I'm *totally* biased about the 2007 TechSource Gaming, Learning, and Libraries Symposium because I helped put together the program, but I'm also very proud of the sessions we've got lined up. They run the gamut for how to start a program for gaming newbies to information about digital downloads for gamers for more experienced staff. With three concurrent tracks on the main day, there's something for everyone.

To help illustrate what a great program I think it is, I'm going to highlight a few of the sessions every so often. They're all listed here, and you can view the preliminary program here.

So with that, here are some of the sessions I'm looking forward to because I know so little about these topics myself.

• You See an Interactive Fiction Game in Front of You...
  Chris Harris (Genesee Valley BOCES)
  "This session would be a perfect fit for anyone who wants to bring gaming to school libraries or forge a game-based partnership with a school. Interactive fiction, also know as text-based adventure gaming, combines the mental stimulation of gaming, the challenge of game creation, and English Language Arts standards. Using the free tools shared at this session, your gaming group will be ready to begin creating a new world with a primary focus is on content instead of a complicated graphical engine."
   
• Developing Teen-oriented Game Design Programs for Fun and Learning
  Brian Myers (Wilmette PL)
  "Digital game design is emerging as a multidisciplinary and collaborative educational framework combining computational fluency, mathematics, storytelling, graphic design, and analytic thinking, among other disciplines. This program will provide an overview of current trends in gaming and education and a survey of recent constructivist literature demonstrating how hands-on design activities promote media literacies and other valuable 21st century skills.

  Participants will learn how easy and inexpensive it can be to implement a computer game design program for teens in their school or public libraries. Everyone will be provided with the tools and know-how to implement a highly popular, inexpensive and easy to manage (i.e., "no programming required") game design program for their teen population."
   



• Big Fun, Big Learning: Transforming the World through Play
  Gregory Trefry (GameLab
  "Big games offer exciting ways to transform the world through play and simple games. These games can turn a library into the site of mystery, a cellphone into a game controller and the street grid into a gameboard. Big Games take place in the real world, with players running around real places. They encourage exciting new interactions with the environment and other players. Games in general are powerful learning tools, teaching through probing, experience and application. Big Games that engage everyone from kids to adults with the space around them have huge potential to draw in people and teach through play and revitalize public spaces. This session will offer an overview of learning through games, big game examples and potential applications."
   


• We’re in UR Library Bein Ur Books: Making and Using Book-based RPGs with Middle Schoolers
  Kit Ward-Crixell (Student, MLIS program, Texas Womans University)
  "If you turned LiveJournal upside down and shook it, Harry Potter role-playing games [RPGs] would fall out. An LJer myself, I was intrigued when I read this characterization of LJ and went on a cursory search of LiveJournal communities. Not only did I find hundreds of RPGs based on the fictional world of JK Rowling, I found a myriad of RPGs based on other books, or RPGs in which characters from different authors’ works interact. LiveJournal, a blogging website and online community, is also a hotspot of book-based role-playing.

  Although there’s no way to determine the ages of the people creating and playing these games, many of them appear to be kids and teens. In other words, many, many kids are using their free time to write, and read other people’s writing about, book characters. For fun. Could this get any better?..."

If you find these sessions as interesting as I do, register for the event and come hear these speakers for yourself!