Author Archives: dogtrax

Book Review: I Funny

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Prolific writer James Patterson and friends are at it again. First, they (Patterson, along with illustrator Laura Park and writer Chris Tebbetts) put out the two Middle School (Worst Years of my Life) series that combine angst about surviving middle school with comedic, graphic-novel drawings and the wild imagination of its main character (Rafe), and now they have put out I Funny about angst in middle school peppered with humor and graphic drawings. (This time, Patterson hooked up with writer Chris Gragenstein but kept on Park.) Actually, I was initially thinking this was just the third book in the earlier series but that is not the case. I Funny is its own story.

Here, the narrator is Jamie Grimm, a wheelchair-bound middle schooler who yearns to be funny. As in, as a stand-up comic. Humor has become Jamie’s weapon against the realities of life, and we don’t learn why he is in the wheelchair until the very end of the book, when he finally confesses to a friend the whole story of the tragic accident that not only cost him use of his legs, but also ended up killing his entire immediate family. He now lives with his adoptive relatives, and life is difficult, to say the least.

I liked how the book puts Jamie’s physical and emotional struggles front and center, but in particular, Patterson and company really humanize Jamie as he struggles for some sense of normalcy in a life torn asunder by tragedy. It was also wise to have a new friend who sets time limits on Jamie for talking without joking, so that honesty and emotion is part of their friendship and relationship. Jamie is so wrapped up in his armor of humor that he has trouble relating to the real world. His entry into a stand-up comedian contest opens up doors for him, and gives him new confidence, but he also has come to come to terms with his life and his wheel-chair bound world.

The narrative arc here closely resembles the other two middle school books — a boy character dealing with a difficult situation that only comes to light late in the book. The illustrations by Park are funny, and complimentary to the story, and the plot is brisk in I Funny. What it lacks is a certain depth, although it certainly hints at that when Jamie finally tells his story to his new friend. There is an emotional wallop to the moment that we, the reader, feel, as does Jamie.

My middle school son really liked this book, and I suspect a few of the boys in my class will also find it interesting. (and I am sure they will be attracted to the cover design.) thought it was fine, but not great, mainly because it felt too much like old, familiar terrain. Jamie seems like a cousin to Rafe, the main character in the other middle school stories by Patterson. (or, I wonder, is that because Park illustrated both? Am I being swayed by the art more than the story? Possibly).

Peace (in the story),
Kevin

 

 

Dear Gamestar (the Glogster Edition)

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Yesterday, I shared out the letter my students and I sent to Gamestar Mechanic (and to which they have already graciously replied, which I will sharing with my students later today). This morning, I am sharing out the digital poster version of input that we created with some of that advice from students for the developer at Gamestar.

Peace (in the poster),
Kevin

Student Reflections: Advice to Gamestar Mechanic

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Improving Gamestar
My students love using Gamestar Mechanic to learn video game design. But they also expressed questions about features and abilities that do not exist in the site. So, I figured, why not give them an opportunity to express those wishes for improvements to the Gamestar Mechanic folks directly? I was thankful when I got a response from Gamestar folks, asking me to send along the student reflections and advice. There’s nothing like a real, authentic audience to spur some solid thinking out of my students.

Here is the letter we composed, with information from a reflective survey tool that we used:

                                    December 2012
Dear Gamestar Mechanic Developers,

Our sixth grade classes have been immersed in video game development for the past three weeks, working on learning how to design and publish games via Gamestar Mechanic as they work on a science-based video game project. Your site has been incredibly useful to us as we learn about games while playing games. As we neared the end of the project, we wanted to offer you, the developers, some feedback from us, the users. As part of a survey, we were given the chance to offer up some suggestions. We’re including some of the writing as well as some of the themes that came through in our writing, in hopes it might help you think about Gamestar Mechanic and consider possibilities. We connected this writing to you with our own efforts to gather feedback from users on our games in order to make them better. Perhaps our feedback might be valuable to you. We hope you find our reflections useful. Or, as one student wrote in capital letters: GET YOUR GAME ON!

