Curriculum Resources: December 2008

Apart from the gaming done in public libraries I dont think there is a place for this in academic libraries. We can certainly be aware of the skills which students acquire through gaming but students themselves are not so different from students in the past. That is they like to think that their recreation is owned by them and with the exception of the occasional cool adult they dont want to share with the older generations.

I have heard the comment from a young student that he wouldnt mind learning maths through gaming if the game was challenging and graphically interesting enough. To reach this point educational institutions would have to think carefully about budgets as the commercial world will always be advertising the bigger and better version. Could an education institution keep up the momentum.

An awareness of the skills students develop can be used to connect with the student but a skill which students still need to learn is how to adapt to excellent methods of information retrieval in existance. Learning is always a two way process.