September 21, 2012
In my previous posts[1] I’ve talked just a bit about some of the design principles that our work with the game designers at MediaMolecule (Mm) revealed. The purpose of this post is to foreground a system of design principles underlying the LittleBigPlanet2 game that are relevant to the design of connected learning environments.
Read More...August 31, 2012
August 23, 2012
July 27, 2012. The countdown on the London 2012 website hit 0, the 2012 Olympic Opening Ceremonies began, and I made a slipknot and slipped it onto my crochet hook. My daughters – sitting with me in their red, white, and blue outfits – curiously picked at the yarn that I’d strategically placed in their laps for this photo opportunity. My husband took a picture that would later be uploaded to my team’s group to document our official entrance into the 2012 Ravellenic Games.
Read More...August 7, 2012
Q: how do you know someone is a n00b?
A: If they’re like “ZOMGZ PLAY MY LEVELZ PLZ! YOU WILL LOVE IT! OMG!” XD
Q: hahahaha. so all caps probably!
A: Or all lower case XD
Q: ah, like me 🙂
A: run on sentences 😛
A: XD
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August 2, 2012
This summer I attended summer school…well kind of. For three weeks in June I worked with a great team to implement a digital media and design project with high school students. We followed that project with a two-week game design camp in July at the University of Texas with middle school students. Both projects are what you might call ‘connected learning’ design pilots. What exactly is that? The goal of each project was to put into action some
Read More...August 2, 2012
Most parents would agree that competitive sports like soccer and football are good for kids. How about competitive video games? In my research, I interviewed kids who not only share video game interests with family members and peers, but they also derive academic and social benefits from their gaming experiences.
Read More...July 26, 2012
When I was a kid my dad used to come home from work and greet me by asking, “So what do you know, kiddo?” It was his way of saying hello. But as an seven year-old obsessed with World Book Encyclopedia’s way of sorting knowledge into alphabetized volumes of varying thickness I missed the obvious and instead took up his query at face value: What did I know? Each day I worried over selection of the juicy new fact or strange invention I could share with him over dinner.
Read More...July 20, 2012
When I first started playing LittleBigPlanet2, a Playstation 3 game created by the company Media Molecule, I was both excited and frustrated. I was excited because the graphics, characters, and story of the side-scrolling platform were stunning and engaging.
Read More...July 12, 2012
Figure 1. Fiber crafts meet Harry Potter: jen2291, a Hogwarts at Ravelry member, has crocheted the main characters of the Harry Potter stories.
Read More...July 10, 2012
“[T]here is something huge about that [moment] in education where the most powerful person is the student, where they just suddenly realize that, ‘even if I don’t get this fancy course, nobody is going to stop me being [what I desire to be].’”
— Kareem Ettouney, Media Molecule, Art Director
