Engaging teens with digital media: Creating stories and games

CHICAGO - By popular demand, ALA Editions announces a new session of our facilitated Teens with Digital Media: Creating Stories and Games. Kelly Czarnrcki will serve as instructor for a four-week facilitated eCourse starting on Oct. 7, 2013.

Take your gaming nights up a notch by drawing eager creators to your workstations! Library programs in game design and interactive media are proving to be immensely popular with teens; what’s more, educators tout their value in teaching 21st-century skills. Noted library gamer Kelly Czarnecki will be your guide in this eCourse loaded with activities for both novices and experienced participants and generously illustrated with numerous video examples. You’ll learn the basic skills to get your teens started in designing, producing and telling their stories.Your purchase includes the PDF version of "Digital Storytelling in Practice,” Czarnecki’s October 2009 issue of Library Technology Reports.

After participating in this eCourse, you will be able to:

• Navigate Machinima, one of the top video entertainment networks for gamers, and incorporate it into library programs or digital media labs;
• Develop a game design document ;
• Compare game creation software and identify the best options for your needs;
• Understand alternate reality games and how they relate to libraries and transmedia storytelling;
• Generate ideas for creating library games for mobile devices;
• Create digital media library programs that develop 21st-century skills.

Kelly Czarnecki is a teen services librarian at ImaginOn with the Charlotte Mecklenburg Public Library in North Carolina and an experienced collaborator with community groups in teen programming..  Author of "Gaming in Libraries" (THE TECH SET® #9) and the Library Technology Reports issue “Digital Storytelling in Practice,” she also wrote School Library Journal’s “Gaming Life” column for several years. She is a former chair of YALSA’s Teen Tech Week committee and a frequent presenter on the intersection of gaming and libraries.

Registration for this ALA Editions facilitated eCourse, which begins on Oct. 7th, can be purchased at the ALA Store. Participants in this course will need regular access to a computer with an internet connection for online message board participation, viewing online video, listening to streaming audio (MP3 files), and downloading and viewing PDF and PowerPoint files.

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