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Right, so I’m taking a brief moment during a baby nap to post what I’ve been up to. Which is reading.

Since my last post I’ve banged through two excellent collections published by the MacArthur Foundation for Digital Media and Learning, specifically The Ecology of Games: Connecting Youth, Games, and Learning and Digital Youth, Innovation, and the Unexpected. Those links take you to the publications’ home pages, but you can access the content for FREE by clicking on “Open Access Edition” under the menu heading for Related Links. Lots of great stuff in both of them.

I’m hopefully finishing Henry Jenkins’ Convergence Culture: Where the Old Media and New Media Collide later today. I’m desperately trying to wrap up this area for my preliminary exams so I can move on to the rest of criticism in the other two areas. It’s a bit like the Dutch boy trying to plug the holes in the dam while trying to drink from a fire hose, to mix metaphors. Most importantly, I think I can spin the issue of digital classrooms and creative writing into a number of research projects, conference papers, and articles in the coming years. There’s a lot to sink my teeth into and the issue is sparsely covered. After a dalliance with hypertext during the late 90′s and early 2000′s, digital media and creative writing seem to have gone on separate paths. I’m coming up with a crazy-large idea that would involve using gaming to shed light on common creative writing principles, using fan fiction as a way to motivate students to write in more familiar genres, and using wikis to compose and publish collaborative multimedia works of fiction for public consumption on the Internet. Wish me luck.

Ah, football. Hardly have time to watch review shows much less the matches themselves but things are really tight all over Europe. Real Madrid is on top of Barcelona on goal differential, yet no one can quite figure out how that happened since Real have been stop-and-start all season, while Barcelona have been the model of efficiency and consistency. In short, too many draws have done in Barca, who are clearly tiring, while it appears as though Madrid might be finding a groove. A very interesting last third of the season indeed.

The same goes for England. What stands out to me this season is that none of the big four teams are all that good, and neither are the teams a tier below them (e.g. Tottenham, Villa, Citeh, Everton). Man Ure and Chelski look positively unstable and at this stage you’d have to think Ars*nal have as good of a shot as anybody. Readers of this space know I despise Ars*nal, and I get quite sick of their fans and their “In Whinger We Trust” sycophantic fawning. Despite my extreme dislike, I have to hand it to them for still being in the thick of things, yet a criticism is not far behind. Had the Whinger improved his squad even just a little buy purchasing a decent keeper and a holding midfielder, it’s quite likely that his squad could be comfortably challenging on multiple fronts at this stage, injuries and all. As it stands, they’re still a longish shot for the title and you can’t see them making it to the Champions League final, much less winning it. If I was an Ars*nal fan (and thank God I’m not) I would rue missing what’s turning out to be a huge opportunity rather than singing praises about my stubborn manager who failed to buy when a) he had the money, and b) had the need.

I’m not a fan of the powers that be stretching the Champions League Round of 16 over so many weeks, but I have to say every tie is an interesting story waiting to happen. Can’t wait to see how it all pans out. Via match reports of course…

Current Mood: Back to Reading and Baby Watching |
Currently Listening To – Uncle Tupelo – “Still Feel Gone”