence
Jan 16th
Here’s my Pokemon 102 class. LOL! I’ll be your Professor today. You can’t take this class until you’ve completed the requisite Pokemon 101! This is part of our 8bitlibrary.com series of classes on Pokemon in Schools & Libraries. Pokemon is probably the most important video game IP for schools and libraries.
Gender plays two roles in the game.
Firstly, in order to breed Pokemon, you need (for the most part) a Male-Female partnership. As the game tries to reflect parts of natural biology, both partners need to be happy & healthy in order to mate. Female Pokemon in the game are generally sought after more than Males, because the Female Pokemon can almost always do everything the Male Pokemon can do, plus reproduce. Males, I’ve found in my experience, are slightly more abundant in the game, which adds to why Female Pokes are more sought after. Since there are going on 500 Pokemon types, there are small variations in species so these roles aren’t set in stone. Some Males evolve to more beautiful Pokemon than the Female of the species will, and in some cases it’s opposite. Vespiquen is an example of a far superior, rare, sought after Female Poke.
Can you see now how you can use Pokemon as a basics-of-Biology lesson or library program? Basics like mating, genders-within-species, and evolution are all ideas that kids already understand within the context of the game. If kids understand these ideas in this media, that means a good teacher or librarians can transfer this understanding to other media.
Secondly is the gender roles among “human” characters in the game. In the game, the character you chose to control throughout your gameplay can be either male or female. There is only a single circumstance throughout all IV generations of the game where your choice of gender matters, and it is a small and insignificant one. Because of this, Pokemon is a game whose gameplay reach extends across genders (which you find in most games; female Nintendo DS users outnumber males). Anecdotally/in my experience I’ve found a majority of “kids” who play Pokemon are male, and “teens/college age” Pokeplayers are female.
The in-game stories focus on your adventures catching Pokemon, but there are little love-story bits thrown in there. These are the traditional Male-Female relationship; GLBT love interests have yet to appear in the game. There are, however, some clear GLBT characters in the game, but not clear enough for young players to notice. This is probably to avoid controversy, and you can only speculate where the series will lead in that regard. The real issue is your relationship with the Pokemon, though, and the love-interest stuff is very quick and not prominent.
Violence is another touchy in-game issue.
All great works of fiction have some level of violence. Pokemon, in Banned Books Week fashion, has been marred by accusations of “too much violence”. This is mostly spurred on by the Pokemon anime cartoon series, as the two are confused by people outside of Pokeunderstanding.
The main goal of this game (as opposed to the more-violent cartoon) is to catch and train Pokemon. You are training your Pokemon to “battle” other Pokemon. But this is just a plot device; there are no animations of actual violence, and although there are very cool animations for their “moves” that they “battle” with, the point of this game is to love and care for your Pokemon. I tend to lean toward the Vatican’s official stance on Pokemon:
…on December 9, 1997 in the midst of the early Pokemon mania, the Holy See declared Pokemon to be “‘full of inventive imagination,’ has no ‘harmful moral side effects‘ and is based on the love-thy-neighbor notion of ‘intense friendship.’”
We, as teachers and librarians, come across this all the time: a parent or concerned citizen who is not truly familiar with a work of fiction asks for it to be banned. And, for the most part, after a thorough review of the work of fiction, is found to be meritorious. Here at 8bitlibrary.com, our goal is to get schools and libraries to look at video games as a new media, just like books/TV/web2.0/radio/texting/any other form of media out there. As such, individual games should be looked at as works of (fact or) fiction and not “games” (per se) and some GOOD video games are meritorious, just like a good book.
In the end, the only ones qualified to review the content of the game are parents, and I’m sure after a parents reviews the game, they probably won’t share it because they are playing it themselves (KINDA like when they review a book because of violence and end up loving it…)
I’m thinking our next class will be lesson plan and library program ideas. Thanks for the read! Professor JP
Pokemon 101 for Teachers & Librarians
Jan 12th
One of the biggest video gaming franchises Librarians will encounter (and possibly the most important of all video game IPs for libraries) is the Pokemon franchise. With two “new” games being released (HeartGold/SoulSilver) in March 2010, librarians should be prepared.
First first FIRST thing you need to know: the word “Pokemon” can either refer to the creatures in the game, the game franchise, or a game itself. Only context determines what it means.
Pokemon 101: understanding the basics of Pokemon!
