Click me up a reference librarian
The Carnegie Mellon library system has released (in beta) two games meant to get at using the library system. The first game, Within Range, is not the most interesting but it asks students to re-shelve books based on LoC subjects and the Dewey Decimal System. Useful for helping them find books in the brick and mortar library but not riveting gaming. The second game, I'll Get It, is a much like Diner Dash (only in a library). You have to look up the patron's topic and choose from 2 books or 2 internet sources what you will bring back to the patron based upon their research question. This one is a bit more interesting especially since it goes in waves and gets more harried as time passes.
How effective is this? Can we teach students how to use a virtual library and expect them to extrapolate that out to the real world? Or will they simply google the topic and go from there? 
via Dennis Jerz
Comments
Good question...but that's
Good question...but that's why you get to be in charge...
My first reaction is that students will still google what they're after. Doing the library search takes getting up off the couch and putting on pants and walking to the location. That's why I hate it. The Internet is still faster.
I think the answer might come down to how much investment students have in learning whatever it is they're learning. If they see no purpose for it they're likely not to do it regardless of why they should. That's a gross generalization of course.
But I imagine that students can learn the system through a game. After all, the military "trains" soldiers with games and expects them to perform in "real world " space. And now disciplines like medicine and others are using new media/simulation/games to give students "hands-on" practice before giving them live bodies.
Is it effective? I don't know. I still think "effectiveness" (at least in this case) is tied to the investment one has to something. Might be interesting to try it in a class. If the requirement for an assignment is that students use printed material instead of or in addition to web-based material that might give them the motivation needed to try the game and apply what they've found.
Based on this idea, though...
While it seems unlikely that I can learn to play tennis by playing the Wii, I wonder at what point I DO pick up some skills?
I may not learn how to drive, but can I learn offensive/defensive driving skills from a car racing game or GTA?
I may not an I learn how to shake it like Polaroid picture, but can I learn to keep the beat from Dance Dance Revolution?
I may not stop being a vegetarian, but can I learn how to plunger a rabbit to death from Rayman Raving Rabbids?