The Library as a Possibility Space:Cultivating 21 st Century Literacy and Learning
Brian MyersCenter for Talent Development
Northwestern University
Rhode Island Library Association2011 Annual Conference
The Library as a Possibility Space
Goal of this presentation:
To demonstrate that the public library can effectively and inexpensively promote 21st century literacy skills and STEM learning by providing access to free digital media design software and design-oriented activities. These activities include game design, digital storytelling and animation workshops that offer opportunities for learning, peer collaboration and community-building.
The Library as a Possibility Space
Structure of this presentation:
1. Game design and digital storytelling as a context for nurturing important 21st century literacy skills.
2. Game Maker Academy and the Game Design Club
Its history and current activities
3. Sample projects
Game projects produced by program participants and club members
4. Free and open source technologies, resources and instructional materials
A selected list of IDEs and other tools utilized in our programs
The Library as a Possibility Space
Computer Literacy vs. Computational Literacy
Computer Literacy:
Turning on the computerUsing a mouseUsing email and business applicationsSearching the WebEtc.
Computational Literacy:
Using the computer to create, not just to passively consumeThinking algorithmically, understanding data structuresConversant in high level programming languagesTreating information as a multimodal entityEtc.
The Library as a Possibility Space
Computers can be the technical foundation of a new and dramatically enhanced literacy, which will act in many ways like the current literacy and which will have penetration and depth of influence comparable to what we have already experienced in coming to achieve a mass, text-based literacy.
Andrea DiSessa Changing Minds: Computers, Learning and Literacy (MIT Press, 2000)
Access alone is not enough. The goal must be fluency for everyone. That will require new attitudes about computing – and new attitudes about learning. If computers are to truly transform our lives in the future, we must treat computational fluency on a par with reading and writing.
Mitch Resnick Communications of the ACM (2001)
Computer Literacy vs. Computational Literacy
The Library as a Possibility Space
Media Computation in Game Design, Digital Storytelling & Animation
Design applications such as Scratch, Game Maker and Alice serve as “tools to think with” much like the blocks and puzzles that teach preschoolers about shapes and numbers.
The experience of creating games and digital stories with these applications engages youth with important math and programming concepts, and provides valuable experience creating and editing audio and graphic content, andconstructing meaning within a rich multimedia environment.
The Library as a Possibility Space
Media Computation in Game Design, Digital Storytelling & Animation
Math Concepts:
AdditionSubtractionMultiplicationDivisionAnglesCoordinatesX,Y PositioningVariablesTrigonometryCalculus
Programming Concepts:
Iteration (Loops)Conditional ExpressionsVariablesArraysCastingBoolean Logic (and, or, not)RandomnessEvent HandlingStringsUser Interface Design
The Library as a Possibility Space
“Our position is that there is an emerging form of media literacy that we sometimes call ‘Gaming Literacy.’ Gaming Literacy has to do with information management, understanding complex systems, social networks, a critical design process, and creativity with digital technology. Increasingly, this new form of literacy will be crucial in the workplace and in our social and civic lives. The process of game design, which combines mathematics and logic, storytelling and aesthetics, writing and communication, systems and analytic thinking, among other elements, is one of the best ways of engaging with this form of literacy.”
Eric Zimmerman
Retrieved July 23, 2007 from http://www.henryjenkins.org/2006/12/an_interview_with_eric_zimmerm.html
Game design as a context for promoting media literacy
The Library as a Possibility Space
Game design as a context for promoting media literacy
“When kids learn to design games they not only learn how to explore the possibility space of a set of rules but also learn to understand and evaluate a game’s meaning as the product of relationships between elements in a dynamic system . . .
“Educators and education advocates have recently acknowledged that the ability to think systemically is one of the necessary skills for success in the 21st century. We believe that game-making is especially well-suited to encouraging meta-level reflection on the skills and processes that designer-players use in building such systems, be they games or communities of practice.”
Katie Salen, Gaming Literacies (unpublished draft, 2007)
The Library as a Possibility Space
Game design as a context for promoting media literacy
The Library as a Possibility Space
Game Maker Academy
Began in 2006; first programs offered at the Wilmette (IL), Evanston, and Park Ridge Public Libraries
Typical program included 4-5 separate workshops of 2 hours where participants created two or three games based upon classic console games of the 70s and 80s
Each program could accommodate 10 – 12 teens; demand was such that we doubled the number of programs during the first summer.
The Library as a Possibility Space
Game Maker Academy
Initial programs were built around Game Maker, a freeware game-development IDE created by Mark Overmars of Utrecht University in 1999.
