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Video Games in School

In the early days of the PC in schools, games were almost the only software available thanks largely to the concept of 'edutainment' - a mixture of 'education' and 'entertainment'. These software titles, such as Magic Bus, presented a rather second rate entertainment score combined with a little education along the way. Thankfully, and due in no small measure to ELCs, software has moved on a long way since those days and the educational aspect of school software has become more dominant. Nevertheless, it seems that the entertainment side of school software has refused to die. In fact, in recent months, it seems to have been re-emerging. Witness this article from the BBC about video games in schools and this article from San Francisco. Work in this area seems supported by research from Futurelab. Most of the work at current, seems to revolve around commercial games in lessons. The alternative would be a game program upon which educational material could be based. This would seem to be the angle being taken at Immersive Education with their work on Mission maker. In this piece of software, pupils or teachers can create characters, scenarios and storylines to support learning. Other links; http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4134530.stm http://www.computing.co.uk/computing/news/2141251/schools-test-scholarly-value-pc http://blog.core-ed.net/derek/2006/08/mission_maker.html

Original Article

LEGO Universe

via us.universe.lego.com

via us.universe.lego.com

8-bit trip

A Zoo for the Undead

Monkey Island is back!!!

Were you a huge Monkey Island fan back in the 90s?!  Did you get super excited when you heard Monkey Island SE was released as an Apple app, download it without a second thought and then remember exactly how to beat the game?!  Well you are going to love this! Move over Jack Sparrow because here comes Guybrush Threepwood!

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ericmortensen:

laughingsquid:

The Dangers of Pac-Man Joining Twitter

Wii Fit Fun

Lately my wife and I are spending lots of time on the Wii Fit. Whoever had the bright idea of making competitive computer games that get you fit is a genius. Trying to get the bubble to the finish line without being stung by bees is incredibly addictive, as is trying to beat each other's high score on the table tilt marble game or the ski jump or the football heading game where you have to avoid spinning panda heads that look like footballs. Who thinks this stuff up?!

There are some incredibly ingenious and crazy fun games in there.. like the crazy penguin game where you wobble an iceberg to catch fish, or the Zen meditation game where you sit still and stare at a candle, trying to ignore distracting footsteps and moths. The rhythm boxing is a good laugh too, with a cockney geezer trainer shouting at you to try harder and fight the fat, and an automated punchbag robot you can knock out.

Possibly the most knackering of all though is doing 6 minutes straight on Super Hula Hoop - 3 minutes in each direction. Knackering but as you can see from the picture, I made it - and not too bad too.

All in all the Wii Fit certainly makes exercise a lot more fun & interesting. Hopefully the darn thing won't tell me I'm obese again at tomorrow's weigh in!

dream, Thu 18/6/09 & Sat 20/6/09

Thu

Oscar Wilde was being put in prison for being a homosexual. I was outraged and confused. I saw other people being imprisoned for similar such reasons and the conditions in which they were kept were atrocious.

Once I saw that they were keeping animals in disgusting conditions, I began to cry.

Sat

There was a beautiful Japanese woman. I wanted to kiss her, so I did. She tasted of dark chocolate and for some reason, her face was rough, as if I were kissing a man who had stubble.

In order to be closer to her, I had to drag this massive water hose along a road in the night. I can't remember what for exactly but it had to stretch to another house.

In said house, I had a lover. He was a very good sort, but at some stage I did something wrong - unintentionally and he decided to leave me. I became incredibly distraught and kept trying to tell him that it was a mistake, I didn't mean to cause offence. He didn't care and left me.

* * * I had a laptop on and several people had tried to leave me messages on my IM client. One of them was Z. I tried talking to him, but it was like talking to a robot. All of a sudden, information about his new game flooded through. I couldn't understand why he waited a year to make contact and why it was all stilted and automated.

Blokus World Tour

Picked up this PC game at Wal-Mart last night: Blokus World Tour

Roller Coaster Tycoon - Peep Bowling