Sincerely and with appreciation,

Mr. Kevin Hodgson and the sixth grade class at the William E. Norris Elementary School
34 Pomeroy Meadow Road
Southampton, MA 01053
http://epencil.edublogs.org

Some themes that came up in a lot of responses:

  • Adding the ability for two players (multi-players) to play collaboratively in a single game at the same time
  • Having collaborative tools across two different accounts (ie, building a game together)
  • Uploading and/or creating own music soundtrack
  • Creating own sprites (avatars) for game play
  • Chatting with other designers while creating a game
  • Adding more color choices on damage blocks
  • Adding a third style of game (beyond top-down and platformer)
  • Creating profile pictures or avatars within Gamestar
  • Wondering about an app version for mobile devices?
  • Downloading a version of the game to the desktop

And here are some of the notes from students:

I really liked building and playing games, and that was really different for me, since I don’t usually play any video games. One thing I didn’t like is how design options are limited: you can do a platform or top-down game. To make this more interesting, I would like to be able to design my own avatars, enemies and blocks as much as possible. Also if I was able to download my own music for the soundtrack that would be really cool. But overall I really liked your website!

I think Gamestar Mechanic needs to let kids not pay to become premium member. They should add new characters. They should make all challenges not to expire at all because I didn’t have an account in spring and I wanted to do the spring challenge and it expired.

I think Gamestar Mechanic was a great experience. I wish that the game design could be 3D. I thought it was great.

To improve Gamestar Mechanic, I would make an icon or box on the website to show the gamers how you can earn more avatars, like how to earn the text box or the shooter gun. Show them what challenges to do to earn more things in your workshop. I LOVE Gamestar Mechanic how it is now anyways.

I really like this website and I normally hate any computer games. The only suggestion I have is to allow multiplayer games and allowing multiple people to make one game. That’s really it I love this website keep up the good work!!!

I feel you should include multi-player like the option to make your game multi-player so that when you publish it then you can go on at the same time as someone and then play against them like see who can do it the fastest. Also, you should include chatting so that if you’re on at the time as someone else and you have multi-player, then you could ask them if they want to play a game with you. That’s what I think you should include in Gamestar.

I enjoy the website as it is but, I think that it would be nice to be able to add our own sounds into our games. It would bring more life to the game and it may be easier for people to see the story of the game.

A good idea would by adding custom sprites for people to make the game a little different from others and maybe eventually, you might want to add a 3-D aspect to the games.
What I think is that they should let you design your own sprites, ride animals, and go on completely different quests.

I think that you can make this site even better by making things a tiny bit more realistic. Some examples are the backgrounds and the avatars. There should be a bigger variety of blocks, enemies, and avatars.

Peace (in the feedback),
Kevin

 

Slice of Life: One Little Word for 2013

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Over at Two Writing Teachers, my writing friends Stacey and Ruth are using today’s Slice of Life post (a Tuesday feature) to ask folks to write “one little word” for the new year.

Here’s mine, which goes to the heart of what I do as a writer and what I try to do as a teacher (and as a father and husband, and well, just about everything. I am not saying I am always successful with my reflective stance, but I try):
One_Little_Word_for_2013

What’s yours?

Peace (in the word),
Kevin

 

 

The Ted Talks Master List

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This is a pretty amazing find from Twitter this morning: a Google Doc with listings of hundreds of TED talks. Actually, there are more than 1300 talks listed on this spreadsheet, with links and titles and more. I feel smarter just looking at the short descriptions. Wow.

