Katie Salen: "Born into a world where concepts like copyright, mastery, civic engagement, and participation are seamlessly negotiated and redefined across highly personalized networks ... today's kids are crafting learning identities for themselves-- hybrid identities --that seemingly reject previously distinct modes of being. Writer, designer, ( Read more... )

A busy week here around Raccoon HQ.

The biggest news, I suppose, is that I'm thinking about returning to grad school, and taking some steps in that direction. Those of you who know me well know that I've been struggling, for years now, with the feeling of being in a "rut" with my academic career: although I enjoy teaching Composition, my interests ( Read more... )

Just finished reading the second chapter of Ian Bogost's Unit Operations: An Approach to Videogame Criticism, and found it shockingly similar to the first. The pile-up of important names continues: this chapter tackles Plato and Aristotle, linguist Ferdinand Saussure, deconstructionist Jacques Derrida, computer scientist John von Neumann, digital ( Read more... )

I just finished reading the first chapter of Ian Bogost's Unit Operations: An Approach to Videogame Criticism, and I'm really enjoying it.

Bogost's approach hinges on the concept of the "unit operation," a "mode of meaning-making that [privileges] discrete, disconnected actions over deterministic, progressive systems," and the first twenty pages of ( Read more... )

Back in January, I was browsing the website of the Independent Games Festival, and was looking at their list of award-winners from 2006. That led me to stumble upon a game called Braid, which caught my attention for two reasons—one, because it was developed by an entity identifying itself as "Number None, Inc." (which means that the developer is ( Read more... )

Started to write a capsule review on James Paul Gee's What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy, a book I finished in January, and it quickly sprawled into a longer post. In any case, here it is:

Interesting thesis: Gee identifies thirty-six principles of learning, and argues that playing video games helps to stimulate all ( Read more... )

My whole thinking on video games as a serial (as opposed to "series") format derives from two pieces published by Wired journalist Clive Thompson: "Tune In Next Week For Gaming Fun" and a later piece, "The Myth of the 40-Hour Gamer."

"The Myth of the 40-Hour Gamer" sets up the problem: there exists a class of gamers who admire long-form narrative ( Read more... )