National Technical Library, part one

Wednesday's focus is technology in libraries, and appropriately, we are at the National Technical Library for today's lectures and a tour.



Lenka Němečková, one of the doctoral students who has been accompanying us on many of our trips, spoke first about the National Technical Library.



The NTL opened on September 9, 2009 (09/09/09) and is a new, environmentally friendly building located on the campuses of the Czech Technical University in Prague and the Institute of Chemical Technology. The library serves both schools, is the new location (and name) for the State Technical Library (previously located in the Klementinum), and also contains a branch of the Municipal Library of Prague.



Next, Mgr. Vit Sisler, who has an interesting background in law, social behavior, and technology, talked about integrating video games into the classroom.



Studies have shown that playing video games intrinsically creates the desire to study - and players don't consider it studying if they are doing research or reading in order to succeed at a game. When some members of a college class incorporated the game Civilization into the curriculum, testing showed that those students who played the game in addition to lectures and regular classwork retained the information they had learned longer than those who did not play. The game helped build skills and knowledge in:

• economics
• colonization
• strategy
• logic
• geography
• history
• cultures
• complicated processes

Dr. Sisler is working with a team on a game for high schoolers that has each student role playing a EU government official, and attempting to govern the EU to an ideal situation. The game is integrated into classroom activities, which is much more effective than assigning a non-integrated game.