Last week I attended LOEX of the West 2008 in Las Vegas. This conference was titled, “Hit the jackpot: Successful experimentation and innovation in instruction”. I’ve never sat down in a room filled with 250 instruction librarians, so exposure to a group endeavor so tightly focused on library instruction was a new experience for me. I’m sharing a few of the notable highlights below:
The keynote speaker, Greg Niemeyer from UC Berkeley, presented us with an overview of game theory to point out how games and gaming informs instruction pedagogies and learning styles. Greg was not suggesting that we must play games in order to instruct, but that we think of games and gameplay in order to make our instruction sessions more dynamic and interactive. Audience participation and shared outcomes can contribute significantly to successful class outcomes.
Anne-Marie Deitering and Kate Gronemyer, instruction librarians from Oregon State University, gave a very compelling presentation on the ways in which Web 2.0 technologies are changing scholarship and research. Many publishers are now promoting access to pre-publication literature through blogs and other web tools. Are these sources scholarly before they are peer-reviewed? Should students learn to question and challenge the lofty status of peer-reviewed publications or is this a challenge to the core essence of the institutions from which they are seeking degrees? What role should librarians fill in pointing students toward non-expert generated information like Wikipedia? Do our loyalties reside with the scholarly traditions our institutions belong to or should we be facilitating access to broader and more popular sources? Where is the TRUTH in all of this?
Bee Gallegos from Arizona State University demonstrated a online game that is being used by ASU to introduce students to library research and information literacy concepts. It took four librarians, a computer programmer, a graphic designer, and multiple Flash animators three years and whopping big budget to create “Quarantined”. This game is set on campus during a lethal virus outbreak. Students must locate research within the library that is critical to finding a cure for this virus. Interestingly, the main antagonists are government agents who are locking down the campus and blocking access to the library. If they catch you, you dissolve into a green goo, but luckily than can be bribed with chocolate bars!
Shall we play games with our students? How cutting edge do we want to be? What traditions would we like to challenge?
