On Tuesday 7 April, the State Library of Victoria hosted “Press Play: a get into video games” event. It gave attendees access to award winning games like Little Big Planet as well as Guitar Hero, Wii fit and Brain Training. Offering a range of consoles such as Wii, Playstation 3 and Nintendo DS, there was something for every one.

A further event is planned for later in the year, so if you are curious about how gaming can be used in schools and libraries, please consider attending. It is highly recommended for taking games for a test drive and thinking about how they could be used in educational contexts as well as having a chat with experts in their fields. 

On the topic of gaming and libraries, Christine Mackenzie, the CEO of Yarra Plenty Regional Library wrote this on her blog on 6 April.

Installing screens, games and tvs is our way of showing that education, learning, recreation and culture can come in all different kinds of media and are all equally appropriate in a public library. We hope you agree!

Christine has outlined the idea that learning can encompass many formats and many educators agree with her, yet so many still violently disagree with the idea that learning should progress as society has.

If you think about the changes to society, industry and communications over the past 200 years, why is there such a resistance by some people for education to keep pace with these changes? It is true that there are some very violent and inappropriate games on the market that may make some people shy away from this particular media as a learning tool. But as teachers, we would no more consider using such games as we would showing inappropriate films to our students. 

Congratulations to the State Library of Victoria and Hamish Curry and his team for a fun and interesting evening.