At our school, video/computer games are banned. Of course, this does not include educational games when used under the direction of a teacher during class time. But during break times, students are forbidden to use games like Minecraft, Tetris or the first-person shooter games. The school's reasons for this are that their computers must have battery power for use when required during class as well as issues to do with bandwidth and students' Internet quotas. The Library is a bit of a battleground when it comes to computer game usage. We are constantly telling students off for playing them. It doesn't necessarily stop students from playing computer games but they get better at hiding what they're doing.
Recently, I ran a simple design consultation activity with students about how the library is used. I asked the students to write down what they would like to see in their library and how they would like to use the library. The sky was the limit. They could ask for anything - this was an exercise in imagination not reality. If students could imagine the library of their dreams, what would it look like? Of course, I got the expected far-fetched responses such as a swimming pool, allowing animals in the library, food, a chocolate fountain....But the vast majority of students asked for an area to play computer games or a video game library. I must mention, however, that the students who participated in this survey are not currently frequent users of the library nor were most of them particularly prolific readers. I can certainly understand why students would want to be able to play video games at school. For most of them, gaming is something they would frequently do at home and is likely a favourite recreational activity. It's also a break from school work and can be relaxing. However, every part of me rebels against allowing video/computer gaming in the library. If computer games were allowed, for some students, this would be the only activity they do all break time, every break time. To be honest, this is already a bit of a problem. There is a small group of students that will come into the library every break and immediately go to the corner and sit on their computers. They're certainly not doing work but it's very difficult to catch them in the act of playing computer games. These students won't even eat a decent lunch and they're not talking or interacting with each other. It's likely that they spend every moment of free time they have playing computer games. It's students like this that concern me. Gaming disorders and addictions are increasingly being recognised by health authorities. These disorders are defined as a loss of self-control over an individual's gaming habits, often to the detriment of social relationships, education and health. People who suffer from such a disorder will have a focus on gaming to the exclusion of all other activities. For students in particular, the lack of sleep as a result of gaming and the use of screens (e.g. mobile phones) can cause problems with sleep, compounding issues of concentration in the classroom. I realise, of course, that gaming is not all bad. There are certainly educational aspects to computer games, just as there are with tabletop games. But our students are children and are still developing a sense of self-discipline and self-control. They shouldn't be spending every spare moment of the school day playing computer games - there's enough time for that when they're at home under the supervision of their parents. Instead, I'd rather they engage with each other and participate in the many alternative activities that we have on offer in the library.
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Have you heard of "social reading"? Generally, reading is something that we do as individuals but it can easily become a social activity. Reading aloud to a class or a small group, sharing our thoughts about a particular book with a friend, participating in a Bookclub - these are all examples of social reading. Increasingly, however, social reading is taking place online via social media and #bookstagram is becoming quite the thing. There are any number of social media bookclubs available, catering to a wide variety of audiences and interests (check out these virtual bookclubs). The advantages of virtual bookclubs are many:
And of course, there's advantages for authors and publishers as well. Essentially, it's free marketing and the more times a particular book or author is mentioned, the more likely it is that social media users will buy that book (according to Kate Hoy from Penguin Random House). As for disadvantages, there is the obvious lack of face-to-face interaction that you have with traditional bookclubs. Given the importance of social media in the lives of our students, online "bookclubs" could provide new ways for us, as teacher librarians, to promote reading in our schools. So how can we do this?
Most of the mentions of online bookclubs that I found relate to adults. And I'm not sure that an online bookclub (in the style of a traditional bookclub - reading a book a month then sharing your thoughts) would be particularly appealing to our students, at least not at my school. But certainly, we could use social media to generate interest in books. Some teacher librarians do this type of thing already with "unboxing" videos. Anyway, these are some of my ideas for using Instagram/Twitter to promote books to my students:
I have not implemented any of these ideas just yet. But this is something I'm certainly going to be looking into doing. I'd love to hear how you are using social media to promote reading in your school. Please share your ideas in the comments. Last year, a group of boys started coming to the library every lunch break. Equipped with a blank board divided into squares, a set of colourful dice and vivid imaginations, they’d find themselves a table and set about playing Dungeons and Dragons. So intense and complicated were their games that they’d lose track of time and at the end of the break we would literally have to kick them out of the library. When they weren’t playing, the boys would often stop by the circulation desk and update my library assistant (who has a much better understanding of D&D than I do) on the latest calamities to have befallen their characters or the most recent devious scenario the Dungeon Master had devised. For those of you who don’t know, Dungeons and Dragon (otherwise known as D&D) is a role-playing simulation tabletop game. Players create their own characters based on certain parameters while the Dungeon Master designs the scenarios, guides the game play and referees. Throughout the game, players are faced with various situations or decisions and must decide how to respond. The roll of a dice determines the outcomes of the players’ actions. If you want to find out more, visit this website or watch a short tutorial here. At the beginning of this year, the boys approached us about setting up a Dungeons and Dragons Club. They wanted to invite other students to join them and would teach them how to play and develop their characters. I loved their initiative and immediately agreed. Since then, D&D Club has been a great success. We have gone from 1 group of 4 players to 3 groups with approximately 20 students involved. The students will spend hours building their characters and the games always involve much hilarity and discussion.
