CMLE is here for you with all kinds of resources and information. Each week we will share a look at another piece of that information, to help draw some attention to resources that may help you as you serve your community.
Libraries can be leaders in gamification. You can use these tools to help your staff and patrons to build skills, to learn about your resources, to explore information literacy, or whatever else you want to accomplish!
Gamification is not “just” playing games; it’s a strategy to learn things, try things, and to practice things without so much pressure to avoid failure. Want to encourage people to try something new or hard? Gamify it!
Thinking that learning needs to be dull, or done in a specific way just because it has been done that way, is limited. Expand your possibilities by gamifying your library!
We provide several resources for you to read on this page, and are happy to chat with you about gamifying work in your own library!
Playing games to learn things is increasingly popular – and what can be better than making learning fun? Good instruction always means reaching out to your learners where they are, and working to connect the information you have to share in a way that speaks to them. Games can be a great tool for this!
In every kind of library, we need to work with our community members to help them build information literacy skills. This just sounds dull on the face of it, so making it fun with a game is a wonderful idea.
“Information Fallout is a narrative-based learning tool designed to introduce information literacy skills to students….[It] sets out six learning objectives for students. These are assessed by a series of multiple choice questions embedded within the narrative. To proceed through the narrative, students must answer those questions correctly.
The student will be able to demonstrate that context influences authority.
The student will be able to identify an element of the creation process that may be an indicator of quality for school work.
The student will be able to assert the importance of citing sources.
The student will be able to rank a research topic based on a question as being more effective than one that provides an overview.
The student will be able to articulate that scholarship evolves over time.
The student will be able to identify one or more reasons why it is important to consult more than one source when conducting research. “
Take a break from your other summertime activities, and play a round or two of this game now! It’s not “just” playing games – you are doing an assessment of a potentially valuable professional resource. If it so happens you are also having fun- that’s not a problem!
“I believe in student-centered learning. Part of student-centered learning is giving students voice and choice in the classroom. A few years ago, back when I was a high school English teacher, students were assigned a culminating project on Romeo and Juliet. Students had to show what they learned during the unit in a medium of their choosing. A student approached me and asked if he could show what he learned using Minecraft. I had no idea what Minecraft was, so after having him explain the game and how he planned to use it, I approved the project. A week later he brought in a video of Minecraft characters acting out his favorite scene from Romeo and Juliet in a gorgeous, block-based Globe theater. This is how I met Minecraft.
“by Elizabeth Bonsignore, Katie Kaczmarek, Kari Kraus and Anthony Pellicone from the University of Maryland; and Derek Hansen from Brigham Young University
A card from the catalog, with the ISBN, page, line, and word location from a published book that will lead players to the “right word” for this particular Tessera puzzle.
The following scenario offers a glimpse into gameplay for ARG The Tessera:
Ms. Edmunds is a middle school librarian running a #ReadyToCode after-school club that has been playing The Tessera, an interactive online mystery that introduces teens to foundational computational thinking concepts and key individuals from the history of computing. Her 8th graders have just entered a room within the game world that contains materials curated by members of a secret organization called the Tessera.
Here, they discover an old library catalog whose cards contain “book ciphers” that, once decoded, will reveal a letter from Ada Lovelace, a Tessera leader who is known today as the author of the world’s first computer program. The teens must work together to find the books listed in the catalog cards, then follow the encoded clues to locate the words within those books that comprise the contents of Ada’s letter.
Ms. Edmunds helps her club members to find several of the books in their media center or online via resources like Project Gutenberg. They page through the books together, compiling a growing list of words that disclose the letter’s contents. Once complete, Ada’s letter rewards players with key details about the Tessera’s secret mission against the evil “S.” During after-school sessions, Ms. Edmunds shows her teens how they can share their questions, frustrations, and successes with others in-game, through the Tessera players’ forum. She also encourages them to contribute their own findings and musings on the public-facing Tessera community wiki.
Like the teens in her club, Ms. Edmunds has a player profile, which she uses to respond to players’ questions and share her own thoughts. Over the course of 8-12 weekly after-school sessions, Ms. Edmunds facilitates online and face-to-face meetups with teens in her media center as they tackle the multi-level computational thinking challenges in this interactive, multiplayer mystery.”
Need to add to your Gamification resources? Then check out Jisc Digital Media’s new Gamification infokit. Really a break down of the concept of Gamification and it’s elements as well as examples, the toolkit provides up-to-the-minute information on how it can be used – and misused – in education. Here is the table of contents so you can jump to a topic:
The interesting part is that they give the “why” as well as the “how.” From Psychology to the issues and problems they cover it all. Check out the announcement or visit the infokit site.
Image credit: http://tinyurl.com/mxg47n6, licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0
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