This morning I got up way too early (there are many reasons why I love working in a public library, and one if them is that I hardly ever have to get up before 8am) and went to a session called Beyond Gaming Tournaments. The materials can be found here, although I noticed that all the slides and handouts aren't there yet.
The first speaker was Craig Davis of Youth Digital Arts Cyber School. He recommended training teens to create their own digital art, music and video games. He showed us how professional sounding music can be made easily using cakewalk and nitty (sp) a music programming language. That could be combined with digital artwork and made into a video game. He suggested having a teen design a game that featured the library or website, linked to the library home page, to interest teens.
The next panelist was Elizabeth Saxton of the Cleveland Public Library. She told us about gaming advisory boards and how engaged teens could be in the decision making concerning library gaming. One idea that I found compelling was to have teens write game reviews or news type coverage of gaming tournaments to post on a blog or publish in a zine or newsletter.
The third panelist was Amy McNally from Ridgedale Library. Her presentation was mostly done by the two teens she brought along. They have an anime club and a cosplay costume making club. This part of the session had little to do with gaming, but it was interesting to listen to.
I ran into Cheresse at this session, so I accompanied her to Winning over Boy Readers, next. It was a great session and Alan Lawrence Sitomer was an inspiring speaker, however, I don't think he answered the question that the title poses. We did hear lots of good reasons why boys (and girls) should read, as well as a lot of statistics linking race, literacy and success rates for teens, as well as how to make teens comfortable with reading. He said that it is important to listen to what the teen is interested in, rather than forcing what we think of as literature on them. Also, physical and mental comfort are key. These things may sound obvious, but many people miss them in their interactions with teens. I was impressed and went back to the exhibit hall after the session to pick up his arc, The Secret Story of Sonia Rodriguez. Mr. Sitomer moonlights as a YA author.
My last session was Fostering Youth Advocacy: How Libraries can help. There were 4 speakers at this panel from Oakland County Library, two high school students in their Youth Leadership Council, the Teen Services Librarian and an administrator. Most of the talking was done by the teens, who were fairly accomplished public speakers for their ages. The program consists of a group of around 12 teens who serve themselves and the library in different ways to advocate for their rights. Some members go every year to State "Leg" day (legislature?), where they sit in on talks and have the opportunity to be heard on important issues to teens. They also lobby for better teen areas in the branches, library improvements and take part in regular monthly meetings to discuss what is important to them. Jane was also at this session, so I will be interested in her take on it.
I met David and Bo at the Book Cart Derby after all the sessions were done. I had never seen one before and was amazed by the level of the competition. Many teams had flashy, expensive looking costumes and cart decorations. All were well choreographed and one woman actually sang during their performance. The mad scientists/zombies won the gold cart. There was a lot of time, thought and creativity put into theirs.
We headed over to the iSchool Reception at the House of Blues after the derby. I met up with a cohort there and had a nice time talking to iSchool students past and present. It was a really long day...
2 comments:
Jessi & I went to two of the same session Sunday. What I liked about the first session, Beyond Gaming Tournaments, was the presentation by the guy from Digital Arts. This organization sounds like it's doing some amazing work teaching 3-8th graders to develop & sell digital art with the goal of making them entrepreneurs. They have low cost classes, often handled digitally. One of the ideas that I thought we could really use at SPL was viral marketing - getting gamers to develop a game about our branch. Yeah we'll teach them something about physical library, collections, and services, but we'll be doing it in a fun way. Also, if we print t-shirts and other SWAG then the news will build and build and build. . .
Some of the ideas from Elizabeth Saxton were to feature teen writing about games on MySpace, Facebook, library website, zines, blogs, wikis, podcasts, or for something low-tech - bulletin boards. Gaming discussion groups could include discussion of favorite games, best/worst games, vilence in videogames, platfrom pros & cons, what makes a good game, future of video games, and talking about gaming magazines & websites. She also discussed world building in videogames which seemed like a very pro-literacy activity - basically we'd be talking about setting, rules, character, and backstory. Seems like a good fit w/ the library to me.
Winning Over Boy Readers - there were a lot of scary statistics here folks. I think I might use some of these statistics the next time I go to my alternative schools to tell them WHY I'm there to talk to them, and why it's important to get on good terms w/ books & reading.
There's a huge drop out rate, we know it, but the number is astonishing - how's this for scary: 3000 a day drop out of school in the U.S. That is 1 high school student every 9 seconds. Of course it's not really news that dropping out of school and less education translates into a lower salary and a higher likelihood of being in poverty or jail. If you can't read and you can't hold a job to feed your family, then for some people criminal behavior, addictions, drugs, and jail time follow.
Does anyone else find this factoid alarming? Penitentiary forecasters use 4th grade literacy levels to plan for the appropriate number of prison beds. FOURTH GRADE!
Maybe it's not a shock to you.
After all sorts of alarming statistics that could make us all want to shake our heads at where we're going as a society if only 68% of our kids are graduating high school, Sitomer mentioned a few ways to motivate teens (although not specifically boys) to read:
Believe they're reachable
Find what engages them (e.g. video games, basketball/sports, girls & cars, mixed martial arts
Don't tell them what they ought to like
Be a listener!
Start out w/ something small like jokes
Feature a series or a format
Provide Computer Access
Literacy has become diverse - embrace it
Theh world is changing - and so should we
So here is one more interesting fact to make you feel all warm and cozy. India has more students in honors courses than the US Has students. In a global economy, will our kids be able to compete?
Post a Comment