Lori – you are not alone. I am constantly having to tell my kids to put their calculators away in my history classes. I think there are several draws. First, it is something they can have at school – I know at my school game boys, etc. can be confiscated. Plus, they might think that [...]

Suzanne’s email last week was about a tv show with a teenage boy driven to murder by a video game. Bernie was talking in class last week about what games interest his son. All this got me thinking about kids and their motivations for playing games, computer, video or otherwise. Immediately, I thought of my [...]

With This Ring: the International Diamond Trade Part 1: the Debeers Corporation, and With This Ring: the International Diamond Trade Part 2: Conflict – I heard these on NPR the other day, and thought they would make a really cool monopoly/cartel simulation. The series explains who the De Beers “corporation” is and how they managed [...]

When surfing for information on violence and game violence, I came across this “up-to-the-minute” United States statistic webpage regarding young people and violence Reality Clock. These statistics are tragic, yet important not just for our violence webquest, but understanding society today.

Progress Planner- Is a software program that can be used by everyone, but I thought it may be useful as a resource for the Project Management eGame team. Progress Planner helps define milestones in addition to implementing and managing projects to achieve personal and professional goals in work as well as other areas.

Gamedex– The Web’s Biggest Search Engine and Community of Gamers! This is a really broad site with references to other sites, and many different reviews of games, a place to talk, where to find games, and “cheatland.”

Violence in games people, have you seen Deer Hunter Avenger? The deer are armed with M-16s, Bazookas, and slingshots with deer pellets. They hunt hunters, and mount their heads. It is hysterical, but violent. The deer even have bait for the hunters – a six pack, pornography, and hunter calls – don’t ask. My dad [...]

Apparently, “the Macmillan Computer Publishing has developed the Game Programming Starters Kit 3.0 for the PC that promises to teach you how to make your own games. The kit includes Microsoft’s Visual C++ 6.0 which many professional programmers use themselves, and a 3D gaming engine called the Genesis 3D SDK engine which supports 3Dfx Glide [...]

Found a web site for people hoping to make it as game designers This site has resources, links, interviews, and tutorials. Seems like it is hosted by a software company, maybe a one-person company.

Unrelated to web searches, but just wanted to talk about a personal experience I had this weekend. I went on a backpacking trip through the Grand Canyon with a group of 12 perfect strangers. We played a variety of games each night in the absence of a Television or a Bar to entertain us. The [...]

Bob, The I spy series is really cool. There is also another series that is similar called Look-A-Likes. My kids love both. They are visually rich, and enigmatic at the same time. Very good for getting kids to look at details carefully.

For the gender group and others interested, this site Women and Computer Science is a jackpot of articles and links about women and technology. The jpeg at the top of the site is worth the view alone. Scroll down for some interesting articles on educational games and gender issues.

For the gender group here is a good site with six or seven design principles for educational computer games for girls. It relates information from the Tech-Savy article but offers some sound suggestions for game and curriculum design.

This is an interesting article on designing educational games for children based on research in motivation and learning. Some interesting tips for the Gender group to reference.

Mike told me about a cool site womengamers. This site is devoted to games and has lots of commentary about games by women.

I just found a site called WomenGamers.com that will be of great use to Gender group. Articles, reviews and interviews abound on the site.

Here’s an interesting article about computer games and child brain development. This author reports that computer games are damaging to a child’s brain development and causes a stunt in development for the area of the brain that controls emotional outbursts and violence. The violence group might be interested in that bit of info. The author [...]

For you violence people, the episode of Law & Order: SVU that Suzanne mentioned before Thanksgiving will be on again on the USA basic cable network on Sunday, Dec. 2, at 11 pm PT/ET. It’s called “Care.” I know this is only a day before our presentations are due, but if you were looking for [...]

As a follow-up to what Dan wrote about military simulations, they’ve been a staple in the flight training community for years, but are now being used for new applications. In fact, I’d bet that a lot of today’s cheap, powerful graphics cards for home computers are due in large part from the R&D investments made [...]

There is a silly game I used to really like but I don’t remember the name of it. It was extremely rudimentray and consisted of a little tractor that pushed boulders into diagrams, taking care never to get backed into a corner. It’s hard to explain the game, but it was sort of a spatial [...]

I believe this has been mentioned before… but I just ran across an article at CNN.com (War games: Military training goes high tech)about a military simulator. The article goes on to say that it is part of the military’s new training that takes advantage of the technology and takes into account the fact that many [...]

This post doesn’t have a link, but an interesting observation. This Thanksgiving break I had dinner with family and friends and was fascinated to watch how one of the social hubs of the day was around the computer playing games. Throughout the day, everyone played some sort of game. The most amazing, however, was watching [...]

This site is a reference site to link you to other game sites. It touches on all the various game platforms such as gameboy, playstation, superNintendo, PC, Mac and more. Click here

For those working on the Patterns Project — Gamasutra.com has a Patterns page on its site. It deals with patterns involved with programming issues, but it does provide a look at another use of patterns in the area of games in general. You need to register with Gamasutra to enter, but it’s not difficult (they [...]

Another site that offers games at a good discount price is ebgames.com. Have any of you gone out and bought a game since September? I willingly admit I have.

Today’s Parade magazine had reviews of their top picks for learning software. Their web site offers links to all of the products they reviewed. I Spy Treasure Hunt looks like something my six-year-old son might enjoy. Anyone familiar?

