Lets Get Digital: Play

From Wolfville part 2, final

2006-05-27T15:05:00.000-07:00

I'm feeling pretty guilty as I missed Heather Lotherington's work which sounds so interesting from its abstract. Here is a link to a school website which showcases some work that involves her on 'rewriting goldilocks - emergent transliteracies'.

But I cannot tell you any more. I hereby sack myself from this blog.

I think I might have been trying to photograph high tide or low tide here where there are the biggest tides in the world. My photos are useless though - if you had a person down in the mud you would see how tiny they are and therefore why, when I saw, the change, I turned into Victor Meldrew.

I think digital player needs a Doctor Who transition. This one hasn't even worked out how to clean out the tardis i.e. archive, arrange photos, well never mind, plenty of room for improvement!

From Wolfville, Part 1

2006-05-23T11:02:00.000-07:00

Greetings from the eclectic Narrative Matters conference in Wolfville, Nova Scotia! This incarnation of Digitalplayer has come and hopes to share with you a few things along the way. I’ve been to Nova Scotia before and this second glimpse confirms my impression that it is dominated by trees and churches. Hisorically church-driven universities set up many small universities that seeded teachers across Canada. Last time I visited Antigonish and wondered if there was anywhere else in the world where billboards were dominated by images of John Paul II (‘friend of youth’); yesterday during my stopover in Halifax my companion told me, ‘there are more churches to the square inch here than anywhere else in Canada.’ I bring you slightly more irreverent images from Halifax.

I want to explore the notion that I (perhaps misremember) from Bruner, that there are two types of thinking, of ways of structuring thinking, narrative and – can someone help me out? – analogical? ‘scientific’? Wherever I think there are two types of anything then of course it always turns out not more complicated, but also that there are more inter-relations between the two.

Is technology changing our brains?

2006-05-02T07:18:00.000-07:00

Is technology changing our brains?

So asked the Guardian here.

Is a consequence of the impact of new technologies an alteration of the mind itself? Susan Greenfield, the prominent neuroscientist, suggests we mustn’t take it for granted that ways of thinking remain constant: ‘the human brain is exquisitely sensitive to any and every event’. Are young, IT literate people acquiring different skills? Her Institute of the Mind project at Oxford is asking four questions:

What are the influences on children today?
Where is the actual evidence of a new type of impact?
What do we actually want children to learn?
How do we deliver these aims using the new technologies?

Exciting questions, but am I alone in wondering why they are being posed in tandem with some rather trammeled, even tired ways of thinking. How depressing is the following, also by Susan Greenfield,

‘Memory, for example, may no longer be as essential as it was for those of us who had to learn reams of Latin grammar, but with everything just a click away, perhaps we are at risk of losing our imagination, that mysterious and special cognitive gift that until now has always made the book so much better than the film.’

E-identities - thought from Daniel

2006-05-01T14:15:00.000-07:00

Daniel suggests that an interesting point to research would be cooperation among online anonymous gamers. Why are they generally cooperative? On 'Half-Life' for example, people tend to willingly forgo the preferred role of sniper and contribute to the good of the team, although identifies are temporary and fluid. So it would be quite possible to act selfishly and then come back the next day with another identity so that nobody recognised the egotistic short-term player of the previous game - yet few do this.

All busy in San Francisco

2006-04-11T21:56:00.000-07:00

San Francisco!

American Educational Research Association annual meeting in San Francisco was the wonderful venue for Digitalplayer today. Despite being the final session of a long conference, academics from all over the world watched/listened and otherwise semiotically responded as:
Jackie Marsh enthralled and challenged with Digital Beginnings

Colin Lankshear and Michele Knobel held the audience spellbound with this
Sue Nichols drew gasps and laughter with her networks
Guy Merchant explained and entertained
Kate Pahl sparkled on Barnsley
Jennifer Rowsell was ‘crossing’ with cultural and global flows
The audience was loth to leave, although San Francisco waited outside.

Parallel Realities part 3

2006-02-04T11:34:00.000-08:00

I can't bring you images as I was not allowed to photograph. That prohibition makes sense to me as it wouldn't be fair to any of the artists to take a two dimensional still image that you would then see on the confines of this monitor. The experience made me think that, sometime hence, when we think back to 'digital cultures' around the millenium, we'll think how primitively we were constrained to spend so much of our time sitting stationary in front of (mostly small) rectangular screens. These contemporary Asian artifacts and installations offered opportunities to explore. I moved around different sorts of spaces, had different kinds of sensory and emotional experience. Mizuko Ito (2005, p. 6) challenges 'the notion that PC-based broadband is the current apex of Internet access models. ' Indeed we do experience through our bodies, situated in specific, if hybrid places, at particular points in time (saturated through perceptions of past events and future expectations). Through digital and other kinds of technology, woven in new pattern, these artists are offering - . ... what use would my words be?
By the way Hickling was right and I was wrong - the interplay of the exhibitions with Blackburn is, indeed, bizarre.

Hoping again to approach parallel realities

2006-02-03T12:34:00.000-08:00

Alfred Hickling, writing in the Guardian here, is better at finding things in Blackburn than I am. He writes that 'the most significant collection of contemporary Asian art in the world'... is 'everywhere' [in Blackburn]. Though isn't it just a little condescending to write, 'Yet nothing is quite so bizarre as the fact that it should have come to colonise the centre of Blackburn' ? I look forward to venturing out again, seems a particularly good idea when work is piling on tables but the central heating isn't working and it needs a part that won't arrive till Monday....