In early 2007 we began offering programs built around Scratch from MIT. These programs consisted of two workshops: the first offering a guided introduction to the Scratch design environment, and the second devoted to open experimentation and collaboration between participants.
The Scratch programs became immediately popular and we began to offer them on a regular basis, about 2 programs were scheduled for each 2-3 month period.
The Library as a Possibility Space
Game Maker Academy
Additional workshops offered under the program include Alice, Starlogo TNG, Greenfoot, and Robocode.
By late 2007 some of the participants of the previous Scratch and Game Maker programs established a club (the “Game Design Club”) to plan advanced game design workshops, create tutorials and host game related events.
Some of these club members participated on a panel at the 2007 ALA Games, Learning and Libraries Symposium in Chicago.
The Library as a Possibility Space
Game Design Club
The original Club members met once each month to plan additional workshops and competitive events (design competitions and gaming tournaments).
Past Club-hosted workshops include HTML and CSS programs, 3D demonstrations,Sketchup workshops, demonstrations on how to use microcontrollers and how to map game controllers to Game Maker and Scratch projects.
Guest visitors including game designers, game programmers and artists have frequently visited the group. Ricarose Roque of MIT's Scratch team visited with the group twice and helped out with our 2010 Scratch Day event
The Library as a Possibility Space
Game Design Club
. The Club frequently hosts gaming tournaments and design contests. We've collected a number of retro (Atari, SNES, N64, Sega) game consoles and frequently host well-attended retro game nights.
A twice-yearly Robocode tournament is hosted, and an annual summer game design contest is sponsored by the group in which members compete to create games based upon predetermined themes.
Members of the Club participated in Media Mashup, a 2008-2010 IMLS-funded research grant that put Scratch into a number of library systems around the country. Some of the older Club members earn money in the summer facilitating programs at neighboring libraries.
The Club's greatest accomplishment is its establishment of a creative culture and a community that continues to engage new members as the older members graduate and go on to college. Members think of the club as their legacy and they are very protective of its values: imaginative play, creativity, collaboration and shared responsibility for learning
The Library as a Possibility Space
www.gamemakeracademy.org
The Library as a Possibility Space
Game Design Club
The Library as a Possibility Space
Game Design Club
The Library as a Possibility Space
The Library as a Possibility Space
Sample Projects
Hopper by Molly (age 12). Created in Greenfoot
The Library as a Possibility Space
Alice
www.alice.org
3d animations
Simple games
Cross-platform
Free download
Developed by researchers at Carnegie Mellon, version 3.0 is under development in partnership with EA.
Programs that nurture creativity and computational literacy
The Library as a Possibility Space
Programs that nurture creativity and computational literacy
The Library as a Possibility Space
Scratch
scratch.mit.edu
Animations
Games
Simulations
Includes built-in graphics & sound editors
Cross-platform
Open source/free download
Developed by the MIT Media Lab’s Lifelong Kindergarten Group.
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Programs that nurture creativity and computational literacy
The Library as a Possibility Space
Programs that nurture creativity and computational literacy
The Library as a Possibility Space
StarLogo TNGeducation.mit.edu/starlogo3d simulations
Uses “programmable blocks” coding environment, similar to Scratch.
Cross-platform.
Free download.
Developed by researchers at MIT’s Media Lab, in collaboration with the Teacher Education Project.
Programs that nurture creativity and computational literacy
The Library as a Possibility Space
Programs that nurture creativity and computational literacy
The Library as a Possibility Space
Game Makerwww.yoyogames.com
2D/3D games Includes built-in graphics & sound
editorsMac version released in 2010Free downloadRegistered version: $20
Developed by Marc Overmars of Ultrecht University for freshman computer science students.
Programs that nurture creativity and computational literacy
The Library as a Possibility Space
Programs that nurture creativity and computational literacy
The Library as a Possibility Space
Robocoderobocode.sourceforge.net
Virtual battlebots IDEJava or .NET Cross-platformOpen source/free downloadUsed in school-based coding tournaments
worldwide
Developed bt Matthew Nelson at IBM, has been open source since 2005. Project now maintained by Flemming Larsen and Pavel Savara.
Programs that nurture creativity and computational literacy
The Library as a Possibility Space
Programs that nurture creativity and computational literacy
The Library as a Possibility Space
National STEM Videogame Challenge
The Library as a Possibility Space
National STEM Videogame Challenge
The Library as a Possibility Space
Questions?