I've started reading the white paper "Living and Learning with New Media," a summary of the immense, three-year, multi-study investigation of how American youth are using digital media for learning. Funded by the Digital Media & Learning initiative of the MacArthur Foundation, it incorporates the work of 23 researchers under the overall guidance of Mimi…
Category: Information Society
Swing that PhD Thesis! (video)
Some crazy outfit called Gonzo Labs is challenging PhD candidates around the country to post dance videos of themselves demonstrating what their thesis is about. I don’t even understand most of what these theses are about. But I love that some folks are doing bad ass lindy hop to demonstrate the principles these science doctoral…
Seeking speaking gigs on virtual worlds, education, non-profit tech, and civic engagement
I realized today that I’ve never mentioned on my blog that I’m available and interested in speaking engagements, either in person or virtually. Among the topics I’m particularly qualified to speak on: Immersive Learning: The potential and reality of education and virtual worlds The Activist Avatar: the Use of virtual worlds to promote non-profit causes…
Brilliant Fake New York Times from the Future: Iraq War Ends!
Big time congratulations to the team behind the fake New York Times from the future that hit the streets and the web today! The combination of great writing, design, and transmedia marketing is totally impressive. I’ve got a physical copy of the paper on my desk, courtesy of my co-worker Jay who brought in a…
President Obama and the desire for ephemera
So many people around me agree that we are living in a rare historic time in history: we are about to see the first African-american serve as President of the United States. One thing that I have found remarkable about these times is how much people are clamoring for ephemera and objects to mark this…
“Appleseed: Ex Machinima” mini-review
This weekend, I watched on Netflix-on-Demand "Appleseed: Ex Machina," (2007) an action-packed anime scifi adventure based on the manga series by Masamune Shirow and produced by John Woo. A definite improvement in both technical achievement and plot than the previous "Appleseed" movie from 2004, it’s still a fairly pedestrian story with some amazing visuals and…
Leaked memo from Chris Hughes to Change.gov web developers
By now, you’ve probably seen Obama’s new policy website Change.gov. The media and blogosphere have reported on how ground-breaking and historic this "open government" website is, allowing the public to be involved in the public policy-making process in ways impossible to imagine before. What has received less attention is the intensive web development process that…
Geekcrush #37: DJ Bubblyfish
Last night at the Machinima Festival after-party at Eyebeam labs we were treated to the unique 8-bit DJ stylings of Ms. Haeyoung Kim, better known as Bubblyfish. I’ve seen Bubblyfish a couple of times before and have been blown away by her retro gaming-influenced electronica. Bubblyfish’s performances combine wonderfully retro imagery from old 8-bit games…
Adriana peeps out the G1 Google Android Phone
I just got a link to my friend Adriana’s first post as Gadget Editor on the cell phone blog PhoneDog.com. She covers the recent launch party for the T-mobile G1 Google Android phone, giving some nice flavor of what the geekarati event what like as well as fondling the phone herself. Adriana also posted recently…
Useless App of the Day: Poladroid for the Mac!
This what computers are good for — creating useless but entertaining programs that replicate stuff that worked just fine in the real world. DK of Mediasnackers tweeted a link to this awesomely useless and free Mac application called "Poladroid." Poladroid puts a cute Polaroid on your desktop that you can drop any image file on. …