Parallel Realities part 2

2006-01-30T11:49:00.000-08:00

Well, we walked around Blackburn, we saw closed shopping malls and streets, but no art. Couldn't even see the sign we'd spotted on our drive in. Then we found Blackburn Library - went in and asked. The librarians hadn't heard of it and when they phoned Big Chief Librarian Upstairs - on a Sunday morning mind you(who sounded just like James Grout in Morse) he told them to lead us to the corridor where they display pictures sent in from local schools - and leave us there.
.
We escaped, wandered the streets and finally found a sign on the door of a museum that said OPEN 10AM! Hey! But the museum wasn't open and on a wall to the side was a sign saying: Parallel Realities 12-4Well, folks, daughter was complaining and so we headed off for retail therapy: hat, scarf, skirt and lemon tetras.
I'm hoping Parallel Realities has brought over art like this
of Cho Duckhyun from Korea. Digital Player has brought you this blog to create a sense of obligation to return and bring you part 3.

Parallel Realities part 1

2006-01-30T11:15:00.000-08:00

The job of the artist is always to deepen the mystery - Francis Bacon
This is the motto of the exhibition Parallel Realities - a groundbreaking event in Blackburn DigitalPlayer set off to discover on your behalf, dear reader! I hadn't known of Bacon's motto at the time - but wow is it apposite. I'd heard about this wonderful sounding event on Radio 4's Front Row - I thought the whole of Blackburn had turned into a contemporary, creative forum for art - so took dearest daughter and set off. As we entered Blackburn, we saw a sign, excitement mounted, then we were faced with a diversion, found the car park.... set off walking....No OK I'm joking it wasn't really as in the days William Woodruff describes in his superb Road to Nab End-we found ourselves in a very ordinary car park...got out.... and the fun began....

When games get serious

2006-01-12T05:48:00.000-08:00

When gamers part with real money to buy a space station, we know things are getting serious.
We realise that peole's identities are getting REALLY tied up with their online worlds and in ways which we think may infact be just a tad worrying.
Hayes writes about women and video gaming and how new games targetted at girls and wmen in particular are making rather narrow assumptions about their preferences and abut how versatile they can and want to be online.
Seems that we want to live out fantasies but that sometimes this might put at risk our off line selves too.

It seems that the Internet influences our off line behaviour and is affecting how we define oursleves . Reality and virtuality begin to merge. I love this piece by Mitra which talks about online spaces, off line spaces and 'cybernetic space' which is the intersection of the two. The article is really clear.
And of course Jane McGonigal has exciting work on belief and play.

OK

2005-12-21T13:03:00.000-08:00

so the last post was not a roaring success.

Maybe you will be interested in a highly interactive but thought provoking site. It looks at how we are all now so programmed to click around a pc screen we cannot bear not to. It is a fascinating space and you will get the idea within say ... thirty seconds.

And to show you just a little more about how OBSESSED we are with our digital world, our digital toys, look at this intriguing slideshow (about a minute for this.)

Finally a thirty second galnce at this similar idea, but just as mesmerising in terms of visuals and 'how did they do that?' impact.

I have put timings in as Iknow people only look at blogs when they want a three minute distraction from what they are doing ... that is just three minutes from the several hours a day they spend on line.....

Research links

2005-12-14T14:01:00.000-08:00

Two interesting sites for people to have a look at, thinking about investigating what people are doing informally, playing around online.
About Being Digital in School, Home and Community is a neat project with some interesting questions:

What are the principal 'cultural forms' with which young people engage across school, home and community?
What are the 'digital literacy practices' across these three sites (which, how often, when, where, for what purposes)?
What are the implications of these practices for education in and out of schools?

And nice to see teachers involved in this work.

Then there is this: Kids' Informal Learning with Digital Media
An Ethnographic Investigation of Innovative Knowledge Cultures

which is a longer read, but worthwhile.
Thanks to Sarah for the links.

Alas where have all the bloggers gone?

2005-12-06T06:44:00.000-08:00

Looks as if Christmas fever has overtaken our stalwarts like this and this , and the rest of you are too blasted by the long term to even Blog-on. Oh dear!

She’s Such a Geek

2005-11-26T10:12:00.000-08:00

This is a post about women playing digitally. Should they do it in a girly, pinky way?
Interesting post over here at Lorem Ipsum. This post is a call for papers from women who can contribute to a book about female Geeks:

Geeks are taking over the world. They make the most popular movies and games, pioneer new ways to communicate using technology, and create new ideas that will change the future. But the stereotype is that only men can be geeks. So when are we going to hear from the triumphant female nerds whose stories of outer space battles will inspire generations, and whose inventions will change the future? Right now.

Are there Geeks out there who want to be girly Geeks? Or do you just want to be Geek? Is 'Geek' gender specific r is it a gender neutral word?
This article is not so keen on girlies having all their gadgets in pink.
You should check out the comments to that article where there is a really good (girlie) spat going on about whether they prefer their gizmos in pink.

Shiny Shiny is one of my favourite sites will all sorts of gadgets looking girlish. I want loads of the stuff on here; including the keyboard vacuum cleaner.
Mind you it's all very well having a pink gameboy, but had they better not change the name?

I love these for all your girly geeky gear.

Anyway, how about some feminist theory for this post? I understand some people have read Kristeva...

