I wanted to share a couple of recent videos that I’ve been rewatching. First, while I don’t agree with all of Jane McGonigal’s arguments, I’m genuinely excited by her recent TED talk. At this point, I am strongly aligned with the idea of connecting game play to real world change. You could do a lot [...]
I’m working on a new game. A poetic version of Scrabble or Bananagrams, perhaps. Not quite sure if anything will come of it or if it’s even anything other than a connect-the-dots, writing-exercise solitaire. As I work through more exercises like these, I’ll likely only post those that are somewhat playable. I will also be [...]
The Thank Tank has been created! General information, tank location, and (eventually) woven text are available at the Thank Tank’s Home. This post will be an updated area to discuss the game’s mechanics, answer questions, and encourage dialogue related to the game. If you haven’t already, please watch the short instructional video below. Thank Tank [...]
In the past two days, I’ve received no less than five emails asking me if I’ve seen this article (I have now … thanks to each of you!). Apparently my research interests have been made pretty explicit at this point. In any case, I was reminded of a couple of impromptu lessons I created that [...]
We looked at the clock: it was minutes before midnight. We were exhausted, the chips and guac had been exhausted hours before, and the dog had lost interest from the moment the events transpired. The only real reason we had to continue was because the fate of all humanity rested on our weary shoulders. Such [...]
A paper I co-authored (and partially adapted from my work in a course about Dewey and democracy) was presented at the Association of Computing Machinery (ACM) Multimedia Conference in Beijing last week. Though you (or your institution) will need a subscription to download it, the abstract (below) and the list of citations (linked) should give [...]
The new school year has begun. I teach three 90-minute classes. One class has 39 students, the other two float comfortably in the low, mid-30s. I’m travelling between two classrooms – the class I use for two periods currently has no working AC – the heat is of a level that would help propel Kozol [...]
I’m currently in the midst of a revamped unit with my 11th graders involving concurrently analyzing The Autobiography of Malcolm X and The Broken Spears. We’ll be reading additional texts and watching films related to Thoreau, Subcomandante Marcos, Gandhi, the South Central Farmers, and whatever else we can cram into the next few weeks before [...]