Week 11: Gaming and Virtual Worlds

I am currently taking the course “Instructional Techniques for Information Professionals” and am finding that one of the most challenging aspects of teaching information literacy is getting students' attention. Adding gaming to instruction would certainly help.

There is nothing more boring for students than the same-old teaching strategies that never worked effectively in the first place. Study after study shows that instruction works best if students are actively engaged. And what can be more engaging than electronic games! As the mother of 19- and 23-year-old boys, I have seen firsthand how totally immersed individuals can become in these games. Those who design the games spend huge amounts of money to ensure that their buyers are hooked on the experience. Librarians take note; we can learn much more than we think from these game developers. Antonacci and Modaress point out that, “you cannot be passive in a game or simulation. Students engaged in educational games and simulations are interpreting, analyzing, discovering, evaluating, acting, and problem solving.” Isn’t this what instructional librarians want to foster in their classrooms?” I was delighted to discover two fun games (FindIt! and The Information Literacy Game) for teaching information literacy. These might not be Halo but they sure make learning information literacy much more interesting. The flash version of FindIt! has the high-speed excitement that gamers enjoy. I’m all for making learn fun and interactive.

I love the fact that libraries are recognizing the potential of games in the library. What a great way of attracting males in their teens and twenties. And as we know, this is a segment of the population that has not frequented libraries in the past. But unless life is very different in North Carolina, The Gaming Zone blog from the Charlotte and Mecklenburg County library needs to catch up. I have yet to see anyone who needs an online game defined for them. I loved reading about the Gaming Success Stories. Adding online games to any collection is a win-win situation. Patrons have fun, sharpen their mental skills while playing, learn that libraries are great places, and might even move on to other materials, checking out game-related books as Squire and Steinkuehler have found.

The nay-sayers in the crowd will be sceptical of learning associated with play. In Game On for Learning, de Freitas points out that a major inhibitor to incorporating games into education is “the perception that gaming is a leisure pursuit with no pedagogic value.” Yet look at young children. They play at being adults and role play a variety of occupations; in fact, everything they learn is done through play. In Digital Game-Based Learning: It’s Not Just the Digital Natives Who Are Restless, Van Eck points out that “current thinking in education suggests that the more students are responsible for their learning, the more they will learn.” I couldn’t agree more. Gaming is definitely a step forward in this process.

I am more undecided about the usefulness of virtual worlds for libraries. They certainly have a role to play in fields that make use of role playing, as Antonacci and Modaress argue. In Second Life, people are spending lots of money; this is a very commercial site. I wonder if its popularity will fade when Google’s Lively attracts more users. Should librarians focus their time and energy on one virtual world only to see it wane in popularity? I was amazed to find so many libraries in Second Life. It would be helpful to have hard data on how it is being used.