Collisions and Collusions

2005-11-17T06:30:00.000-08:00

Went to Muriel's inaugral lecture at Bishop Grosseteste last night. She gave an excellent presentation of the way in which children's cultural interests bring together many different modes of meaning making. Her presentation also exploited a full range of resources from a video of Veronica and her bedroom(s), to paper versions of computer designed cards sent to her by children in her family. Just loved this and knew you'd all want to share it too. Dressing paper dollies was one my manias when about 6-8 along with those fold in paper houses I use in my computer game narratives. Interesting to find out if kids who accessed this site also still made their own paper versions too and how other forms of new digital play draw on and link to traditional play forms.
The event also brought together in collusion one of the curators of our oldest forms of literacy - the librarian of Lincoln Cathedral's ancient MSs -with our digital crew (which includes a number of Muriel's students). The librarian has promised to invite us over to see some of the earliest reading primers- as Books of Hours and a latin Primer with marginalia from a 15th century school boy recording for the first time in writing form a story of Robin Hood. Got me thinking of the way in which new media create new affordances for the continuation of tradition. Today's young school boy may well encounter this . or a younger sibling like this. This ties in with Muriel's emphasis on it being the linking theme that is central to kid's play rather than the dominance of any one mode of representation or communication. Though I guess we all do have preferences linked to our (or in my case lack of...) facility with newer media.
Many of Muriel's visitors could just not see how any of the new media could ever replace beloved books in children's affections - but then they have necver been in love with an ipod and have not knitted accessories like this and

or bought stuff like this

for their lovable additions to computer life.

Here's a book to add to your Christmas wish list

Bowing out

2005-11-13T11:57:00.000-08:00

Here I am then, for the last time in split personality role as Digigran/digitalplayer. I think it will be brilliant to have a series of blogs from a young games player giving us examples of what makes for exciting play. It has been great fun learning how to manage this posting business and there is still much left for me to mistress yet- particularly in relation to visual representationlia's facility with the camera. LOOK. I shall, however, now confine my own narcissistic displays to my Digigran site which I will separate out from our research BLOG with Julia's help on Tuesday pm. Meanwhile, if you have not yet connected to the other digitalplayers' individual space you may want to check out Guy's reflections on Blogging here (Please remind me, Guy, why My Vedana? )and Victoria's tracking of playful spaces here with the accompanying brilliant idea from MaryPlain that the ESRC` group should engage in something playful together next meeting and work from a particular practice to theorising about play. I know for all its demands this BLOGGING has engaged me playfully and I am motivated to do more simply by that pleasure. My own play tends to focus on words and meaning- but that's a product of my education, n'est-ce-pas?
Following through the academic purposes that are also the brief for this spot, before i bow out, the latest issue of Literacy has contributions from our members.These include Rebekah's account of Baddies in the classroom and Victoria's review of Kress's new text, Literacy in the New media Age(essential reading)Check it out.

There is also an article from Cathy Burnett and Jeff Wilkinson contrasting children's use of the Internet at home and in schhool.
My alter ego, Digigran, will return in another space- I'm just having trouble working out a suitable super-hero kit for her. None of the existing stuff looks suitably thermal for the time of year.
Perhaps it means an extended on-line visit to here.

Evelyn's Digital Play

2005-11-12T12:34:00.000-08:00

Flickr has a group where you are invited to tell a five frame story; I quite like this one showing the obsessive behaviour of a Flickrite.
Here another Flickrite gives ideas on how to approach the task of structuring a narrative through five pictures.

Barbara Ganley here gives evidence of how she used the techniques in school. She seems fantastically dedicated.

The piece de resistance for me though, is Evelyn at the pc playing a video game. And you can also see the video here.

Funnily enough, I have come across Evelyn on Flickr before and blogged about her fab Mum and Dad and their playful funhere.

(Posted not by Digigran as stated below but by Digiplayer/DrJoolz)

Who's the blacksheep now?

2005-11-10T07:42:00.000-08:00

Baa, Baa Blacksheep.

Well, I should have known it was all proceeding too well to be true. While my mentor, Dear Dr Joolz was pursuing her cultural interests in Venice, (visit her blog to check this out- some lovely images) I got carried away and tried to set up an independent BLOG called Digibaby by Digigran. Was having lots of fun. So I do think on reflection this Blogging lark can be thought of as sound intellectual play and worth pursuing for its own sake. However, Like the sorcerer's apprentice I became over-confident and technically ill-informed and so have managed to corrupt our group BLOG and published my digran stuff as an adjunct rather than separate entity. Do not fear. Dr Joolz is taking time to unravel my mess and our normal service will resume next Tuesday. Meanwhile perhaps you can send me your ideas as comments on the BLOG to post any new events, or your thinking etc. Also it's perhaps time to look for next incumbent of digitalplayer post, so someone else can be building up the expertise.
Sorry for confusion and stuff about nappy buckets
Digitalplayer/gran

Black Sheep Boys

2005-10-31T20:47:00.002-08:00

Oh dear.
Boys are back in the news and on the black list again and all this while they are still in Primary school.
What hope then for the older boys who get to Secondary school already labelled/libelled? When will we ever learn that more darn phonics, basic skills, extra literacy classes etc etc, is not the answer? We need to be listening to what boys say about their learning; look at what they ARE learning and then try to FUSE this with work in school. I always said that more structured, controlled, good-kid work would help girls more than boys. These new stats seem to support it. After all, even though my colleagues are queuing up to join the bad girls' list (See DR Kate's latest Arty Facts) there have always been so many, many more bad boys- it's not a new phenomenom, but one that we do need to address if the human race is to survive the current spate of disillusion and non-engagement. Letsget digitalplay has stuff to say about motivation, interest and response. Perhaps it's time to rant a bit more online. What do the rest of you think? E