Online/computer games are banned at school but I am more than happy to encourage the use of tabletop games like D&D. I believe that these types of games have much to offer our students. According to Price (2005), D&D offers young people the chance to develop their skills in problem-solving, teamwork, cooperation, strategy and creative thinking. For the English and Maths teachers among us, it also requires students to use statistics, probability and develop narratives and story-telling techniques (Zalaznick, 2018). D&D also allows for creativity and individuality. Players are able to use their imaginations, taking the game in whatever direction they choose and drawing their inspiration from books, movies and TV shows. Betz (2011) argues that D&D, like other role-playing games, can teach young people important social “messages” like the value of sharing common goals and values; having a diverse range of skills and experiences and accepting failure as part of a growth mindset. Best of all, in my opinion, D&D provides opportunities for face-to-face interaction in ways that online games do not. At the moment, D&D is used at our school purely as a recreational game, played during break times. But with some adjustment, it could become part of your pedagogy. For those of you that are interested, check out this website on how to use D&D as part of your everyday classroom practices. For those interested in starting D&D clubs at your school, Price (2005) has some great ideas to get you going. Teachers, librarians and students, go forth and play! References: Betz, U. A. K. (2011). What fantasy role-playing games can teach your children (or even you). Retrieved from: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1467-8535.2011.01209.x Price, N. (2005). Dungeons & Dragons: Adventures in the Library. Voice of Youth Advocates, 27(6), 454–456. Retrieved from https://gateway.library.qut.edu.au/login?url=https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&AuthType=ip,sso&db=eue&AN=502948301&site=ehost-live&scope=site Zalaznick, M. (2018). Dungeons and Dragons storms K12 Education. Retreived from: https://districtadministration.com/dungeons-dragons-storms-k12-education/ As a teacher-librarian (TL) I feel privileged to have so many opportunities to engage or connect with students on the topics that interest them. Given the content-heavy and assessment-orientated nature of our curriculum, this is something that I often didn’t feel I had enough time to do as a classroom teacher. These conversations are usually quite short: a quick chat as I issue out a book, a comment or two as I offer a recommendation or a brief discussion about a particular series. Even so, these moments are opportunities to connect with students in a casual way where the conversation has nothing to do with schoolwork and the student is free to discuss whatever interests them in a non-judgemental way.
I recently had one such interesting conversation with a student about social media. The student (let’s call them Sam) was borrowing several books from a popular young adult series and we were discussing our favourite characters. Proudly, Sam mentioned that they had been communicating via social media with one of the “characters” – well, the actor who played this character in the movie adaptation – and that the actor had actually responded! Alarm bells started ringing in my head. In my experience, getting responses from authors and actors on social media is quite rare and yet, this student was having entire conversations with this person. Sam continued talking, “…and do you know what their [screen] name is on social media? It’s [character name] is a god!” The alarm bells in my head reached a crescendo. Sure, some actors could be conceited but I didn’t think any of them were so narcissistic as to proclaim themselves as gods. “Sam, are you sure this is the real person?” I asked. The response was immediate. “Yes, of course - it’s their photo on the profile!” Sam’s naïve confidence astonished me. “But Sam, anyone can use photos from the Internet and people do create fake profiles. This probably isn’t the real person.” Confusion. “I suppose…” Concerned, I continued, “Just be careful what you post online. Don’t give away any personal information.” By the end of our conversation, Sam was having doubts as to the identity of the person they’d been talking to and promised to be careful. Even so, I was concerned enough to mention the conversation to another member of staff, who followed up with Sam and their parents. It’s easy to assume that, as “digital natives”, our students are competent users of social media. And while, technically, that is true – they do know how to operate on social media platforms (and how do so effectively, just consider the advent of Instragram influencers) – this is very different to being able to evaluate the content they see. Are students able to identify which posts are sponsored and which are not? (Try this for yourself here – I scored 8.5 out of 11). Are they able to identify misinformation, bias and fake news? (Test your fake news detecting skills here) Do they interact with others online in a safe and responsible way? Given the prevalence and unfortunate success of online scams (e.g. catfishing and online dating scams), it’s clear that even adults struggle to evaluate information they encounter via social media or interactions they have online. I don't think that banning social media is the answer. There’s no evidence that such a ban would be effective and social media does have the potential to be a force for good. But clearly we need to educate our young people on how to use social media ethically and responsibly and in a way that is healthy. The big question is how do we do this? |
AuthorHi, I'm Kelly. I'm a teacher-librarian at a Queensland high school with an interest in the lives of the young people I work with and the issues affecting them. ArchivesCategories
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