The Librarian's Guide to Gaming:

An Online Toolkit for Building Gaming

HISTORY

TOOLS AND RESOURCES

BEST PRACTICES

CALENDAR

“Mrs. Kirk rocks!”

“Our library is the coolest place on the earth!”

“Can we spend the night next time?”

~Quotes from participants

Cyber Night

Reidland High School, Paducah, KY

Reidland High School serves 560 students in rural McCracken County, Kentucky.

What is a Cyber Night? It's an after-hours gaming event that came about as school librarian Terri Kirk started thinking about an activity to celebrate Teen Tech Week. The principal liked the idea and agreed to let the students use the school on a Saturday (it didn’t take too much to convince him, says Kirk). The event ended up to be an all day affair from 12:00 noon till 10:00 p.m.! It was a hit and the kids want to have one each month.

The kids signed up for teams, each with a unique name and captain. The Game Club officers and faculty advisor (Kirk) came up with the rules of the day and the President of the club was given total control over any disputes.

The kids played tournaments where the teams competed against each other and prizes were awarded to the winners.

Teachers at school donated use of their big screen televisions. Setup included 6 SMART Boards for screens with 6 LCD projectors, 9 televisions, and one rear projection unit. Four Xboxes were connected into one router to play teams against each other, 4 televisions were set around the perimeter with PS2, 3 televisions were for Guitar Hero, 2 televisions were for Wii and a rear projection unit was used for DDR.

Literacy Connections

The Cyber Night created opportunities for students to practice both traditional and new literacy skills. The games required players to think critically about what information they need to succeed in the game. The students evaluated if they had enough information or if they needed to seek out additional sources (websites, FAQs, printed guides, and experienced peers). The students persisted in seeking out information about the games through discussions creating new knowledge for them and new communities for the school. These new communities have increased collaboration and participation outside the event, creating new classroom learning opportunities.

Impact

Cyber Night Poster Things changed a little between the first and second events. Kirk realized that she had no idea how many kids she had coming to the first Cyber Night because there was no formal sign-up. She knew many of the students had come by to check in, to sign up for teams, and to make plans on what equipment to bring but there was no formal documentation. It wasn't a really big concern except that she didn't know how to plan for the food and drinks.

The other item was that she didn't know if parents knew where their children were spending the evening. One of the moms called to check in advance because, she said, "I didn't believe Tim was actually coming to school to play games." Before the next event, Kirk developed a parent permission slip, noting the time and place of the event, as well as the permission to play Gears of War and Halo 3. Then, students had to reserve their ticket and turn in the permission form the day before the event. This allowed the librarian to have enough drinks, ice, and cups on hand for refreshments throughout the day.

Marketing

Posters were hung on the high school campus.

Funding $0.00

Pizza and drinks were purchased with Game Club dues and the fee that the non-club members paid (dues are $5 per year and the event was a $5 ticket if the student was not a game club member). Prizes were donated and a few gift certificates to the local game store were bought out of the Game Club dues.

All the games and the systems were brought by the students except for the Dance Dance Revolution (DDR) which our local game store donated for the event. Students brought Halo and Gears of War, Guitar Hero, and Wii Sports. Intial apprehension about Halo and Gears of War (rated M for mature) was abated with a parent-signed release for their child to attend. Extreme graphics were turned off for the duration of the program.