Kyle Dodson's Meaningful Books

Kyle Dodson, our new Director of the Center for Service and Civic Engagement, was truly engaging on Monday during his Meaningful Books talk. The conversation branched over a lot of topics: race, media, accountability, politics, elections, youth, the individual v. the society...I could go on. Needless to say, it was wonderful.

In case you haven't made it over to look at the display of Kyle's books on the Main level of the MIC (come on over!), here is the list of books that he discussed:
NVISIBLE MAN-Ralph Ellison
NOBODY KNOWS MY NAME-James Baldwin
FOUNTAINHEAD-Ayn Rand
THE ORDEAL OF INTEGRATION-Orlando Patterson
CATCHER IN THE RYE-J.D. Salinger
A SEPARATE PEACE-John Knowles
THEIR EYES WERE WATCHING GOD-Zora Neale Hurston
CONFEDERACY OF DUNCES-John Kennedy Toole
TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD-Harper Lee
AMAZING GRACE-Jonathan Kozol
THE SNOW LEOPARD-Peter Matthiessen
THE OLD NEIGHBORHOOD-Ray Suarez
DON QUIXOTE-Miguel de Cervantes
LOVESONG: Becoming a Jew-Julius Lester
MIDNIGHT IN THE GARDEN OF GOOD AND EVIL-John Berendt
ALL SOULS: A FAMILY STORY FROM SOUTHIE-Michael Patrick MacDonald
LETTERS TO A YOUNG POET-Rainer Marie Rilke
FREAKONOMICS-Stephen Dubner and Steven Levit

Many thanks to Kyle for an excellent hour of conversation and welcome to Champlain!

Shiver Me Timbers!!!!

Happy International Talk like a Pirate Day! I almost forgot, but luckily I was reminded by one of my friends online. So I exhort the faculty, staff, and students of Champlain to shove off and start talking like ye be pirates. I would really like to hear about an entire class conducted in piratese, but that may be wishful thinking.

I may try to take a reference session today so I can throw at least some pirating talk into the questions I get. Maybe I'll make an eye patch, or at least draw an anchor tattoo on my arm.

If you arRRRR not sure how to talk tlike a pirate here is an instructional video:



Good luck me hearties!

Grockit and learning in gaming

Here at the library we have been involved with two separate groups who are designing games for us. These games are meant to teach information literacy. We are not quite sure how we are ultimately going to use them, but that may be easier once we see the finished projects. From the meetings I have been to, the games are looking pretty solid and I can't wait to play them.

In addition, a number of students recently got a grant from the UN to design a game that combats violence against women. They traveled to South Africa and from their blog posts clearly had an amazing and moving experience. Learning in gaming is clearly a trend around here, and an awesome one from my perspective. I love fooling people into learning.

This trend is not limited to Champlain College though. The startup company Grockit took home a Jury Selection award at this year's TechCrunch50. From what I have read it is “Massively Multi Player Online Learning Game” in which you are a student in a classroom and you get questions that you can discuss and debate and ultimately decide on. You award "Grockit points" to other students that increase or decrease their ranking. It sounds like an online study session but funner. The article talks about using it to study for things like the SATs, but I could see this product used in a lot of interesting ways, especially in the classroom. They have been very secretive about it for the past year and only now are they opening it up to the light of day. I am excited to learn more about it and see where this game goes.

Who knows, maybe some of our graduates will go on to work on this game or something even better.