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A review I just posted to Amazon:
So far, after 4 days with it, I like it very much. This is a very good phone. It also tries to do many other things, and is fairly successful at some. My primary needs were: reception, battery life, and reliability/build quality. My secondary “wants” were Organizer, FM […]

Another PS2 game I’ve tried and found pleasant — as long as the sound is way down, otherwise it’s terribly jarring.
I’m not a racing gamer. I’ve tried Mario Cart before and disliked it. The way to play these games, it seems is to race and try to win. I prefer to enjoy the ride. I […]

I have 47 gold. I hear I need 80g by level 40 in order to buy a mount.
Here’s an aspect of gameplay that I like. I like to wander around and mine and collect herbs, then hearthstone to Thunderbluff and auction them off. I like stealthing through mines, dodging past guards and NPC miners, taking […]

I’m not impressed.
I tried playing GTA: Vice City on my new PS2 for a few hours. I’m not offended by the hookers, or by the game play where I’m encouraged to beat people up. I just find it boring. The gamespace isn’t all that intriguing. The controls are awkward. The characters all look or act […]

~190 hours — 147 1/2 hours on Db, plus ~45 hours on other characters. It’s getting to the point (again) where I’m tired of it.
Last night in Ashenvale — contested territory on my PvP (Player vs. Player) server — I answered a LFM (looking for member) call for some dungeon, and once in the […]

It’s here. It’s cool. Soon it will be on your GPS phone — mark my words.
I suppose we need to wait for a better text-entry system. I can’t see thumb-typing as a long term solution.

Now they need to get smaller. But the idea is here. Sprint has been offering Location-Based-Services (LBS) since 2001 — before it was federally mandated — and has even teamed up to use Microsoft’s APIs.Besides finding carjacked toddlers, the technology could be used for something important, um … like games (the kid is fine).
As […]

Place-Based Inquiry (PBI) is the natural child of Place-Based Education, Inquiry-Based Learning, Design-Based Learning, and Project-Based learning. Are you sensing a pattern here? I argue that playing and redesigning Augmented Reality Games wraps all of these up nicely with a bow.

It’s situated in a specific culturally-rich place
it is collaborative and sociocultural in both the […]

5.2. Augmented Reality Games (ARGs)
The general idea of an ARG, as our research group is using it, is built on the constraints and affordances of the MIT game available. The game engine was developed at MIT with a Games-to-Teach grant, and merges handheld computers (Pocket PC), with GPS (Global Positioning System) units. For the players, […]

5.1. Defining Virtual and Augmented Reality

Augmented Reality is a troublesome term for me because it seems too specifically defined. Whereas virtual reality suggests an immersive and interactive, entirely artificial environment, augmented reality seems to be increasingly defined by a digitally processed alteration of our visual and aural field of the settings we inhabit. When we […]

I just turned level 24 last night (this morning?). This is what they call “the grind,” where I need to just play my way through a bunch of epxerience points until level 30, where I get my travel form and the game changes “drastically” again.
At this point, the Barrens aren’t really a challenge unless […]

I have so much stuff that focuses on what *I* want to do, but I was reminded today to step back and address the needs of the larger field. Now, this brings up all sorts of questions, like what larger field? the field of Education? The field of Educational Technology? The field of Augmented Reality […]

Questions for Feb 28 meeting with my advisor. We got through the first two…

Ideas for dissertation focus:

Place, Design, Culture, Tools, Individual
Place-Based Inquiry
Design-Based research
Activity Theory in using game design to learn

What would I measure?

A theory of what could be
Tools
Design
Social interaction
Mere exploration of what happens

Ideas for Pare article (theory/need paper)

Best from prelims?

Start with design
Start with the tool […]