Real world LA government Town Hall in Metaplace

 Posted by (Visited 8082 times)  Game talk  Tagged with: , ,
Apr 302009
 

This was cool — State Representative Nancy Landry of Louisiana just held a town hall meeting in Metaplace. A big part of the event was Q&A sessions with a middle school class run by teacher Margret Atkinson of Northwestern Middle School, and in attendance were the state’s Superintendent of Education Paul Pastorek, and the school’s principal, Debby Brian. I believe a few blog posts elsewhere and a video of the event are forthcoming. Eidt: and here’s one.

I was asked to give brief remarks on digital citizenship, and here they are:

So I was asked to make a few comments about digital citizenship, and I think the thing that most strikes me about an event like this is the fact that citizenship is the same whether it exists in the real world or a digital framework. Here we all are at this wonderful event, and the things that we are talking about in this cartoony, digital world are big important, real world issues, like funding for science education, and the legislative process.

Online communities are a VENUE, not an end in themselves. They are just a new way for us to engage in very old practices. And I think that if we managed to transplant some folks from ancient Athens and given them an intensive course in language and computer literacy, they would be perfectly at home with the substance of the discussions today!

At the same time, I think that it also highlights how important that digital literacy IS; after all, without those lessons, they would be less able to participate. And as our society’s tech capabilities grow, I think it’s wonderful to see that our society — and legislators — and principals and school superintendents, and teachers — are willing to invest in that literacy so that future voters, citizens, will be able to participate to the best of their ability using this new technology.

So I want to just say thank you to all of you for taking the plunge!

Games for Health conference

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Apr 232009
 

It’s coming up!

http://www.gamesforhealth.org

5th Annual Games for Health Conference in Boston on June 11-12 with Pre-Conference on June 10.

Over 60 sessions on many many topics.

People who enter beb09 @ registration get a 15% discount

Also direct registration at: http://www.regonline.com/gfh2009

Content summaries so far at:
http://www.gamesforhealth.org/archives/000253.html

Play games, improve your eyes

 Posted by (Visited 6537 times)  Game talk  Tagged with:
Mar 302009
 

Latest from the games-are-good-for-you department:

The findings, reported in the March 29 issue of Nature, indicate that action games offer players the chance to improve their contrast perception by as much as 58%.

via Video Game Play Improves Eyesight — Video Games — InformationWeek.

The findings show that you have to play FPSes like UT2k4 and CoD2, and not games like The Sims 2. So you may improve your “contrast perception” but presumably the industry’s critics will then assert that you traded your eyesight for temporary boosts in aggressivity. 🙂

Akoha, social game for kindness

 Posted by (Visited 17470 times)  Game talk  Tagged with: ,
Mar 172009
 

Akoha is an interesting idea — one bound to run right up against the qualms of those folks who dislike using games for social engineering.

You buy a deck of cards for about $5. It has missions in it, like “buy a couple in love drinks,” “donate an hour of your time,” or “give someone a book.”

Once you do the good deed, you give the card to the reicipient of the good deed, and they “play it forward” — the mission is now theirs. They also go to the website and register the deed so that you get credited with points. You can track the movement of the cards across the world, kind of like how you can track dollar bills with Where’s George.

You gain points, you level up, and eventually you unlock perks like the ability to create your own missions — the plan is they will print your own custom deck of cards for you. Cory, here’s your whuffie.

If you look at their “learn more” link (engagingly done as a photocomic) you can see that they do envision this being mostly played among friends, although mention is made of strangers. In that sense, it is less a serious game than it is a social game, but the pay it forward element, should it offer enough incentives, has interesting potential. I could easily see something like this catching on among the sort of widely dispersed tech-savvy folks who make up the web and gaming communities…

MMOG play as a barrier to getting a job

 Posted by (Visited 28893 times)  Game talk  Tagged with: , ,
Dec 152008
 

Spotted this on the f13 forums:

I met with a recruiter recently (online media industry) and in conversation I happened to mention I’d spent way too much time in the early 2000s playing online games, which I described as “the ones before World of Warcraft” (I went nuts for EQ1, SWG and the start of WoW, but since 2006 I have only put a handful of days into MMOG playing – as opposed to discussing them – I’ve obsessed over bicycles and cycling instead).

He replied that employers specifically instruct him not to send them World of Warcraft players. He said there is a belief that WoW players cannot give 100% because their focus is elsewhere, their sleeping patterns are often not great, etc. I mentioned that some people have written about MMOG leadership experience as a career positive or a way to learn project management skills, and he shook his head. He has been specifically asked to avoid WoW players.

— f13.net forums – Recruiter told not to hire WoW players.

I think the funniest bit is all the MMOG players in the thread agreeing with the recruiter…

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