A glimpse at online gaming/youth culture

Here are some links related to "The Guild" web series about gamers online and in real life. These links come from the guild's press section.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/SHOWBIZ/09/06/dragoncon.theguild/index.html?iref=allsearch√
There are some interesting insights in the next write-up related to how heros aren't chosen - they choose themselves (what ted.com talk was that?!), and being able to tweak their own lines.

http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=31187

The order that I watched the guild episodes is season 4 and then seasons 1, 2, and 3, in order.

What got me hooked were the two songs, in this order:

1. Do you want to date my avatar?
2. Game on!

Talks I've been to today

Big History by David Christian (TED, March 2011)

The Danger of Science Denial by Michael Spector (TED, Feb 2010)

When Ideas have sex by Matt Ridley (TED, July 2010)

Some Great Presentations on SlideShare.net

• http://www.slideshare.net/jonathankopp/top-10-tips-for-unicef-to-tap-the-social-web-04-march-2011
• http://www.slideshare.net/sxsw2010 (Table of Contents of sorts :-)
• http://www.slideshare.net/princessmisia/most-memorable-quotes-from-sxsw-2011
• http://www.slideshare.net/jimsalinger/16-things-i-learned-at-sxsw

Arg. There's always more than one has time to absorb.  Didn't want to lose these links. Come back later!

L2 English Learning & Teaching - Online Bits

We've been studying approaches to teaching English as a second language in ENG 575/775.
Here are some related bits culled from daily online excursions since January 10, 2011.

1. Jay Walker on the world's English mania 
2. Forbes Interactive Word Birth Chart: How a  Toddler Learns to Talk
   (See Philip DeCamp and Deb Roy's MIT Media Lab Human Speechome Project)
3. Deb Roy at TED.com in February: The birth of a word (20 minutes)
   Go to minutes 04:56-05:50 to see the evolution of "gaaa..." to "water".
   See length of utterances of caregiver speech and compare with each word is acquired in minutes through minute 07:50. The minimum length utterances coincide with when the word is acquired
   We do a subconscious scaffolding - the language learning environment adapts to the learner(!)
   
4. Dr. Patricia Kohl at TEDxRainier: The linguistic genius of babies (10 minutes)
   "the celestial openness of the child's mind", the 8-10 months old sound development critical period:
   going from a citizen of the world to a culturally bound citizen
   "It takes a human being for babies to take their statistics."
5.  S{ubterranean} E{nglish} E{xposed}

 Some available online tools for learning ESL:

1. Oye, ¿cómo va mi ritmo? Bueno para gozar. in Google Translate
   (Here is the actual song on YouTube)
2. quizlet.com:
   
   • Elements of Thinking Flashcards 
   • Quizlet for Teachers
   • Now has voice recognition (in beta testing)
3. voxy.com: "Learn a language from life"
4. Learn English Network
   Teacher's Blog
   
5. 
   

Turnitin

Fierce Memories

Just some notes to myself. This last week I lost a dear friend and teacher. I wrote some things down. If the Eastern Progress does not publish it, I will, here.

A nice tribute to Jim Kenkel by Bob Yates: My best friend is dead

Two more papers by Dr. Kenkel and Dr. Yates I plan to read:
We're Prescriptivists. Isn't Everyone?
Grammar and Literacy: Embedding Outside Sources in Text

Just because:
Old Friends / Bookends tune by Simon and Garfunkel

Some nice comments regarding Dr. Kenkel in Facebook.

Dec. 6, 2010

Symphony of Science
Seth Godin on the tribes we lead
Are we in control of our decisions? (Behavioral Economics)
Photoshop Snowflake Brushes
Beloit College squirrels speak

Facebook and Social Networking: Pros & Cons

I just had a nice brown-bag lunchtime conversation-presentation with a small group of folks interested in Facebook and Twitter. The short of it:

• Facebook now has Facebook Pages which are different from personal Facebook Profiles. Facebook Pages are handy for organizations in universities because several administrators can maintain the same page.
• Use mini-feeds, photos, and comments on photos to fuel interaction and conversation.
• Twitter is good for up to 140 characters at a time, perhaps twice a day to promote organization events and activities.

Why should we bother? Because students are regularly spending 2 to 5 hours a day on Facebook. Using Facebook and Twitter gives us a great chance to engage students and other constituents and send ripples through their social spheres to keep us all connected. While we can't directly control our organization's brand on social networks, we can at least participate actively in the conversations.

Here are some social web services that we discussed and some relevant presentations in no particular order:

1. You've Been Facebooked! (short, 14 slides)
2. What is Social Media? (very good, 66 slides)
3. Social Media ROI: Socialnomics (VERY GOOD video explaining why we might want to do Facebook)
4. If we behaved in real life as we do on Facebook (humorous video on some of the CONS of Facebook)
5. Facebook Manners And You (More humorous Facebook CONS video)
6. Trouble with Twitters - Super News!
(humorous video take on Twitter)

The articles we discussed are in this October 2010 NACA Campus Activities Programming Magazine.