Well July 1 has passed and I wanted to take a moment and introduce myself to the RT now that I am offically a Member at Large.
My name is Brian Mayer and I am a Gaming and Library Technology Specialist for the School Library System at the Genesee Valley Educational Partnership. We provide support and services to 22 rural school districts across five counties. We have a game library of over 200 analog titles that support state content standards, AASL's Standards for 21st Century Learners as well as the new common core. A large part of my job is cultivating the collection and working with classroom teachers and school librarians to integrate the resources into their classroom. More recently, I have been using game design as a way to have students display content understanding and mastery.
Beyond my job, I have co-authored a book for ALA: Libraries Got Game and I occasionally write for School Library Journal's Gaming Life Column. I have an article in the upcoming August issue that highlight the design work I have been doing with the students. I am also working on a new book for Neal-Schuman that is going to be a subject resource guide for school librarians and educators for analog, iOS and web based games. Lastly, a design of my own is being published by Academy Games currently titled: Freedom: The Underground Railroad that is a cooperative, card driven game in which the players are abolitionionists working to bring down the institution of slavery.
My interests include: STEM/Educational/Serious Gaming, Game Design, Interactive Texts, Games and Play in a School Space, & Collection Development and Circulation.
ALA Annual was a fantastic. There were some wonderful activities at ALAPlay. I helped introduce and run a few larger social games and Scott Nicholson brought a digital version of a European folk game made by Die Gute called Fabrik Johann Sebastian Joust for ALA Play that used a Mac and some PlayStation Move sticks that was really engaging and fun.
The commitee had a chance to meet and discuss directions for the RT moving forward. Our first main push will be starting to take over the reigns for International Games Day from Jenny Levine. More information will be coming soon, but we are going to need volunteers to help this a success. We have some really great things lined up for this year that can only come together if we are able to pull together the manpower. It takes more than one person to fill Jenny Levine's shoes!
I look forward to hearing about all the fantastic work everyone is doing out there and please do not hesitate to get in touch with any questions or just to share!