Another wet one

2005-10-30T12:31:00.000-08:00

Strange feelings of being bereft these past days as muchas happened- but I have been tied up with visitors. They are real friends and very welcome but entertaining proved time consuming and involved loads of cooking- I made this :Pheasants a la Normande- birds wer shot on the Cavendish estate, Chatsworth http://www.chatsworth-house.co.uk/and this: Kedgeree , which I thought was a recipe brought directly the from the Raj, but turns out to be mainly Scottish after all. Cooked other things too, several soups, bread, salads etc.and managed to use nearly every pan in the house. Can't say I have ever found the dishwasher very useful under these circumstances- any tips from other challenged domestics?
Spent Saturday evening at cinema, watching this. Thought it gave a hope that some men at least had got to reexamining themselves and were deconstructing the lure of the on the 'kiss you good-bye' and 'on-the -road' life style, a la Kerouac, Jack Nicholson and all those tiresome cowboys.

Friends now gone back home as it is too wet to walk out and they are afraid of queues on M1, post half-term, as they head back to Crouch End- so am now free to roam online. Have been thinking alot about blogging meanwhile.- If you're having an experience -( e.g visit to local park where friend pointed out brilliant Lyn Truss type sign warning about deer. It read:

Warning Deer
Rutting Season
During the Rutting Season the deer can be very aggressive in
defending their space and the female deer
keep well clear )
it's often not possible to capture it . I really needed my camera to show you properly but had not packed it as I had been too busy busy talking about the idiocies of this:: White Paper, with friend who is a headteacher in that school near Wembley (also, see above) so either blogging prevents you from having the experience, because you are inside on the computer, or you are too busy having the experience to remember record it in Bloggable forme.g Digital photos. Often you are limited in what you can say bythe 'bloggabili ty' of your ideas.
Take Kate's BLOG ( I do so love it). Her decision to focus on shopping provided her with an ideal source of images. In fact, so powerful was Kate's shopping BLOG that I I spent a whole morning trying to track down the perfect skirt following all her links and have decided on a little Vanessa Bruno number , from Kensington's Urban Outfitters ( I'm usually happy with M&S- and soooo much cheaper!!!!). So, is this, as I also fear, a way of making one more acquisitive and tempted by goodies on-line and are we are doing the advertisers' work for them? (Although I have always admired Kate's taste in skirts.)
It is something I detect in the stuff around BLOGGING- as in the Snowboards, computer games etc, we are trying to 'sell' our taste to one another.
Also Blogging seems to lend itself very much to the personal voice, whether real or assumed, and the academic note always for me seems a little out of place. Shouldn't thast be in the e-journal, I think.
I am eager to see what the school kids do, if and when we start BLOGGING with them. I think there's often a touch of self-absorption, even narcissism * and display involved, in wanting to be seen and heard if only with a very miniscule, nano portion of the web. Famous for the flick of a second. Wonder how the kids we are researching will take to it in school.
Meanwhile, shopping with Kate was great fun. Will soon not need to leave desk at all, but then won't get to see beautiful Winster or take the view so much, walking with Edward. We were here, Edward my sisters and I, last Thursday-scattering my father's ashes in glorious sunshine down the brook where we three girls played as children.
*I suppose in away all academic life is a form of narcissism - loving one's own ideas and thinking them important whether voiced out loud delivering papers, lectures etc. or committed to print in one way or another.
NOTE for DRJOOLZ-
Yes it was the Apple- but I still can't place images exactly where I want them, unlike you and Kate! E
NOTE for Kate
The countryside is like e.e.cumming's beach- you will only find something of yourself there.

Board with digital

2005-10-30T02:15:00.000-08:00

Snowboard
Originally uploaded by edsghm.

Over a single generation, board-riding has developed into a number of distinct popular culture niches, each with its own iconic personalities, places, brands and lifestyle. Predominantly but not exclusively young and male, skateboarding, snowboarding and surfboarding cultures are not only about action and performance, they are defined by the music you play, the places you go and the clothes you wear.

The relationship between board-riding and digital culture is interesting and complex. The salience of board sports in popular culture and the display of performance skill that are central to them present ideal subjects for games developers. Tony Hawks Pro Skater4 and Winter X Games Snowboarding attract huge followings of bedroom board-riders, and this in turn has helped to boost the popularity of board sports in meatspace.

Sheffield snowboarders have a different and distinctive relationship to digital culture, one in which new technology is an integral part of a real world practice. So SB Matrix acts as a hub for a social network, functioning as a group memory and enriching communication and interaction through announcements, message boards and galleries. The video stream Phat Thursday, shot on one of those rare snow days, archives local snowboarding history. It's significant that boarders perform in urban and rural environments - and in several of the sequences you can see boarders with mobile phones, capturing their varied moves. Now that video phones are more affordable, these snowboarders are able to create their own content, which is available to them on the move.

Skateboarding and snowboarding seem to me to illustrate the complex relationships that exist between play and 'real' worlds, and new media and identity performance.

No links

2005-10-26T04:45:00.000-07:00

apparently, between violent video games and aggressive behaviour in 'the real world' is the argument of a new piece of research.

Well that's a relief. Becaue if there were a causal relationship between what kids do in their online play and their real life, my son stands to run brothels, to drive fast cars the wrong way down the Interstate; jump from building to building; own guns and have a sleezy taste in clothes. He will also expect to manage his own football team in the near future and expect life to stop when his tea is ready.

