The program is funded by QUT with an Engagement Innovation Grant, and Logan City Libraries are partners of the program. The official site features a student-drawn logo and news on the program. Here's a snippet from the project's About page:
Drawing on the popularity of digital technologies and Manga in youth culture, the project will enable Year 8 and 9 students to cross boundaries with reading in various ways designed to engage their interest and learning. Boundaries will be understood as spaces of opportunity rather than limitation.
Digital literacy isn't something that "born digital" teens automatically have. Some students don't have equal access to technology at home or school, and many haven't learned how to use digital tools to create content. The project aims to promote reading, equip youth with digital literacy skills, and explore manga and digital storytelling as a way of "crossing boundaries" with reading.
The students split into five groups and cycled through the activities scheduled for the morning. I was originally scheduled to play video games in the library. Yes, QUT Library has a games lounge with a Wii, PS3, and an Xbox 360! Due to numbers, though, I switched to the Blender - a room where students worked collaboratively on TV-sized PC screens.
The Blender room was staffed by QUT lecturer and information literacy researcher Mandy Lupton and Dr Anna Lundh, a researcher and teacher at the Swedish School of Library and Information Science at the University of Borås (SSLIS). I've read some of Mandy Lupton's papers, and attended a workshop by Anna Lundh, so it was nice to work with them.
The PC screens were connected to the Internet, with different word games at each station. Students rotated between tables every ten minutes. Magnetic Poetry and Free Rice were the favourites, and there was some definite competition going on! I thought the students would think vocabulary games were lame, but they really got into it. At least 2500 grains of rice were donated to the World Food Programme today, and the school will consider using Free Rice in the classroom.
There was also the option to draw with coloured pencils. Some of the students are really gifted - they just sat there quietly, and all of a sudden, they'd show you a piece of art. I took a stab at drawing my name with the "manga head" typeface - check it out!
