Reflection: Week 6

Our last class period was, in my opinion, very interesting! We started with one topic, which was basically what did we think about the TED talk we watched last week by Jane McGonigal on How Videos Games Can Change the World, and it felt like we really were able to dig deeper and connect the conversation to a wider picture. Class was also made more interesting by Kristin's lovely multi-colored notes on the whiteboard, complete with illustrations. Thanks for that, Kristin.

I'm not sure if our class is just a bunch of cynics or what, but a lot of what we had to say about McGonigal's talk was fairly negative. We weren't sure if 1. the kinds of games she creates are either enjoyable or able to transfer into reality as a real change, and 2. if gamers actually care at all about transferring their in-game skills into the real world, or as a force for change. We did spend some time discussing other people's work that seems more successful in this arena, such as Henry Jenkins' games, or a few other games around solving plague outbreaks or running a McDonald's, which teach transferable skills. What we ultimately ended up deciding was that McGonigal speaks as a brand, rather than necessarily a successful individual. She has a great presence; she's an attractive woman with a mass of blonde tangles like a lion's mane (apparently all the best-known ladies in LibraryLand have great hair. Note to self: invest in excellent hairstylist.), she's a great speaker, and most importantly, she's a gamer herself. She's not exactly the typical stereotype of "gamer," or even "female gamer." So, she's a great representative to the world of the gaming community and the kinds of work that could, in theory, be done. I think we had a real negative spin on this in class, and we called her out for kind of selling half-truths, but I think maybe it is smart of either her or whoever is putting her in the spotlight to call attention to an area which people think could be expanded upon.

We ended up taking the conversation in a separate but related direction by discussing the UMSI t-shirts which we all received at orientation which say "i will change the world." Lowercase i meaning information, not just poor grammar. There were some significantly mixed reviews on this message. Some people liked the idea that it was promoting that just one person can make a big difference in the world, which is great. Some people felt that it was a slogan that had good intentions but was also a little bit arrogant. I can definitely see that, sometimes it feels like people at the university have this mentality that they are going to "save the world," and it can come off as really arrogant and egotistical. We talked about the idea of a kind of us vs. them mentality to this--that we know what is best for other people. I mean, I know that I have insane amounts of student loans for this program, so it doesn't feel like I am one of the wealthy privileged, but simply by virtue of being at UMSI I have to accept that I am one of a very, very privileged few. So when I leave here, I may end up working in a community or at an institution which does not have the same kinds of resources or opportunities that are available in the Ann Arbor area or at UofM. In fact, it's more than likely that that is what will happen. And how can I go to this community and say "Look at all these fancy technological things I learned in library school!" when what they really need is just help figuring out what the heck a browser is and how do you double-click with a mouse. Which sort of brings me around to how I feel about the slogan, which is that I think it applies more to the tech-side of UMSI, anyway. So many of the amazing, world-changing things that happen here happen because someone had a brilliant idea for a tech start-up and implemented it while they were in school, or they designed an app which monitors their glucose trends for diabetes, or they are re-designing the way citizens interact with their local government. What world-changing thing do I do? So this lead the discussion in two ways, the first way being that the iSchool grew out of the library/service tradition, and really the mission of the school is to help people use their powers skills for good instead of evil. Helping better society = good, hacking personal data = bad. Instilling morals and all that, which is great and something I hadn't thought of. The second way the conversation went was that we help to change the world on a much smaller, more individual scale. We promote intellectual freedom, literacy, community support. On an individual level, we help people out when they need it. That changes that one person's world. Most poignantly, Meagan, our own moral compass, concluded the discussion on a positive note about how she really does feel like she changes someone's world, when she can help another blind or disabled person use assistive technology which will help them tremendously. And that really is changing the world for someone.

tl;dr: warm fuzzy feelings on how we really do change the world at UMSI, in big and small ways.