The document discusses how public libraries can promote 21st century literacy skills through free digital media design software and activities like game design, digital storytelling, and animation workshops. It provides examples of the Game Maker Academy program at various libraries, which uses tools like Scratch and Game Maker to teach important skills. Sample student projects are shown. The document argues that these activities help students learn important math, programming, and multimedia concepts while fostering collaboration and community.

1. The Library as a Possibility Space:
Cultivating 21 st Century Literacy and Learning
Brian Myers
Center for Talent Development
Northwestern University
Rhode Island Library Association
2011 Annual Conference

2. 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

3. 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

4. Computer Literacy vs. Computational Literacy
Computer Literacy:
Turning on the computer
Using a mouse
Using email and business applications
Searching the Web
Etc.
Computational Literacy:
Using the computer to create, not just to passively consume
Thinking algorithmically, understanding data structures
Conversant in high level programming languages
Treating information as a multimodal entity
Etc.
The Library as a Possibility Space

5. Computer Literacy vs. Computational Literacy
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)
The Library as a Possibility Space

6. 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, and
constructing meaning within a rich multimedia environment.
The Library as a Possibility Space

7. Media Computation in Game Design, Digital Storytelling & Animation
Math Concepts: Programming Concepts:
Addition Iteration (Loops)
Subtraction Conditional Expressions
Multiplication Variables
Division Arrays
Angles Casting
Coordinates Boolean Logic (and, or, not)
X,Y Positioning Randomness
Variables Event Handling
Trigonometry Strings
Calculus User Interface Design
The Library as a Possibility Space

8. Game design as a context for promoting media literacy
“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
The Library as a Possibility Space

9. 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

10. Game design as a context for promoting media literacy
The Library as a Possibility Space

11. 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

12. 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

13. 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

14. 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

15. 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

16. www.gamemakeracademy.org
The Library as a Possibility Space

17. Game Design Club
The Library as a Possibility Space

18. Game Design Club
The Library as a Possibility Space

19. The Library as a Possibility Space

20. Sample Projects
Hopper by Molly (age 12). Created in Greenfoot
The Library as a Possibility Space

21. Programs that nurture creativity and computational literacy
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.
The Library as a Possibility Space

22. Programs that nurture creativity and computational literacy
The Library as a Possibility Space

23. Programs that nurture creativity and computational literacy
Scratch c
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.
The Library as a Possibility Space

24. Programs that nurture creativity and computational literacy
The Library as a Possibility Space

25. Programs that nurture creativity and computational literacy
StarLogo TNG
education.mit.edu/starlogo
3d 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.
The Library as a Possibility Space

26. Programs that nurture creativity and computational literacy
The Library as a Possibility Space

27. Programs that nurture creativity and computational literacy
Game Maker
www.yoyogames.com
2D/3D games
Includes built-in graphics & sound
editors
Mac version released in 2010
Free download
Registered version: $20
Developed by Marc Overmars of
Ultrecht University for freshman
computer science students.
The Library as a Possibility Space

28. Programs that nurture creativity and computational literacy
The Library as a Possibility Space

29. Programs that nurture creativity and computational literacy
Robocode
robocode.sourceforge.net
Virtual battlebots IDE
Java or .NET
Cross-platform
Open source/free download
Used 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.
The Library as a Possibility Space

30. Programs that nurture creativity and computational literacy
The Library as a Possibility Space

31. National STEM Videogame Challenge
The Library as a Possibility Space

32. National STEM Videogame Challenge
The Library as a Possibility Space

33. Questions?
brian@gamemakeracademy.org
brian-myers@northwestern.edu
The Library as a Possibility Space