How do I know what I think 'till I see what I say?

When I was living at my Grandma Blakesley's house I stumbled upon a few "one subject" spiral notebooks. I'm not sure what Grandma used them for, if anything, but I've habitually used them since for a journal/idea book that I take with me most places. I think of her a lot when I use them.

Benefits: they're light, compact, cheap, and come in several delightful colors. Disadvantages: I suppose they could rip easily, but I haven't had issues with that so far.

A graduate school professor once advised that writing is key to developing, understanding, and retaining thoughts. I've found that if I'm not writing daily, many things I learn are forgotten. And it's cool when writing produces new new ideas.

I guess this is a little plug for writing, but mostly a thanks for those notebooks at Grandmas.

new trailer: pirates of the caribbean 3

umm, yeah, I want to see this one. Looks better than the second. Hope it's written as good as the first! Notice shots in the trailer of the Utah salt flats

http://www.moviecitynews.com/views/2007/070318_POC3.html

Wife-o-Meter

Shigeru Miyamoto, the video game design living legend who made Donkey Kong, Mario Bros. and Zelda, gave a keynote last week at the Games Developer Conference. He used the symbol of a "wife-o-meter" to describe how successful his games are at winning approval from his wife. DK and Mario Bros. were low. But the Nintendo Wii console ranks very high on the wife-o-meter, he says, for social and family participation reasons.

I never really knew this before, and maybe it's because of Miyamoto, but Nintendo operates on a mission to make games that (cliche as it sounds) the whole family will enjoy. In a way this means their games have to be really good to keep different age groups interested.

We should all get a Wii to make our women happy!

Musing Ian's Day

Happy Birthday Ian! In my 28 years, I've had the joy of attending many of Ian's birthday parties, and being influenced by his adventurous character and true sensibilities. This break dancer nicknamed Kool Rock Ski conversed many a night with me about literature, honeys, religion, and cinema while we roomed together at BYU.

In trying to remember Ian's birthday parties when we were tikes, I vaguely remember being really happy if he got a new nintendo game like Kid Icarus, or Denver Broncos stuff. I'm glad we've been friends since our youth, and not just because I got to play different video games, and play with his dad's star trek figures (just a little Uncle Scott...we'd just move the arms).

Hope you have a great day with your women, Kool Rock. Happy birthday to your blog, too:)

blakesley academy award winners

For the heck of it, emily and I held our own academy awards. We asked some family and friends to nominate and vote for their favorite movies (actors, acresses, etc.), to see what would happen in contrast to the Oscars. So we had 7 nominators and 12 voters in all! Thanks to those who participated:) See you next year.

And, a while ago Salt Lake City film critic Sean P. Means said that if the Oscars were left to the masses, not the elite, Pirates of the Caribbean would win for best picture because it made the most money. In this instance of a small sample of mass, he's wrong - Pirates won for technical awards, but wasn't even nominated for best picture. Goes to prove that while people shell out money for spectacular entertainment, people generally know when they see quality movies.

And the winners are:


Best Picture: Tie between The Prestige and Stranger than Fiction
Oscar picked: The Departed

Best Comedy: Nacho Libre

Best Animated Feature: Tie between Over the Hedge and Cars
Oscar picked: Happy Feet

Best Foreign Film: Nacho Libre :)
Oscar picked: Leben der Anderen, Das

Best Actor: Kevin Spacey, Superman Returns
Oscar picked: Forest Whitaker, The Last King of Scotland (obviously a late nod to his work in "Bloodsport."

Best Supporting Actor: Philip Seymour Hoffman, MI:3
Oscar picked: Alan Arkin, Little Miss Sunshine

Best Actress: Meryl Streep, The Devil Wears Prada
Oscar picked: Helen Mirren, The Queen

Best Supporting Actress: Natalie Portman, V for Vendetta
Oscar picked: Jennifer Hudson

Best Director: J.J. Abrams, MI:3
Oscar picked: Martin Scorsese, The Departed (and Raging Bull...and Goodfellas...)

Best Art Direction: Tie between Superman Returns and Flyboys
Oscar picked: Pan's Labrynth

Best Original Screenplay: Tie between Rocky Balboa and The Fountain
Oscar picked: Little Miss Sunshine

Best Adapted Screenplay: The Prestige
Oscar picked: The Departed

Best Short, Live Action: Der Ostwind
Oscar picked: West Bank Story

Best Cinematography: The Prestige
Oscar picked: Pan's Labrynth

Best Sound: Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest
Oscar picked: Dreamgirls

Best Costume Design: The Devil Wears Prada
Oscar picked: Marie Antoinette

Best Makeup: Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest
Oscar picked: Pan's Labrynth

Best Visual Effects: Night at the Museum
Oscar picked: Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest

Best Original Musical Score: The Fountain
Oscar picked: Babel

Best Song: "I am I am", Nacho Libre
Oscar Picked: "I Need To Wake Up", An Inconvenient Truth

a night at borders: david schaffer, jim gee, computer games and children learning.

Tonight I skipped out of class early to go see Jim Gee interview David Williamson Schaffer about his new book, "How Computer Games Help Children Learn" at Borders. It was an "Inside the Actor's Studio" kind of interview, and there was an interesting mix of people - about half academics and half parents concerned about their kids' computer game habits.

What the book is about is how Schaffer and others in the Learning Sciences dept. of UW have created a series of simulation type games currently being tested and researched as they are used by students in schools. The games imply Schaffer's vision (shared by many) of what schools need to be: tailored for the digital age rather than the industrial age (for which our schools were designed). Schaffer stated that 50 years of cognitive science research indicated that our schools are not working. By "working" he seems to mean that our industrial age schools are not adequately preparing students to compete, express themselves, and contribute in a digital age - where global economy and communication is a reality.

I like that his educational games (he calls them epistemic games) are Vygotskian and Dewey-an in nature: they place students in professional, social roles, like journalist, urban planner, business owner. Why are these computer games educational? They give students power (which, Schaffer added, equals fun), they have goals embedded in authentic contexts - meaning facts are learned out of necessity to accomplish said goal.

So what hit me tonight was that a major value in playing video and computer games is that we learn how to look at life from different perspectives because of this technology. Perspectives that for students would otherwise be difficult if not impossible to experience. Why is that good? If we're talking about Schaffer's epistemic games, games are good because after "being" an urban planner working with a community to improve Salt Lake City, for example, the student will often perform better in routine aspects of life - conversing with adults better, problem solving better, expressing opinions on current events better. All because he was able to experience a role in a simulated world.

Anyway, I'm starting the book, and thinking about the question: Of all the simulated perspectives we can experience, which ones matter?

cool video about web 2.0