I know some of us are looking to buy computer games for friends and family. Here is a site that focuses on games girls like by age groupings. Just for girls

While searching for inspiration on game patterns I found this article on game design. The author, Andrew Glassner, has some interesting ideas about what’s bad about the design of today’s digital games.

In looking over some of the game designer job descriptions and interviews that are online, it seems to me that a game designer has to do/know a little bit of everything. They write books/novels/comics, design, consult, collaborate with others (on a limited basis), are familiar with a variety of technologies (3D, C, C+), and play [...]

Well, with all this web seaching–this may be a good time for a cookie reminder. Quotes from Viktor Mayer-Schonberger: “Cookies are stored in the user’s computer without their consent or knowledge (First stage).” “Cookies are (during the second stage) clandestinely and automatically transferred from the user’s machine to a Web server.” “Then, whenever a user [...]

Want to find out when your ancestors came to the United States? The Family Search site might be able to assist you in your quest. A friend of mine was even able to get a copy of a ship record indicating the year her great-grandfather had sailed to the United States from Germany (1848).

Happy Turkey Day! I just saw an ad on tv for Friday’s (tomorrow) episode of “Law and Order.” During the 10 second preview, they said the story would be about a teenage boy “driven to murder by a video game?” They showed the video game and I think it was called something that had the [...]

I just received a card game at school called Flags of the World. On one side of the card is the flag of the country with an arrow indicating the direction of the flag. On the other is side is the continent of the country, a small map showing the country’s location on the continent, [...]

While working on the Game Violence WebQuest, I decided that I would ask my 200 sophomores and juniors how many of them played or have played regularly games like Quake and Doom. I expected a couple, in fact, I expected a good handful, but the response was pretty amazing. Among my three sophomore classes, about [...]

IGDA update: SDSU has offered to host the IGDA people. We can give them a pretty large room- over 250 person lecture hall. The IGDA people tell me they’ll get back to us in a week or two about whether they’re interested in meeting here.

Here is an interesting twist on Tycoon it is Zoo Tycoon. It offers similiar issues as the other tycoons but the unpredictability of animals. It interested me based on it’s Genre. The PC game site had the following review: Zoo Tycoon’s premise is straightforward enough: A zoo-themed strategy game in which you balance the delicate [...]

In doing some web research for the gender webquest, I came across American girl products by Mattel. They represent every stage in a girl’s life and are educational and entertaining. The website lets girls meet a “real” American girl and play a game in which they get to know particular girl characters. Research has shown [...]

Charles Cameron (Hipbone), the fellow who provided much of the information we read about the Glass Bead Game, is a member of Brainstorms (affectionately called “BS” by its participants), a virtual community founded by Howard Rheingold. I am also privileged to be counted among this august assemblage, an honor I earned just by writing Howard [...]

Today at a faculty meeting after work, the upper grades (3-6) teachers at my school, along with the director, the science/art teacher, and I talked about how we encourage and develop critical thinking skills in our students. I got a chance to talk about Where in Time is Carmen Sandiego, after showing an Internet based [...]

Just found this quote: No human being is innocent, but there is a class of innocent human actions called games. -W.H. Auden, The Dyer’s Hand, 1962 Interesting, especially considering the subject of some of our WebQuests (violence, gender issues, etc.).

The International Game Developers Association, or IGDA, has some great articles, on of which is called “So You Want To Be A Games Designer?. You might like reading the article if you want to take all that we have learned and turn it into a career. I’ve been finding lots of interesting info on this [...]

Those of you interested in taking this class to the next level (you know like getting a job and stuff), may want to look Makegames.com. It includes interviews with game makers and an online book about the process of making games including the design and programming procedures. It claims to be a real look into [...]

Did you know that studies show playing violent video games may cause children to become more likely to engage in real-life violence? For more fast facts and statistics on the affects of violence in media and video games check out: VIDEO GAMES AND CYBERVIOLENCE

I found a very useful site on game design, at the Game Dev site. It contains many articles about different facets of game design. A good source of info for the Egame and WebQuest.

For a great study on overall affects of violence and video games, check out: Video Games and Violence This is comprehensive study of how factors such as gender, social status, economics and education may affect a child’s likelihood of reacting violently after engaging in violent video games.

For those of you working on your WebQuest, here is a site with kid and parent reviews of videos, games, and some websites Kids First. I have reviewed for them, and it was a pretty interesting experience.

Out of the mouths of babes… Sage advice from a 16 year old game-playing friend of mine: “The trick is to make them want to play the game without knowing they are learning something.”

People with Disabilities In looking over some of our game analyses it occured to me that some of these games may be valuable for people with disabilities. Disabilities cover a wide spectrum, not just blind or deaf people but also people who are colorblind or have some injury where they could not use a mouse, [...]

I don’t remember if I posted this article before regarding game violence, but it’s pretty interesting and poses the question “What is a game?,” something we should now be experts at! The article also brings up how game violence is the easiest way to create the struggle/challenge element of the game, and that’s why it’s [...]

Hey everybody. For a different aspect on the gaming world, check out Nokia Games . Most people have games in their cell phones these days, but you never really give it much thought. Considering the new technologies coming out, there may be a gaming world in every aspect of our lives. I mean, I get [...]