Skolebibliotek og Folkbibliotek I Digital Tango ~ Denmark

Great to be back in Denmark, at the Skolebibliotek og Folkbibliotek I Digital Tango, at the Hotel Nyborg Strand.

This is the latest, in a long series of many events, over the last year or so, working alongside a huge range of Danish educators, games based people, government departments, support staff, teachers, librarians, suppliers and more.

A huge thank you to Ella Myhring, School Librarian, Højby Bibliotek, for inviting us to contribute to this special occasion. There were more than 120 people at today’s event. Ellas described this as “unusual for a Danish conference, so we are very happy”. “This was the first conference ever in Denmark targeted to public and school librarians at the same time – very promising for our future cooperation between these two types of libraries”.

There was less of an emphasis on school & curriculum, more on motivation, play & fun, from the cultural point of view.

The conference was held to disseminate the results of two school/library projects about making games and about students working as media coaches for the grown ups in the local area of Hoejby.

The focus for the conference is on informal learning and on the digital competences that are required to have a good life in the digital society. Moreover there was a focus on children not as consumers but as producers of their own culture. The two developing projects are only partial school projects with only a small direct reference to the curriculum.

The “Citizenship and digital media” project, was a collaboration between Hoejby Library and Hoejby School. The students (14-16 years old) are media coaches. They taught, and continue to teach, younger students in the school and kindergarten and elderly people in the library after school. Areas such as Facebook, mobile phones, photo editing and upload, dropbox, blog, learning games are just a few of their areas of expertise.

Take a look at their website HERE.

The other project, Making games in the library, involved participants from Hoejby Library and Holluf Pile Library. Both are combined school- and public libraries. Children (11-13 years old) produce games (Mission Maker) after school in the library.

Students, children and local citizens presented projects and ran work shops that could be visited during the breaks

In our closing keynote, we investigated how virtual worlds, with their stunning landscapes, peaceful characters and realistic challenges, can be used across subject areas, abilities and age ranges to deliver remarkable effects. We hope that delegates left with many practical ideas to apply back in their contexts.

We also presented some accessible tools and ideas for raising the levels of creativity, writing, speaking and listening among children of all ages. We also investigated the powerful effect of using games, Web2 tools, software, handheld devices and more, with a view to how these things can impact on learning, rather than the latest gadget.

Lars Qvortrup, professor in media, former head of the Danish Library School, researcher at the Institute of Education, provided another keynote, and the moderator for the day was Kent Skov, the head of the Central Library in Odense. Thanks all.

Category: 1) Events and Training days