- Possibly it is only the latter that will really happen when he grows to be a fully fledged man. (When does that happen?)

Some Thoughts

2005-10-25T16:06:00.000-07:00

Hmmm
We have all found it easier to discus the computer game online than the processes of our research ( see all comments on runescape and no links). Does this say something about the affordances of this medium? does it favour the short sound bite reflection? Yet it is so demanding a medium too.I know that keeping track of the Blog's progress is severely interrupting all other aspects of my life, work, walking the dog, sleeping. I sense this is the first flush of engagement and that the content will get less insistent. To start this process here is info about the Derbyshire village I keep mentioning. Have added a link but am using Mac today so uunsure whether it will work. Anyway here goes.

Runescape

2005-10-25T05:12:00.000-07:00

Whether you decide to pronounce this game as
Run Escape
or
Runescape

it seems it is very popular.
When I popped over to look there were 61790 people playing at that time.
Ther e is a lot to do, mysteries to be solved and a whole range of ways ogf getting involved.
It seems as Gee and others have argued, that this kind of online gaming values all sorts of knowledge and all sorts of skills.
I am not sure though, that I agree it is totally non hierarchical. Some players are more valued than others, with more people responding to certain individuals than others and so on.
have a look round on this site and see how clever other people are n their leisure time. Very conplex stuff here.

Wet, Wet, Wet

2005-10-25T01:51:00.000-07:00

Or Why does it always rain on me?' I sang to myself as I sped up the motorway in my mini and a black, shiny spray of water. Of course it'sraining on all of us. Rain everywhere like the fog in Bleak House (a must to watch. Starts Thursday 27th October, BBC ONE.
Should be editing the journal papers- this Blog however provides matter most attractive. Why is this , I wonder and suppose it's because it is in harmony with my current state of mind where I am drawn to think associatively, rather than in the disciplined organised way necessary for reading a good academic paper. Reminds me of all the arguments surrounding Dorothy Richardson's Pilgrimage and the natue of interior monologue , or stream of consciousness as being an ultimately feminine, if not feminist, mode of thinking. certainly jotting ideas at random and waiting for links to emege suits me.
I am a little frustrated in not being able to paste any of the images I would like to, directly on screen but that's just a technical shortcoming and I will sort it eventually. show you (dog,cottage, Bleak House)
It isn't as if the papers I am editing are boring, in fact they are really interesting and you will want to read them as they are relevant to our project.
Bill Green is writing about the nature of the subject English and asks:

In looking forward to where English is going, or what it might become, and in
asking what comes after English, as we have known and lived it, what are we
taking for granted in the present, and what have we forgotten? What
subjugated knowledges might well need to be retrieved and reactivated, or
rearticulated?

Perhaps in this group we are engaged in thinking about some of theways in which new ways of playing withtext and playing with language bear down upon the subject as we know it. Anyway when Bill's paper is publised Iam sure you will find the paper of interest.
Meanwhile I leave theBLOG for a lunch break with daughter-in-law and grandchild to be ( Dec 3rd- I'll keep you posted ) and come back to find posting about exciting newgame -
now abandoning editing to check it out.
Deadlines fade into distance
E

Did you hear Chris Woodhead?

2005-10-24T01:28:00.000-07:00

Well
I can see how addictive these things are once you get a feel for your own voice. Not that any of you out there seem to be paying much attention - I mean of course you,mes semblables, mes soeurs, aca the members of the ESRC funded seminar series on Play, Creativity and Digital Cultures- what are you all up to, I wonder?. Was intending to go out to cottage today, to review papers by Bill Green and Ken Jones submitted for next English in Education . This is to be called English What For? (Watch NATE Space- I know you will find it of interest), However weather is even murkier than yesterday so I stayed at home and caught Chris Woodhead sounding off (or in Blogging mode RANTING) again about children's TV. Something called Dick and Dom in Da Bungalow which is on CBBC and which is said to be endangering our children's sanity, morals, school work, homelife- or any other worthy quality you may wish to add. Dick by the way is from Sheffield. Woodhead was talking about his grandchildren, which is encouraging as he may not then have much longer to go, but where on earth is he wheeled out from whenever anything re education or culture causes a stir? Says this programme is a bad thing as it reduces everything to lowest forms talking down to children and engaging in such unsavoury things as simulating childbirth in the playground. One would think Freud had never lived, or no 'grown up' had ever heard When Sadie Was a Lady So looks as if we need to see what the programme is about as the same stuff was said about Telly Tubbies and we now know how"educational" we now think that is! It seems that this need to divide bad children's stuff from good children's stuff and to claim a decline in civilisation as a consequence is always with us. Didn't Socrates think students in his day had ceased to be effective learners and certainly Alan Bennett notes a trend to bemoan the loss of culture in his new book Untold Stories

He describes reading the following in Torrington Diaries, Tours through England 1781-04 of Hon John Byng
Oh that a critical tourist had minutely described, before the Civil War, the state of the castles,and of religious remains, and of the mode\ of livingof the nobilityand gentry, e'erthe former were dismantled, the monuments of religion demolish'd; and the entrance of folly, by high roads, and a general society, had introduced one universal set of manners, of luxury and espense. (Note: luxury of course in this century was a sinful thing! )

and then comments:
There are echoes.... of almost anybody writing about the state of England anty time in the last forty years;one just needs to substitute 'TV' for 'a generalsociety' and it's a contemporary cliche. (Bennett, 2005 p236)

Made me think we should collect together allthe cliches we encounter.
Anyway can't put off work for much longer or will begin to panic about getting behind on deadlines. This seems much more like play.
But as Bennett also commented: Everthing becomes work in the end: even work.