Check out the TED Talk list

Peace (in the new year),
Kevin

 

Graphic Novel Review: Cardboard

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There’s a real creepy undercurrent to the latest graphic novel by Doug TenNapel. Cardboard tells the story of a single father’s gift to his young son of a magical cardboard box, which animates and brings to life whatever the recipient creates. Cam, the boy, and his unemployed dad, a down-on-his-luck kind of guy who has not yet come to grips with the loss of his wife, don’t quite believe the story (as told by a sort-of carnival barker who lays out a few rules for using the cardboard that Dad ignores, to his peril, of course). Still, Cam and his dad create a cardboard man anyway, who springs to life as a boxing champion named Bill. Then, in a burst of inspiration, dad creates a cardboard machine that can create other cardboard creatures (which is against the old man’s rule), and suddenly, the story is full gear.

The strange part of the story takes hold when Cam’s neighbor — Marcus, a boy with zombie-like eyes and a mean streak a mile long — decides to steal the cardboard machine and begins to create his own creatures. Needless to say, the entire plan by Marcus goes awry, with the cardboard creatures creating an entire city underneath the ground and staking out their own independence. Cardboard replicas of Marcus and others start appearing, too, with maniacal eyes. Told you. Creepy. Cardboard then becomes a story of good versus evil, as Cam and Marcus join forces to put a stop to the cardboard kingdom.

The story is engaging and the artwork is pretty interesting. I haven’t read any of TenNapel’s graphic novels before, but he clearly has a good sense of creating a world within a story, and using the image to tell the story. I imagine some of my students will be intrigued by the book cover, which shows Cam staring into the massive eyes of a cardboard giant.

Peace (in the box),
Kevin

 

PARCC, Common Core and Technology Requirements

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PARCC Tech Comics
I’m not writing today about my usual topics about technology, digital media and writing. No, today, I am thinking about the technology requirements that the PARCC consortium (Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Career)  has just put forth for school districts as part of its upcoming assessment connected to the implementation of the Common Core. This is the nitty-gritty of the technology, not the creative side of things. You see, the assessment will be mostly administered online (I say, mostly, because there has been a clause I’ve seen that allows districts to opt out of the digital component, although I am not sure how long that opt-out will remain).

The PARCC group, as well as its Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium competitor, has been working to document the minimum technology necessary to administer the assessment. This follows a required self-assessment of school districts on their own technology capabilities. The other day, PARCC released its latest report. I should note that PARCC says (in bold letters) that these criteria are for guidance only, and that as it evaluates pilot assessments, it may adjust its requirements. Here are some of the things it says school districts need to do to be ready for the 2014-15 assessment phase:

  • Computers must have access to the Internet and run at 100 kb per second per computer or higher;
  • Strict security requirements must be in place, including: unrestricted Internet access, video and photo cameras, screen capture, email, instant messaging, blue tooth access, application switching and printing;
  • Devices (including tablets) must have at least a 9.5 inch screen. It is recommended that all tablets have portable keyboards;
  • Headphones and microphones for every computer, for the English Language Arts component and for speech/hearing impaired students;
  • If you are using Microsoft OS, you will need a browser other than Explorer (due to HTML5 components);
  • E-readers, smartphones and other smaller mobile devices will not be supported by the PARCC assessment.

You can read the document yourself at the PARCC site. EdWeek has a nice overview, too.

The questions I have encountered in my own school and in other school districts has revolved around having enough computers for students taking the PARCC in a given school, and the legimate concern that those computers, labs and carts will be locked down for long time stretches for testing, and not for student use for creating and exploring with technology. I think that is a legitimate concern, don’t you?

Peace (in the tech requirements),
Kevin

 

Living the Manual to Understand the Instructions

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I found this passage from a recent blog post from James Paul Gee fascinating, and harkens to discussions I am having in my classroom right now as we dive into video game design. It has to do with manuals to play games, and whether gamers read them or just jump in. Gee notes that, as cold reading, manuals make almost no sense. You have to experience the world first before the instructions can be helpful. This is so different from other kinds of reading, right?

