Short Talk Panel RML: Playful interventions: libraries, college access, after school and media arts
Title: iPod Apps, Mobile Learning, Game Dynamics: A More Playful Library Orientation
Type: individual-paper
Organizer: Adam Rogers
Participants: Adam Rogers, Adrienne Lai, Anne Burke
Orientation to the college library is a standard event in a freshman’s life. Typically, this will
take place over an hour in a library computer lab, where a librarian will give a Powerpoint
presentation and perhaps have the students conduct searches on the library website. It is
not uncommon for students to tune out these sessions, using the computers to check
Facebook, or to respond to the traditional lecture format as they always have – by falling
asleep.
The NCSU Libraries’ Mobile Scavenger Hunt aims to provide a more active, engaging
introduction to the library. It is a team-based activity that sends students around the library in
search of answers to clues that orient them to the library’s spaces, collections, and
technologies. The activity provides a fun, low-stakes means to promote resources and
services critical to academic success and invites students to explore the building and
interact with staff.
Each team (named after a Muppet) uses an iPod Touch to submit their scavenger hunt
answers with Evernote, a free, cloud-based multimedia note-taking app. Answers are
submitted as text or photographs taken with the built-in iPod camera, and staff keep score in
real time by monitoring the teams’ shared Evernote notebooks. At the end of the scavenger
hunt, a winning team is declared, a librarian reviews the clues that were answered
incorrectly, and students are invited to ask any lingering questions they have about the
library.
The main goal of this project is to demystify this often-overwhelming new environment and
reduce library anxiety by using situated, problem-based learning. In feedback provided after
the delivery of traditional, computer lab-based instruction sessions, students reported that
the thing they were most concerned or confused about was how to navigate library spaces.
D. H. Hill Library is NC State University’s main library, where resources are spread across
225,000 square feet, nine floors and three wings. NC State students come from diverse
backgrounds, including many from rural communities where the local libraries are likely to be
small and have limited access to information technology resources.
The scavenger hunt aims to promote the library as a space of discovery and to empower
students by having them acquire knowledge about the library through hands-on experience.
Working in randomly-assigned teams, students to get to know their classmates as they
interact and work collaboratively to answer the clues. The clues prompt the teams to go find
a book in the stacks, creatively photograph themselves in different spaces around the
building, ask library staff for help, and navigate the library’s web-based resources.
A secondary goal is to introduce students to some of the mobile devices that are available
for borrowing at the library. For students who are already familiar with these technologies,
the activity demonstrates how these mobile devices and free applications can be used in
educational and collaborative ways.
To date, over 35 scavenger hunts have taken place. Feedback from the students has been
overwhelmingly positive, with the most common comment being: “We want more time to do
this!”
Title: Building college aspirations, building games: A case study of a middle school game
intervention
Type: individual-paper
Organizers: Vanessa Monterosa, Elizabeth Swenson
Participants: Sean Brouchard, Elizabeth Swenson, Vanessa Monterosa, Zoe Corwin
College preparation efforts most frequently focus on high school students. Yet middle
schools can serve a critical gatekeeping or empowering function with regard to college
readiness. In this presentation, researcher game designers overview an innovative game
project that illustrates how the choices a student makes during middle school affect his/her
opportunities in high school, college, and beyond. The game objective is to help middle
school students develop a vocabulary and build aspirations around college at this key
moment in their development. Throughout the game, players will engage in playful learning
by adopting and exploring different ambitions. While trying to meet these ambitions, the
player will encounter obstacles inspired by some of the real-world challenges that students
face, providing opportunities for individual discovery and growth.
Presenters will: 1) share current research on middle school college outreach efforts; 2)
chronicle the game design process, highlighting the challenges and lessons learned from
working with middle school junior game designers; and 3) discuss the evolution of the actual
game.
Title: The Junior AV Club: An Action Research Approach to Early Childhood Media Arts
Education
Type: individual-paper
Organizer: Gabriel Peters-Lazaro
Participant: Gabriel Peters-Lazaro
What can four-year olds learn from making movies? Do the video cameras even fit in their
hands? How do iPads compare to sidewalk chalk when it comes to teaching computational
literacies? Addressing these and other questions, this short talk will address the theme of
‘Re-imagining Media for Learning’ by presenting findings from an ongoing action research
project called The Junior AV Club. Conducted at the USC School of Cinematic Art’s Institute
for Multimedia Literacy, the project began by introducing media production skills along with
concepts of recombinant and transmedia storytelling to four- and five-year old preschool
students over the course of a 16-week curriculum in 2010. The Junior AV Club has since
continued through several iterations, expanding the participant age range and enlarging our
pedagogical focus to include an emphasis on computational literacies and games. Through
an account of our experimental pedagogical approaches, and through an examination of
student-produced media artifacts, this talk aims to identify key insights and challenges to the
pursuit of early childhood media arts education, addressing issues of collaborative
curriculum design, facilitation of pre-linear creative expression, and promotion of media
literacy skills as an integrated component of early childhood literacy education.
Title: After School Tech Club & the Blurring of In/formal Learning Environments
Theme: digital-media-and-learning
Type: individual-paper
Organizers: Jacqueline Vickery, S. Craig Watkins
Participant: Jacquieline Vickery
This presentation draws from ethnographic research conducted by the MacArthur Foundation’s Connected Learning Research Network. Our research works with a large, ethnically diverse, low income high school in central Texas where many of the students do not have quality access to computers and internet at home. Our overall goal is to explore the media ecologies of teens and to understand how schools can optimize in/formal learning environments for connected learning. We are spending the fall semester conducting an in-depth and multi-methodological ethnography in an after school technology club and working with about 15 teens, their families and teachers.
What we are finding is that the after school technology club provides a liminal space between formal and informal learning which tends to be both socially and interest driven. Teens come to the club to (learn to) use video editing software, write scripts, play online games, upload and edit photos, create web pages, produce music, and hang out (online and off). The club provides access to technology and a space for students to apply formal skills learned in the classroom with informal messing around on their own interest-driven projects. However, the school district is subject to strict regulations which block all video sites including YouTube and Vimeo and all social networking sites. Thus, students’ participation and access is regulated and limited which is particularly significant for students without quality access at home.
This talk explores the value and blurring of the in/formal after school club; the environment blurs both formal and informal approaches to learning as well as the very architecture of the space which functions informally although exists within the formal institute of the school. Also, we address the larger implications of school policies which inhibit and limit students’ participation. Our talk presents an overview of our findings from a semester of in-depth ethnography and solicits feedback as to how schools can optimize in/formal learning spaces and re-think restrictive policies.