Moving to Tumblr

I'm switching to Tumblr. I like that I can post little bits. Maybe I won't feel so guilty about not updating all the time! Or maybe it's just a mental thing. Anyway, check me out at http://playinvestigator.tumblr.com

My recent manga binge...

I've been on a manga kick. Don't know why. It just happened.

It started off simply enough. I read a few issues of Fruits Basket, Vol. 1. Then I read Hana-Kimi, Volume 1: For You In Full Blossom. (I only made it through one of those. Just didn't like it that much.)

Then I devoured all four books for Miki Falls, starting with Miki Falls: Spring.

Now I just finished reading The Manga Guide to Statistics by Shin Takahashi.

It's a basic text (data types, standard score and standard deviation, probability, correlations, and chi-squares). It actually explains things in a relatively straight-forward manner and includes a cheesy romance story line. There's not a lot of exercises, so if I were learning the concepts for the first time, it would need supplemental information. But as a basic primer, I'm impressed. It was actually kind of fun to have a romance bud in between equations and hypothesis testing! I wonder how it would translate to hierarchical modeling... hmmm...

So that's a little of where I've been hiding. We all know I stink at blogging now. More sooner or later!

Good bye, Foster's

My favorite kids' tv show, Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends, has aired it's last episode. It's just a funny, creative show. Not only is it nice to think about where imaginary friends go, but the characters they developed are hysterical. The sky really was the limit.

Two of my favorites... "It's Hot in Topeka" and this nice person who put together a mix of Cheese moments

As far as games, I particularly recommend the Big Fat Awesome House Party. They just kept building and building and building an interactive version of the Foster's world until it became quite a fun place to spend ridiculous amounts of time!

Meanwhile, I'll Until Craig McCraken has another creation for us, I'll be watching Phineas and Ferb.

A favorite resource for child development milestones

One of my favorite quick and dirty references for what's appropriate at what age is the PBS Parents Child Development Tracker at http://www.pbs.org/parents/childdevelopmenttracker/. Of course, I might be slightly partial since I worked at pbskids.org, but still, I've continued to use the tracker, despite leaving PBS three years ago. That must count for something.

One of the reasons I like it so much is because it's so comprehensive. For example, for three-year olds, you can look at guidelines for language, literacy, math, physical health, and social and emotional growth. (And note that I still left out a few categories.) It's just not your puny table that you find in a lot of basic child dev books.

Bookmark it. Use it well. But remember, they're guidelines... not absolutes!

Kids Singing in Rock Band

I love poking around YouTube for videos of kids using games. Since I briefly talked about kids and singing games in my GDC presentation, I thought I'd share some of the more amusing videos I've found.

Remember that the research says that kids around 3-4 years of age will generally follow the melodic contour, but they won't always hit the right notes and often won't pronounce words intelligibly.

Jonny T singing Blitzkreig Bop - Rock Band - Easy - 85%
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m63_jYrRsXY

He's actually quite good (better than me...) but it also makes me laugh when he swings his arms out and takes the microphone away from his mouth.

3 year old Rock Star
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AAaWJIfeoXA

She's good too, although I really can't understand any of the words. (I think that might be a product of the song more so than about the child's skills!)

Rock band 2 Three year old Danny sings More than a feeling by Boston
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g-w7C7Ugt38

I looooove when he sings "I close my eyes..." Be sure to check out around 3:30 in the video, too. Totally rock star!

GDC Slides

So my 2009 Game Developers Talk is done. Here's the link to the slides for Little Hands, Foul Moods, and Runny Noses 2.0: The research you should know when making games for kids. I recommend using save as rather than trying to open it directly. The file is big!

Eventually I'll post some of the lost slides. I had so much jammed into that talk that I had to cut really good stuff! Ah well.

More soon on the conference...

The Cast-Off Slides

When I'm at GDC, I feel this overwhelming urge to defend kids games. Probably because I'm surrounded by World of Warcraft and Ninja Gaiden players and not that many kids' games people. So originally, I had a slide in my presentation (shameless plug -- Wednesday at 2:30!) that had some recent kids and games stats. But my presentation is incredibly dense (slides to come soon...). And as such, I've had to make some tough cuts. One thing to go was the stats. I'm going to operate on the assumption that everyone at the session is there because they know kids games are an important share of the market. So for lack of a better place to share the info, here's the data from the slides.
- 84% of kids ages 2-14 play games on digital devices (NPD, 2008)
- 82% of kids ages 2-5 play games on digital devices (NPD, 2009)
- 20% of children ages 4-14 own a cell phone and 13% of ages 4-5 report using cell phones (NPD, 2008)
- 2-14 y.o. spend an average of 44 minutes per session on video gaming consoles (NPD, 2007)

More discarded slides and info to come!