What does Pokemon have to do with schools/libraries? This is a question I got from a (kinda irate) first-year teacher, right in front of a class full of kids in the middle of a library presentation I was giving them. More specifically, it was, “what does this have to do with summer reading?!“. Well, here are some ways they relate!
- Pokemon has an extensive map structure. If you are teaching map skills, I’m sure it will be difficult to find a map-skills exercise with the depth and diversity of the maps that the kids are going home to play with for recreation in this game.
- The “Pokedex” is a database (aka library) of Pokemon and Pokemon statistics within the game. Inside the Pokedex framework, kids are: analyzing various types of numerical and other data, building their decision making skills as they plan future choices based on the relationships Pokemon have with each other and the map, building real-life teamwork skills as they try to complete their Pokedex with the help of friends who own the game.
- More on the Pokedex: Wikipedia describes the Pokedex as “device designed to catalog and provide information” and “a portable reference tool“. Kids already have libraries in their video games, and are acting like little librarians…for fun!
- The main Pokemon releases (which we will get to) are playable fantasy fiction stories with you as the main character. Video games are a new media, and as such, traditional fiction genre forms for other media have reached games.
- The best resource for Pokemon players is Bulbapedia, which is an online Pokemon encyclopedia wiki with close to 16 thousand articles. If such a large body of information exists around Pokemon (and, since it is a wiki, it was written by the players of the game) it seems that there is a large amount of information flowing between players. That’s what schools and libraries are all about, communication and a flow of information!
- Making connections to students and library users is difficult. Catching their attention is one thing, and keeping their attention is another even more difficult thing. Pokemon will not only get their attention (tell them you caught a Giratina), it will keep it (building lesson plans and programming around the Pokemon environment is ripe with ideas).
What are the Pokemon games? There is confusion that surrounds what constitutes a Pokegame. For a video game to be considered a true Pokemon release, step one is it HAS to be released for a handheld system (Gameboy, GBA, DS…). Everything else is related material with a Pokemon logo on it, but not part of what we would consider the Pokecanon. And, to make things more confusing, Pokemon has three canons: the game canon, the anime (cartoon) canon, and the manga (book) canon. We are only dealing with the video game canon.
The canon has 4 generations, and a “generation” is the story that is being told within the game. In the canon, the “generations” are not chronological:
In 1998 Pokemon Red & Blue came out (in the USA) for Gameboy. Later, Pokemon Yellow was released. These games are all “the same”, in that they share a majority of content with each other and tell the same basic story. This is the way all the of generation releases have been handled so far. The Game Boy Advance games Pokemon FireRed & LeafGreen, remakes of Red & Blue, are considered Generation I even though they are based on the Generation III Game Boy Advance technology and gameplay.
Generation II consisted of Pokemon Gold & Silver, and later Crystal, released for the Game Boy Color. In March, the HeartGold and SoulSilver remakes will be released for the Nintendo DS.
Generation III are Pokemon Ruby & Sapphire, and later Emerald, all released for Game Boy Advance.
Generation IV is the current generation, which includes Pokemon Diamond & Pearl, followed by Platinum.
What are “Pokemon”? “Pokemon” are the little creatures in the Pokemon games. Think little bugs or snails. The player controls a “Pokemon trainer” who collects, trains, and takes care of the Pokemon s/he catches.
Isn’t Pokemon for kids? Yes, the franchise has been steered towards the “kid” demographic. The main releases do have many heavy narrative themes, in-depth statistical choices (via the Pokedex), long game-play hours, and a far fictional reach, so adults and especially teens play these games too. Because it is a “kid” game, non-players judge adults who play Pokemon, but after a proper understanding of the depth of the game, it is less embarrassing (LOL).
And the rest…
Pokemon’s influence on pop-culture doesn’t need to be brought up here. I’m going out on a limb here, but I don’t think there was anything more epic in pop-culture created in the 90s than Pokemon. Grunge-rock, the Lewinsky Scandal, and Seinfeld all pale in comparison to the far-reachingness of Pokemon and its continued influence on society.
Whew anyway hope this helps. This is obviously not everything pokerelated, so i’ll write a Pokemon 102 article some day.
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OH wait one more thing! I might be the biggest Pokefan librarian in the USA! I’ve CAUGHT every single Pokemon in the Sinnoh Dex! And I have a Darkrai and Arceus!
