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Having finished his video games book, I’ve started Situated Language and Learning: A critique of traditional schooling by James Paul Gee (2004). It’s a very accessible ~125 page read. While I’m most interested in ch4 “Simulations and Bodies” for my embodiment reading this semester, I may end up going through all of it, although I […]

Lifted from James Paul Gee’s What Video Games Have to Teach Us about Literacy and Learning. This list is/seems longer and more repetitive (I think) than it needs to be, but where it seems to repeat itself, what I think is happening is that Gee is trying to focus on a slightly different aspect than […]

Last night, with the wind whipping across the frozen lake at us, I hosted a campfire in my backyard. It was cold, but we set up a few dock sections to block the wind, and there was much merriment had.
There’s something really wonderful about campfires — the hypnotic trance dance of flame, the voodoo […]

With my new PowerBook, iMovie HD, and my portable 100GB HD, I finally have enough portable power to edit digital video. My dog Seymour will be happy to see me again. The ol’ G3/600 iBook was getting a bit long in the tooth. The problem I’m having is that I’ve got so much other stuff […]

It occurred to me recently that I’m taking a really cool thing for granted. I live in Madison, Wisconsin in a modest student rental with 3 roommates. It’s not exceptionally glamorous, except that Lake Monona is in our backyard. And there’s a tree on the neighbor’s shoreline where a pair of bald eagles often perch […]

I’ve got his Video Games book and his Situated Literacy book in my backpack — one almost done, the next eagerly waiting. And in TCR this week, another example example of what I feel is “spot on” writing: It’s Theories All the Way Down: A Response to Scientific Research in Education by James Paul Gee […]

Dan, Dan, and Alex present their pitch on “DECLINE: A Half-Life II Modification” First-person perspective aimed at middle-to-high school students taking an introductory Western Civ course. Game would be individual play for home (vs. class play at school). Role played is Roman soldier (Caius) in Germany about the time when Rome is being sacked. The […]

Granted, my Linux experience is virtually nonexistent, but I’m not convinced that “shorewell stop” (command to stop the firewall) should stop *all* traffic to the machine (isn’t that what turning the firewall “on” is supposed to do?) But apparently the creators felt that the firewall should be a default thing, and anyone who was supposed […]

I’m not sure where this came from, but I was thinking about attending parties this morning. While I sometimes find myself uncomfortable at parties because I dislike some of the people there, or feel bad vibes from the place, more often I think I pick up on the discomfort of others, and am reminded of […]

In Kingdom of Loathing, I’ve reached level 10, invoking the PastaLord’s Weapon,and wielding my own massive Iron Pasta Spoon — much-feared among the Knob Goblins of Cobb’s Knob. I will say only that, yes, I am a better person for it.
(Actually I blew an entire day’s worth of adventures working out in the clan’s […]

I love Metafilter because I don’t have to scour the web to find gems like this and this by myself. Or even this or this. I’ve got a whole community of folks who find stuff for me.
Why aren’t I a card-carrying member, you ask? That’s a good question.

I realized today that much of my diet consists of tortillas. My shopping list always contains wheat tortillas, cheese, and baby greens. But when I eat out for lunch, chances are good that I’ll get a wrap there too. If I pack a lunch, it’ll be a wrap and yogurt. Dinner is more often than […]

In the 801 gaming class tonight, Dan talked about how game designers create different character types for different gamer types, so for example, people who like action games can be rogues, and people who like strategy games can be Palladins, and people who like to play alone can be hunters, etc. I wonder if anyone’s […]

I couldn’t help but feel, lately, that notions of embodiment that I’ve been reading about don’t actually make much of a connection with the corporeal body. If they do, they seem to argue that the body is a part of the mind, and forget about how also the mind is a part of the body. […]

I may be looking at the wrong thing, or looking from a perspective that doesn’t interest me as much as the perspective that I want. I’m not worried about embodiment of the mind — I see that case as mostly closed. Maybe I’m more interested in the em-mind-iment of the body.

Identity: For my Masters project, I examined film footage, photographs, songs, and narrative of the camp’s directors from 1921 to the present. From these data sources, and based on the theory that discourse and practice reveal cultural models — a community’s construction of truths (Gee, 2001; Holland, 1998), I identified and crosschecked evidence of cultural […]

Nanotechnology Course Development — Janice pitches a thorough online course on nanotechnology, aimed for High School Chemistry/Science Teachers. Methods include a series of lesson to be completed by a certain deadline, incorporating a variety of media, and also online quizzes. It may alos include a “hands-on” component to a local researcher. Lessons would include all […]

Forward! A History of Wisconsin (from glaciers to cheeseheads) — Levi and Ben present their game pitch of a modification of Civilization 3, localizing it to teach 4th grade Wisconsin history, for individual, small group, and possibly class-size play. Two versions actually one for 4th -5th grade, and another for 6th-8th grade. They’ve got some […]

I put the beginnings of the presentations on my .mac site (links have since been revised)
Body Games
Note: the presentation is no longer interactive, you just have to watch it as a movie.
My thoughts on slideshow presentations is that they supplement the presenter, rather than take the place of the presenter. So you’ll have to […]

There’s a group of us in Kurt Squire’s class who are working on variations of this project. Our thought (perhaps naively?) at this time is that it could be disseminated to a wider audience, and made more accessible. As interest in it rises, and a broader spectrum of users affirms its worth, more resources can […]

I put the beginning drafts of our presentations on my .mac site:
Body Games
Body Games pt2
Note: the movies are interactive, so click on them and use your arrow keys to move through them.
Our thoughts were to take the beginning section of the Body Games presentation, and insert Body Games 2 at the part were […]

My friend Chris is over to “game” with me. He’s lent me his old Playstation 1 and is showing me the ropes of TombRaider. It’s an interesting thing to me, as I’ve never really played games before this semester. I don’t know the discourse of them, so even watching him go through the levels helps […]

I’ve been screwing around trying to get a Mandrake Linux webserver to work for Joystick101.org. The one I’m messing with is here: Joystick101.education.wisc.edu, and it’s not quite as complete. I’ll be honest here — I don’t know much about Linux, so it’s a fabulous learning experience for me to try to get services set up […]

How fun to mess about in CSS! I really ought to actually take the time to learn it well someday, but for now, simple things like adding my live | learn | love | blog | links up above in the header, and changing the hover behavior (even getting the tool tip titles to show) […]

Stephen Downes’ March 15, 2004 blog has pretty good notes of a Jim Gee presentation on video games and learning. From the blog: “James Paul Gee , author of What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy, treated those of us at the RIMA ICEM conference in Quebec City today to a […]

I have a Flickr site too now, but not many photos there…

I’ve decided to try to write everyday, for at least 15 minutes. Why? Well, part of it is to document that I *am* actually doing a lot of work — which in my case as an academic means “thinking” and “reading” and “reflecting” (even “regarding” things” — as my blog name suggests).
Today, I’ve been reading […]

Here’s a cool site on video/tech games including MIT’s Environmental Detective game that I’m planning on modding with Ming-Fong and others in my Kurt Squire class: http://www.socialimpactgames.com

Hi, I’m john. This is my blog. It’s got a few purposes.
From Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary:
re·gard·ing
Function: preposition
: with respect to : CONCERNING
regard
Function: verb
Etymology: Middle English, from Middle French regarder to look back at, regard, from Old French, from re- + garder to guard, look at — more at GUARD
transitive senses
1 : to consider and appraise usually […]