Game Developers Conference is soon!

I'm discovering that I'm really bad at blogging. Don't know why I thought I might be able to do this regularly when I've never even been able to keep a personal journal. Oh well, that's just who I am!

But happily, my Game Developers Conference session has finally been assigned a time.

Little Hands, Foul Moods, and Runny Noses 2.0: The research you should know when developing games for kids will be on Wednesday, March 25, 2009, at 2:30 p.m.

There's a summary on the site, too. But basically, I'm attempting to focus on the research that is relevant to developing games for touch-screens (finger or stylus) and motion-based games. So it's a lot of discussion of gross and fine motor skills. Should be interesting!

Graduate Student Conference at TC

Hooray! Student conference at Teachers College! Now I'm doing my part to spread the word.

http://events.tc.columbia.edu/tcetc2009/

Call for Papers

The Communication, Computing, and Technology in Education Program at Teachers College invites submissions for its 2009 Educational Technology Conference, "TCETC 2009: Technology, Media, and Designs for Learning."

This conference will serve as a multi-disciplinary forum for graduate students to discuss and exchange information on the research, development and applications of emerging technologies in K-12 classrooms, distance learning settings, higher education, and corporate learning environments.

TCETC 2009 will take place at Teachers College, Columbia University, in New York City on May 10-11, 2009. Papers exploring topics such as the following are encouraged. The topic list is illustrative rather than comprehensive; we encourage papers presenting completed research and works-in-progress on other related topics.

Instructional Design of Online Environments
Social Software, Web 2.0 Tools
Human-Computer Interaction, Computer-Mediated Communication, Mobile Media
Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning
Games for Learning, Possibilities of Virtual Worlds
New Literacies, Identify Formation, the Future of Libraries and Museums
Cross-Cultural Communication
Media in the Developing World
Teaching with Technology, including teaching Science, Math, Computer
Science, & Computer Science Education

Submission Guidelines

Papers must be completely authored by current graduate students. Abstracts (in English) of no more than 500-1000 words must be uploaded to the conference website <http://events.tc.columbia.edu/tcetc2009/> . The deadline for submission is 11:59 EST on Monday, March 16, 2009. First authors will be notified by April 3, 2009. Abstracts should summarize the proposed presentation in a way that permits evaluation of the paper's quality and significance. The committee will consider:

1) the paper's appeal to research communities interested in instructional media and emerging communication tools;

2) the paper's suitability for oral presentation; and

3) the quality of the content and significance of results.

The conference website will prompt you to include the paper title, presenter's name(s), institutional affiliation(s) and email address(es) of the author(s). In addition, please include a
biographical statement for each author of no more than 100 words. If your paper is accepted, this statement may be posted to the conference website and included in the program.

Confidentiality of submissions will be maintained during the entire review process; all rejected submissions will be kept confidential. Accepted abstracts will be posted to the conference website. Presenters will have the opportunity to revise their abstracts and post them no later than April 20, 2009. Participation in this conference does not preclude submission of that work to other academic conferences.

Exceptional conference presenters may be asked to submit full papers to appear in a publication of conference proceedings.

Feel free to contact the conference Chairs, Marion Goldstein and Antonios Saravanos, with questions or for more information. Please also monitor the conference website at
http://events.tc.columbia.edu/tcetc2009/ for information regarding registration, accommodations, travel, and conference updates. Presenters and attendees must pay a registration fee of $25.

My first bag creation

So most people know that my mom makes amazing purses. When I told my mom that I needed a new hobby and was thinking about sewing (need something to help get me through this dissertation work since there's no disc golf nearby and playing bassoon all alone isn't much fun), Mom gave me a great sewing machine for Christmas. Now I have to do something with it!

So I made a yoga bag, which only further confirms that I'm my mother's daughter. It took 3/4ths of a professional football game and I more or less followed the directions from this site. I even added pretty stitching around the drawstring. Hooray!

Now I have one more reason to go to yoga! Hopefully the sanity from yoga will help me get my work done, right?