Pity about the cottage though- the dog loves it there.

Phew it works

2005-10-23T10:10:00.000-07:00

I'm getting there- the links work and I haven't deleted a thing.

Another Try

2005-10-23T09:48:00.000-07:00

Sunday and a grey murk outside, discouraging me from walking the dog so i have resumed my Blogging duties and will try to make my Blogging a little more exciting by adding pictures. Trouble is the first time I did this I was being supervised by the incomparable DRJOOLZ who you will see, if this link works- is already developing special expertise with photography- using her Saturday shop, not as I do, to feed the family over the weekend, but to produce stunning pictures. I do not know why my link appears to be dead . Joolz did explain about the squiggly stuff that you will find either side of her Blog's name. I guess My Blog's abit more do it youreslf than most, but there are only so many drafts I can bear to lose so if the links don't work you'll just have to go looking..
My dog looks something like this but is called Edward not Taffy. He is truly an Internet hound as I got him off T'internet as they say up here and consult T'Internet whenever I have a problem to sort out for him- like getting his passport. I suppose this is my usual way with the Internet. I find it odd to be communicating with people I don't know like this, but I suppose its better than the endless emails I get from work. I do however turn to Webpages whenever I'm stuck in life, whether this is for for an acdemic reference (yes, I know and I'm carefu to assess the value of the sources I find) o for a recipe. Yesterday I wanted a quick recipe to use up the glut of apples from my Bramley apple tree and found this. I then had to check up on American measures- Oh those cup sizes- so confusing. However it turned out well so why not try it yourself? So you see I am miles behind my academic colleagues Joolz and Guy, who are using their blogs as an extension of their academic identities and having deep thoughts about the meaning of it all. I'm just blogging along trying to decide whether kids do take to this medium and if so if it will be of use to us in school or not. If any of you academic bloggers have deep thoughts on this i will try to take them on board. Meanwhile it being Sunday evening, I have marking to return to-beginning to think this weekly chore will end only when I do.
E
H

On my own

2005-10-21T12:17:00.000-07:00

This is much trickier than I thought. I spent at least two hours telling you about my latest findings about blogging- only to discover the whole text had disappeared. Just like the picture of Wembley stadium I had intended to link to my first posting- very strange. Julia warned me about saving my stuff but i thought once I had posted a message it would stay somewhere retrievable. Apparently not so. Even more annoying is the fact that I cannot seem to be able to stick ( or link to) pictures in the text and I did so want to show you how my dog is curled up patiently waiting for me to finish and turn out the light so he can sleep!
Have you noticed how of the moment Blogging is this month? The Guardian claimed (I would link you to this piece if only I could remember how) that a third of young people n ow have their own on-line content (7/10/05) . My own forays into the world of Blogs however makes me think that very few are written by teenagers themselves, though there are many which seek to grab their attention for some purpose or another- commerce, god-bothering, relationships. I have found very intense philosophical pieces from high school students and some that are more frivolous but heavily framed by commercial selling of make-up, fashion, music etc.
Those of you who are also interested in researching into Blogging (rather than Blogging for its own sake) may have found some more authentic voices- especially if you have captive young bloggers at home. If so perhaps you would share their URLS with me.?
In my project, working closely with a teacher on site, I am planning to survey a group of 200 14-16 year olds to estimate familiarity and usage and follow up with interviews with those who seem to know most about the medium. If there is sufficient interest we may even set up a school Blog though I am mindful of the warnings from our Australian colleagues of teachers' tendency to turn everything they are interested in into school work, thus draining it of its authenticity and real purpose- Will fill you in with chapter and verse on this when I start to write this up seriously. Meanwhile, I am seeking answers to the questions posed by Gavin Luhrs in the English and Media magazine ( April 2005): 'Blogging: is it a force for democracy, a challenge to conventional media, or simply an opportunity to rant on line? ' If you teach Media Studies you will find this piece really useful.
Nothing like a bit of a rant though- so shouldn't our site read' Let's Get Digital 'or do we think the apostrophe is now defunct- I only ask as I have no idea how to change a title- got into enough trouble trying to edit this and it's my own text. Must go back to Julia and see if I can find out more,
Dog now yawning and giving me hard looks so its time to stop
Scary Blogger

Experimental takeover

2005-10-18T09:50:00.000-07:00

Scary Blogger

Hi Guys
I am trying to mistress this new medium to be at your service pre Halloween!
Hope you have all been busy setting up witchy new research projects. Me, I'm off to a school in Brent close to work on a regular basis to BLOG with a multicultural group of kids.
WATCH THIS SPACE .

So it's Trick or Treat ( and I prefer tricks).

Beyond Buffy??

2005-10-12T09:12:00.000-07:00

There is a call for papers here for an event at Oxford Brookes.

Looks interesting and relevant to all those interested in Play and Creativity etc etc.

It is about :

Teens
TV
Audience
Identity

Playing with dolls

2005-10-11T15:54:00.000-07:00

Over here is a post about someone who has been playing with Barbies.

I think the play was set up entirely for the photo to be taken rather than the phot showing a still shot of an episode of playing.

Evidence of how adults play online and how digital affordances are playing a new role in such play.
People are finding new ways of connecting and such as through humour which is dependent on shared cultural knowledge.