Check out Gee‘s thoughts:

”

If you try to read a video game manual before you have ever played a game, you can, at best, associate definitions and paraphrases with the words in the text.  The manual is boring and close to useless, when it is not simply inexplicable.  If, however, you play the game for hours—you do not have to play at all well—then when you pick up the manual again everything will be clear.

Now you will be able to associate images, actions, experiences, goals, and dialogue from the game with each of the words in the text.  You will have lived in the world the manual is about and will know how the words of the text apply to that world to describe it and allow you to solve problems in it.

The same thing is true for any text, for example, for a middle school science text.  If you have lived in (mucked around in) the world it is about and applies to, you have situated understandings for the words in the text and can use the text to facilitate problem solving.  If you have not had such experiences, then all you have, at best, are verbal meanings.   These may be fine for passing skill-and-drill paper-and-pencil tests, but they are not fine for deep understanding or problem solving.” — James Paul Gee, at http://www.jamespaulgee.com/node/64

Peace (in the thinking of reading),
Kevin

 

A Reader’s Lament: The Digital Devours Newsweek

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magazine-cover-fan-121223-large

(or listen here)

So long, Newsweek. I’m going to miss you.

Like many (but not nearly enough, apparently), I have been following with some amount of trepidation the new year because I knew that Newsweek‘s print self was coming to an end. And so it has. The last issue of Newsweek arrived the other day, and all the adults in our house huddled around it to see what the end of the magazine would look like. Sure, the venerable and scrappy magazine is now headed online and there are hopes by its owners and top editors (including Tina Brown) that Newsweek will survive and maybe even thrive as an entire digital magazine.

But, well, I don’t know. It’s sad to see print fade away like this. I’ve looked forward to every Tuesday for decades because that was the day when Newsweek and The New Yorker would arrive together in my mail. Sometimes, if there was  a delay, it would be on Wednesday. Beyond that, and I would get frustrated. Where is my Newsweek? I’d ask my wife, as if she were hiding it somewhere. At school, I get Time magazine, but it isn’t the same. There was always something about the writing and the layout, and yet, it must be more than that. I suspect it has to do with the emotional resonance that a magazine can bring.

And I’m not sure a digital magazine can replicate that experience. It can certainly bring other things to the table — embedded media, direct links to other content, etc. But the arrival of a notice in my email inbox just does not compare to the arrival of the magazine in the mailbox at the end of our driveway. For me, magazines hold such promise — I am always curious about what stories lay beyond the cover story. What unexpected nugget will I discover just by flipping through the pages. What will I learn today? It’s the same feeling I get with the morning newspaper, and one I don’t ever get from reading news online. It’s the “old guard” in me, I suspect, who remembers the black inked fingers from delivering newspapers as a child and the late nights pounding out stories on deadline during my tenure as a journalist. I don’t get those same feelings from digital content.

It’s not like I ever relied on Newsweek for breaking news, either. But I did rely on it to help me make sense of the world, and to put the breaking news in perspective. In this day and age of flash news and headlines driving everything, I always appreciated the chance to dive into a longer piece that required me to think, analyze, reflect. Newsweek consistently brought me new perspectives on world events.

I don’t blame Newsweek for taking the plunge away from print and into the digital. It’s been on life support for a few years and it comes as no surprise that they had to do something. I don’t anticipate the magazine surviving, though, even with Brown at the helm. There’s just too much information clutter out there. Newsweek has offered to extend subscriptions to its digital edition, and I did sign up and added it to my wife’s iPad, but I am not at a place where I spent a lot of time reading magazines on the screen. In fact, the iPad often sits buried in a drawer, so it’s not like our regular reading device. I like to hold the news in my hands, leave a magazine open on the couch as I get a snack or rush to get my son to a sports game, return hours later to keep reading or find something new because the dog has turned the page with his tail, wander over to my wife or kids with an article I think might interest them, put it in the magazine pile and rediscover the issue weeks later. Those days, alas, are now gone.

So long, Newsweek. It’s been great to read you. I’m going to miss you.

Peace (in the news),
Kevin