If, like me, you’re a student, you’re probably nearing finals and are on the verge of an educational burn out. Sometimes all you need is something fun to play to distract yourself for a short time and so you can relax. After all, a calm mind will help you in the long run.

Here are a few tabletop games you can play to help you relax along with a few additional suggestions that should help rest (or reset) your mind…

In the Los Angeles Times, writer Alex Pham reports that the San Fernando Library encourages youth to play video games and even invites them to be as loud as they like.

“It lets teens be more comfortable with the library and become familiar with librarians,” San Fernando librarian Lydia Harlan told Pham. “And it’s what kids are into these days.”

In the article, Pham reports that more libraries are turning to video games to connect with technologically savvy youth who might be losing interest in books and stories. In New York, the New York Public Library has even added a collection of books, films, music and maps about video games.

Click through for the full article and a list of recommended books…

So you wanna work with video games, eh? Well, then don’t get a degree in computer games, at least not in England.

Britain’s huge gaming industry has put universities under major attack for failing to equip students for work while handing out their gaming degrees. According to The Daily Mail UK, several of the country’s top firms go so far as to say that the schools are offering “mouse degrees with little job relevance.” Ouch. Hope the students didn’t…

The Second Annual Elan Awards – which honor excellence in the Canadian video game, animation and digital arts industries – were held at Vancouver last Friday (Feb 15, 2008). The show was hosted by animator Seth MacFarlane of Family Guy fame, who brought his impish humor along and also managed to win an award himself.

Mass Effect, which was developed by Canadian developer Bioware, bagged the top honors. It was recognized as the game of the year and triumphed in…

Click through for a complete list of winners.

In the later portion of 2007, a British study had rebuffed the Wii as a fitness solution and found that Wii gaming sessions can’t actually replace physical exercise. Now, on the other side of the Atlantic, Canadian students have seconded that opinion. Twenty-eight students at the Halifax-based Dalhousie University put the Wii to the test by comparing it with other generic exercises.

Microsoft has heavily plugged its XNA game software development platform as something that might change games development forever, something Microsoft does with every new innovation. It is slowly improving the platform with each version, and the newest version, XNA Game Studio 2.0, which was released on December 13, 2007, is supposed to have 15 new more »

With technology expanding and luring youth away from school, the British are trying to use technology to lure students back to school. One such way is through the upcoming BETT technology fair at Olympia in London starting January 9, 2008.

The goal of this event is to bring together the global teaching and learning community for four days of innovations and inspirations. Some of those inspirations stem from current gadgets children may already own, which is why Sony is getting involved in this technology fair with a few ideas of its own.

Sony, famous for its video-game consoles, came to the event to offer educators a way to reach children who play games and to help make learning fun using the PSP. The handheld was first made available in Europe on September 1, 2005, allowing children to play their favorite games on the go.

Since the recent upgrades and added capabilities such as being able to download videos, the handheld system could be used for educational purposes. Using the latest models, Stimpfig suggests that teachers could create video lessons their students can download and review wherever and whenever they like by simply downloading them to their PSP and watch it later.

Teenagers are always looking for adventures, but how bored do they have to be to go on a “mission” at their local high school in Kingston, Washington? According to the North Kitsap Herald, police busted five teens, four 18-year-olds and a 15-year-old, who entered Kingston High School November 4, 2007 by climbing the school and more »

Back in the day, video games were primarily homebrew creations, programmed by a single person who just wanted to share a bit of fun. Now it can literally take years to create a video game from scratch an involve a staff that reads like feature film credits. In a throwback to those early days of more »