The manipulation of a Barbie, a doll with powerful semiotic value; placing that with the demure, refined tea-place setting - the roses, the swirls, the biscuits - the signs from a refined, or at least traditional and controlled, life style, is a funny thing to do. The joke works through juxtaposition; intertextuality; assumed knowledge of the signs.
I love it - this is sophisticated play but does not seem it at first.

Oops, wrong seminar

2005-10-10T11:57:00.000-07:00

Like ours, but not like ours. This ESRC seminar series is organized or co-ordinated by the Manchester University CRIC group. As observed here, they are part of Digiplay (with the impressive front door webpage) Here's the Digiplay blog. I wonder what we might have in common (apart,of course, from those two words digital and play). It seems to me that they may be more concerned with game design, gaming and online gaming than we are, but it might be worth making some kind of contact with them. Anyway, it took me a little time to realize that this poster was not advertising a meeting I'd forgotten!

Parental Dilemmas

2005-10-07T05:21:00.000-07:00

My thirteen-year-old son has created a site you could find

here

As you will see it contains a tutorial. A few years ago I spent quite a bit of time webauthoring but either I have forgotten so much, or things have changed, or I am being dumb, but I am quite distant from appreciating quite what the tutorial is. He is very proud of it as it has attained some popularity.

It also has - today at least - an advertisement for pornography on it. I am confident this is connected with the site hosters - whom he doesn't pay - but I cannot pretend, I am quite shocked to see it there.

I will talk about these things with him.

When I think back to myself at 13 I certainly had areas of my life my parents didn't know about or felt distant from. But how astonishingly different are the landscapes of those differences today! I hope that's not too banal an observation and in itself doesn't put me on the side of Granny Grunt.

The identity link

2005-10-02T06:05:00.000-07:00

In ‘A Child’s Work’ (2004), Vivian Paley explores the relationship between play and identity construction, and when I think about message play and everyday uses of social software, the link seems particularly interesting. Some of the e-communication data that I’ve looked at seems to have so much to say about identity performance. Paley suggests that:

“On the intimate landscape of make-believe we invented community and discovered one another’s true identities.” (p.38)

Isn’t it more of a continuing process than is suggested here? I get a sense that we are continually inventing community in (more or less) playful interaction, and, what’s more, rather than discovering ‘true’ identities, we perform new identities. What makes some digital environments seem so exciting is that invitation to play…to become somebody else for a while, or even to interact/communicate in new ways.

Here to keep you company Julia

2005-09-28T11:03:00.000-07:00

Thank you Julia for so many interesting posts already. I can't promise to be nearly as inspiring or informative - but I have been enjoying reading posts and comments so far. The special edition of e-learning sounds fabulous. I was particularly taken by this part of Angela Thomas' description though:

As our lives become increasingly more technologically inclusive, we face new opportunities to e-xplore,e-xamine, e-xtend, e-xperiment, and e-volve. Technology is changing the ways we think about the world and the ways we position ourselves in the world.

Now obviously I agree with this - and my observations of friends' teenage children certainly bear this out. However, I have just started a new year with PGCE students who are training to be primary school teachers. They range in age from 21-45 and have nearly all had recent experience with children in a range of contexts. So, when I shared some of the fascinating facts about my life with them (including being a blogger) I was amazed to be met with a room-full of blank stares. None of the group were bloggers - or had even seen a blog. In fact, I experienced some resistance, from them, to the idea that children's engagement with digital literacies may be positive at all. This made me begin to think that maybe the widely reported proliferation of blogging as a past-time is restricted to certain groups of the population that does not necessarily include those in initial teacher education. In fact, the only other bloggers that I know personally work in the area of higher education.

To attempt to ameliorate this situation, and evolve attitudes towards digital literacies, I have set up a group blog for my PGCE group and demonstrated how to join and post. So far 7 students have become members - but none have yet posted or commented (early days, I accept). I am intrigued to find out what it will take to encourage my students to participate in this form of digital play. I am also keen to see how our online relationships and social identities develop through the blog - if indeed they do.

Does anyone else have a perspective on this? I would love to hear from you if you do.

Clare

P.S. I have just edited this post because I found this at the BBC. Apparently many hairdressers and taxidrivers don't know about blogging either! Serendipity or what!

Digital Interfaces

2005-09-27T13:13:00.000-07:00

In addition to the post below about MINDPLAY, which is a call for conference papers , I also have this:

Special Edition of E-Learning Journal

Guest Editor:
Angela Thomas
University of Sydney
a.thomas@edfac.usyd.edu.au

Theme of the Issue: Digital Inter-Faces

Description:

The focus of this special edition of E-Learning is ‘Digital Inter-Faces’.
The articles in the edition will examine the issue of identity in and
around digital contexts. As our lives become increasingly more
technologically inclusive, we face new opportunities to e-xplore,
e-xamine, e-xtend, e-xperiment, and e-volve. Technology is changing the
ways we think about the world and the ways we position ourselves in the
world. Our involvement in and around digital contexts has opened up a
place for living within a multiplicity of identities and through this, we
can act out our fantasies, become the Other of our desire, and just as
importantly, in the words of Eowyn, a 15 year old girl, “It's not becoming
your own hero that's the point-- it's allowing what's inside of you to show
through”.

