Here, But Not Here: Virtual Reality Programming for Teens in Libraries
Virtual reality programming in public libraries creates opportunities for student empowerment and the development of critical information literacy skills.
[This project was previously presented at the Curationist-organized panel, “OpenGLAM for OER: Digital Cultural Literacy & Engagement, from K-12 to Higher Ed & Beyond” (recording) at the 2021 Open Education Conference.]
Open educational resources and storytelling programs provide opportunities for even the most disenfranchised to be active participants in information consumption and sharing. This is especially true for youth who find themselves outside the margins. As a librarian and educator, I believe that fostering dialogue around open education, storytelling, and cultural memory is essential to helping youth build skills to navigate the 21st century. By offering programs for youth to tell their stories, in their own words and through their own mediums, we can uplift voices that are too often silenced or forgotten.
One example of this kind of teaching and learning is a digital arts education program that I co-led as an extension of an Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS)-grant-funded project called “Virtual Reality in Public Libraries.” The program was a collaboration between public libraries, a juvenile rehabilitation center, and a museology program in Washington state. The project offered opportunities for incarcerated youth, ages 13–21 to learn and play using digital media and technology. It is important to note that many young people in the legal system experience technology blackouts during detention and incarceration, which can remove them from opportunities for creative expression, play, and professional pathways using digital media and technology.
We utilized virtual reality programs as educational tools where youth explored ideas such as world-building and art-making and at the end, participants were able to showcase their learning in a curated exhibit, using self-created titles and terms. Our curriculum development was guided by an anti-oppressive framework, aiming to center the lives and priorities of participants and attend to the layered structural and individual forces of power and privilege in their lives and ours.
Building new digital skills to amplify student voices
It was our priority to mobilize local resources, using different community engagement strategies, to support participants’ learning skills related to digital media art creation and technology using virtual reality, or VR. The entire curriculum was designed to amplify the students’ words and voices, feelings, and experiences with VR. Our goals with the program and curriculum included:
- Providing an introduction to VR as a new technology, considering basic learning — answering who, what, where, how questions, and
- Engaging participants in activities that involved or connected to libraries, in order to emphasize the role of libraries and museums as support services and resources for young people interested in art and technology.
From VR training to a public exhibition
Throughout the duration of the program, it was critical to foster friendly, supportive, and trusting classroom dynamics. The students engaged in various modules. The first module was an introduction to VR and library programming. We used a software called Henry as an entry point into the technology and presented the goals of the full program. Students became Henry the Porcupine, as he navigated his life in VR.
The next module was VR & world-building. This was a chance to help foster creativity in students, by allowing them to use the technology and its capabilities to build a world of their choosing. The third module was music & art in VR. This section encouraged learning and reflecting on the ways in which VR interacts with music and art to promote creativity, and students were asked to consider how the virtual environment had limitations and strengths as a tool. The final component of the project was the development of a public exhibition, titled “Here but not Here.”
Empowering students to share their own stories
This project highlights the ways that libraries and museums can intervene and uplift storytelling for the most disenfranchised. It also provides an avenue for stories to be shared in the era of open education and open resources for people on the margins of society, like formerly incarcerated people, who may not be able to navigate traditional avenues of publishing or career development in an increasingly digital world. In these ways, participants use self-created terms to label and identify information for others to consume, so that there is no mistake in how their stories are told, recorded, and remembered.
Librarians have power and responsibility to promote digital information literacy, lifelong learning, and need to use their privilege to empower students and communities to be active participants in their information consumption and sharing. Tools like Curationist and the OpenGLAM Network provide windows, mirrors, and doors for youth to be involved, and lend a critical (yet sometimes silenced) voice in how we build connections and deepen cultural awareness by collectively framing the world that we all share, given our unique experiences.
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Dovi Mae Patiño-Liu is a queer, Filipina librarian and educator. She has worked across diverse educational institutions as a K-5 librarian, Online Learning and Engagement Specialist, and in various career development roles. Through her work, she builds opportunities for learners to develop critical information literacy and hopes to foster a sense of social responsibility for information consumers and sharers. She lives in Washington, where she mentors youth and young adults, and loves cooking traditional Filipino food recipes. Follow her on LinkedIn.
