Libraries aren’t just hubs for learning and knowledge sharing, but places where imagination, curiosity and play should be front and center. Join Elan Lee, CEO and Co-Creator of award-winning gaming and entertainment company Exploding Kittens, as he explores how libraries can integrate gameplay in unique ways and demonstrates how to use regular objects to turn the ordinary into extraordinary.
Date Recorded: 4/3/2023
Format: Archived YouTube Video
Presenters: Elan Lee / CEO & Co-Creator, Exploding Kittens
This presentation will give an overview of the maintenance and management of the UNT Media Library’s video game collection and gaming spaces. Join Diane Robson and Emily Pojman as they discuss collection maintenance and space management topics such as circulation, reservations, problem troubleshooting and ticketing, and handling disruptive students.
This virtual, one-day training brought together Indiana and Maryland youth services staff to learn about the use of digital media in libraries and the role library staff can play as media mentors to youth and caregivers.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects that the employment of social workers will grow 12% from 2020 to 2030 to meet an increase in demand. Further, with the growth of telehealth and telemedicine visits continuing beyond the COVID-19 pandemic, individuals are finding more ways to reach their healthcare providers. However, in rural areas, finding local providers and reliable Internet access can create a barrier to access. As public libraries have long been viewed as the central hub for information, gatherings, and broadband service, their pivot to serve as a place for patrons to meet virtually with social workers comes at an opportune time. This presentation will show how three public libraries developed a pilot program – titled “Because You Matter” – with the Indiana University School of Social Work to coordinate weekly telehealth visits with social work students and library patrons. They’ll share successes, failures, and what they learned to improve the program in the future. 
It’s a daunting tasks for librarians to consider how best to welcome visually impaired patrons into their libraries. However, with a better understanding of what vision loss is, you can make quick, easy, and inexpensive changes to your library that will open the doors more fully to those with vision loss. Learn more about vision loss and how to quickly and easily change your flyers and presentations, physical space, technology, and signage to be more accessible.
This session will include a demonstration of Canva, the web-based graphic design and publishing tool. Learn tips and tricks that will help you do more with Canva and help you create graphics that capture the attention of your audience. Questions submitted before the webinar will help guide the presentation.
Board games are fun for children of all ages, but they are also promising tools for education. How can we best practically incorporate them into K-12 classrooms in order to optimize learning? As a former neurobiologist who transitioned to teaching, I have experimented for the past seven years with the integration of board games as educational tools. Here I will discuss best practices for using board games effectively to teach content knowledge, focusing primarily on science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) subjects. Topics covered will include gamer motivations, fun yet educational game mechanics, lesson plan structures, roles of educators in scaffolded learning, and common mistakes I have discovered in the “gameschooling” process. I will also show preliminary evidence that board games can effectively improve content knowledge. Overall, I hope to show how popular modern board games could be utilized in educational arenas.