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Saturday, December 15, 2007

Gaming blog by librarians?


I came across Robin Raskin's Raising Digital Kids blog and thought it would be a great idea if librarians who are using, or looking to use, gaming in their libraries created for a blog parents, caretakers, etc... Robin's blog breaks down the gaming divide for parents to help them understand and guide them through their kids immersion into the digital world. What a great service for parents with kids using our libraries. Are any libraries already writing this kind of blog for parents?

What I like about her blog is that it is easy to read and offers the practical information that is really helpful to parents. For example, when she wrote about Club Penguin, she included the usual description but included valuable information not covered in the manuals.

"Kid can accept invitations to join games and there are various levels of chat–a safe chat where phrases are pre-selected and a more open chat. They can IM too, but the site is monitored and kids can voice complaints about others. Parents will appreciate that there’s nothing to download and you can visit the site for free before joining.

But the social networking world of juniors is not a perfect place yet. I logged on to Club Penguin at 11 p.m. on a school night and it was hopping with visitors. They were all polite and friendly, but the majority left the various rooms when I showed up (as though I’d crashed a private party). Parents need to understand that adults can get on the site and need to caution their kids to react when a conversation turns unsavory. They should also know that kids can get their feelings hurt as some of the meaner emoticons get tossed around. My suggestion is that you play alongside your child a few times until you are both comfortable with the action."

Maybe it would be neat to have a national blog where we attracted posts from librarians from around the country (world!) . Who's game for this?

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