And yet online our selves can be conveniently edited, we can be kinder and
funnier and more intelligent. In the same series of posts about her
online life, Eowyn told me, “The person I show to others online is
outgoing, different, and not afraid to be herself”, and Shadow, a 14 year
old boy, revealed, “I am sort of a persona, me but minus the things I
don’t like about myself”. Other children revealed to me that rather than
edited selves, they become fused selves with their online role-playing
characters. The faces shown to others online may be masks of other
personae or characters, yet underneath are intimately fused with the self.

What are the consequences and implications of these new faces? The faces
of our cyborg self, our edited self, our hybrid self, our fused and
blended self into another character, and the Other of our desire. What
can we actually learn in this masquerading of fragmentedness that has
become a hallmark of post-modern identity? In this issue of E-Learning,
our contributors discuss aspects of these issues, drawing from a range of
theoretical, sociological and political perspectives. Thoughts about
gender, race, youth, politics, power, trust, and authenticity are
critically discussed with respect to the many faces and inter-faces of the
digital world.

Submission Deadline: January 18th, 2006
Submit to: Angela Thomas, a.thomas@edfac.usyd.edu.au

Information about the journal and papers: http://www.wwwords.co.uk/elea/?

Looks interesting.

Mindplay

2005-09-27T06:49:00.000-07:00

OK . Check this out. A call for papers for a conference in London in January and it is RIGHT UP YOUR STREET.

Themes are:
Conference Topics/ Themes
Plug-and-Play
emerging mobile technologies, download culture, wireless, portable, mobile and ubiquitous media
Record-Stop-Play
digital video production, interactive movies, new cinema, the digital moving picture experience
The Smart Player
game-based learning, web games in marketing, adult gaming, game audiences, digitallly enhanced play
Playtime
responsive environments, wired spaces, digital-human relationships, ubiquitous media
Let Us Play
community projects, peer networks, digital media audiences, online communities

Sounds too good to be true? Not so.
Although organised by a GRIM group, if you look on the site you will see that the themes are made for the ESRC seminar series members of Creativity and Digital Play.

Gender Play

2005-09-25T04:36:00.000-07:00

Anya has an interesting post linking to an article about how game designers are moving with new vigour to capture the female market as the 'last frontier'. Should we be pleased?

*

I must say I (and I am female) have never been very good at playing on games consoles and I am sure that part of this is because I don't really WANT to learn. I have not been tempted by the narratives, or indeed the visuals.
That is, apart from The Sims, a simulation of a local community, with little people, houses, vities (you have seen it adveryised on TV.) And as Anya explains in her post, this female interest is fairly typical.
However the article she cites talks about how females play nicely with The Sims, whilst the males apparently are more transressive. And this is where I start to feel a bit uncomfortable (like Anya indeed.)

First of all, for me it evokes memories of the findings of feminist researchers in the eighties who interviewed teachers and found that grls' good behavior was boring and boys' bad behaviour was creative in its transgressions . (The argument being, of course, more complex than this.)

*
And I find this all very dismissive of the fun girls have - both within and beyond the 'rules'. My own research, as has that of others, has shown girls as perfectly capable of pushing back boundaries in play. This assumption that girls will always play in the rules seems to suggest that the games designers will be producing sickly stuff targetted at females and I am scared with what we will be fobbed off with.
And Anya has a paper with Walkerdine here on Girls and Computer Games.

*(Photos taken in Nice December 2004)

What's bad is good

2005-09-24T10:12:00.000-07:00

Steven Johnson's book is an easy and enjoyable read .... if you agree with him.

He presents arguments aimed at people who see popular culture as a 'dumbing down', as dangerous, as mind-rotting etc. He looks at a range of forms of popular culture, such as video games, hand-held games, popular film, popular tv series - including reality shows.

The section I quite enjoyed thinking about was where he asks the reader to condiser what arguments would be made against fiction books if they had followed rather than preceded the invention of console games. Quite an interesting section follows where he points out that people might say for example:

Book reading is a solitary activity
Book reading does not allow the reader to make choices
The reader is therefore more passive
Book reading understimulates the senses
Book reading does not require the application of logic to solve puzzles in order to make progress
There is only one possible ending, however many times you read a particular book
And so on.

Whilst Johnson also makes it clear he does not wish to suggest that books are obsolete or that book reading is a passive or unworthwhile activity, he quite cleverly presents an argument that shows that new ideas are often the ones which are seen as less worthy because they are new.

I recommend this book as an easy and quite provocative read.

What does anyone else think? And I wonder if you agree with Mackey that fiction reading has a lot in common with play. If so, you may disagree with Johnson.

Let's Get Digital!!

2005-09-23T10:10:00.000-07:00

OK first post, worst post.

This is the blog of the Play, Creativity and Digital Cultures Seminar Group. Funded by the ESRC, this seminar series follows hot on the racing heels of the Children's Literacy and Popular Culture series, hosted at The University of Sheffield.

This was a fantastically successful group which produced not just a series of papers for the site, but fostered a number of other excellent publications, but which probably most importantly helped fire ideas and created links amongst researchers on a global scale. One of these publications is an edited collection by Marsh and Millard due out from Routledge/Falmer later in the year. It is called Popular Literacies, Childhood and Schooling.

The first seminar of this new series had us all speculating around issues concerning

Definitions of play
What rules operated in play
Whether digital affordances could give rise to play
Third space in play theories
Flickr as a form of adult play

Margaret Mackey gave a stimulating presentation on looking at Play through theories of fiction reading. Here is the slide show.

Blogged responses to the conference went like this:

OK advert over. Let's have play fun and heated debate on the next posts.

And there's a digital lollipop for the best post of the month!