31 October 2019
Digital Conversation: Games, Literature and Learning
Happy Halloween! If you aren't heading out trick or treating this evening, and prefer a quiet night in, then you may like to play some of the wonderful games and interactive fiction that were created in last year's Gothic Novel Jam. My personal favourite is The Lady's Book of Decency, by Sean S. LeBlanc. If you feel like a longer read, Lynda Clark's first novel Beyond Kidding is launched today, I can't wait to get my teeth into this!
It is also very nearly International Games Week (3-9 November 2019), this is an initiative run by volunteers from around the world to reconnect communities through their libraries around the educational, recreational, and social value of all types of games. Check out this map to see if there is an event near you!
If you are based in the UK and work in libraries, you may be interested in coming along to the next Game Library Camp, which is being held at Leeds Central Library on Saturday 9th November. More details can be found at https://librarycamp.game.blog/, I'll be there to lead a discussion for the session "I hope you like jammin’ too"; for sharing advice on running online interactive fiction writing jams.
Here at the British Library we have a couple of International Games Week (IGW) events, we are excited to be hosting the narrative games convention AdventureX on Saturday 2nd and Sunday 3rd November, all tickets are completely sold out, but the talks will be live streamed, online from http://adventurexpo.org/livestream/, check the schedule for times and watch from the comfort of your sofa.
Continuing our IGW events at the British Library, on the evening of Monday 4th November we are holding a Digital Conversation on Games, Literature and Learning. This will be a panel discussion exploring how video games, such as Minecraft, can be used to engage learners of all ages with literature, libraries and museums.
Jordan Erica Webber will be our chair for the evening. Jordan is a writer and presenter, Co-author of Ten Things Video Games Can Teach Us, host of the Guardian's digital culture podcast Chips With Everything and resident games expert on The Gadget Show.
Our panellists include:
- Keith Stuart, Guardian journalist, writer and author of A Boy Made of Blocks, a Richard and Judy Book Club pick and a major bestseller. He has written about how Minecraft has helped his son Zac and will be talking from a parent’s perspective. Keith will also be available to sign books after the panel discussion.
- Dr Lissa Holloway-Attaway and Dr Björn Berg Marklund from the University of Skövde in Sweden, whose whose research specialisms are digital game-based learning, educational games, 'Serious Games' and how games are used in classrooms. They have collaborated with museums and cultural organisations to run workshops with young people to co-create their communities within the Baltic Sea Region by constructing imaginative simulations of their cities and neighbourhoods in Minecraft. Another of their projects is the Augmented Reality, children's book app KLUB, which stands for Kiras och Luppes Bestiarium (Kiras and Luppes Bestiary) where mythical beings from books come to life in 3D.
- Professor Sally Bushell from the Department of English Literature & Creative Writing at Lancaster University; Sally is the Principle Investigator on the Litcraft project, which uses the popular Minecraft gaming platform to build accurate scale models of authorial maps from classic works of literature. Impact is achieved by re-engaging children with literature in a model of positive reinforcement that makes works accessible in entirely new ways, combining the textual and the digital. Reading and writing are integrated with an immersive experience of the literary worlds.
Promotional video for the third Litcraft release - the first pairing of connected texts. This build features the original and iconic castaway tales: Swiss Family Robinson and Robinson Crusoe.
The Digital Conversation event takes place in The Knowledge Centre at the British Library on Monday 4th November, 18.30- 20.30; for more details including booking, visit: https://www.bl.uk/events/digital-conversation-games-literature-and-learning. Hope to see you there.
This post is by Digital Curator Stella Wisdom, on twitter as @miss_wisdom.