Nicola Whitton
This blog contains my personal musings on games, learning, computers, engagement, fun, playfulness, technology, and other stuff that takes my fancy.
playful thoughts on games and learning
I had a wonderful day out down in Birmingham on Saturday for the Grand Finale of Emergent Game, the brainchild of Nikki Pugh. The emergent game is kind of hard to explain… part online, part real-world, it involves selecting a cuddly toy avatar, undertaking a whole range of missions, and doing loads of creative things [...]
I’m trying to write a paper on the potential of alternate reality games in education for an urgent deadline this afternoon, so am very easily distractible at the moment and have been studiously ignoring my blog feeds. However, when an interview with ARG designer Hazel Grain appeared I felt I could legitimately be sidetracked. The [...]
Why have I spent the morning so far finding a cuddly toy, photographing it and creating a Twitter account for it? The answer is here. Looks like it should be a lot of fun.
The link to the Passively Multiplayer Online Game has been sitting in my ‘to investigate’ list untouched for a couple of weeks as I was worried that when I started playing I wouldn’t get any work done at all. Fortunately, while this game is undoubtably cool, I’m not totally addicted (yet). PMOG is essentially a [...]
I’ve recently become very interested in the potential of using games to change attitudes and behaviours, so was quite excited when I came across MindHabits trainer, a game that claims to “help players reduce stress and boost self confidence and esteem using principles from social intelligence research”. The principle of this game is that it [...]
Games get a hard enough time being taken seriously without rubbish like this being produced. It’s a ‘virtual fashion game’ aimed at 9-14 year old girls in which the aim is to “become the hottest, coolest most famous bimbo ever”. An ambition indeed. This is what The Guardian has to say about it. Apparently this [...]