Games, according to Chou (2019), typically have four phases. Think of these as phases the player experiences as they play the game. So, I’ve been watching Season 3 of Squid Game on Netflix. I don’t want to give anything away, but it’s easy to see these elements in the portrayal of the survival games on… Continue reading The Four Phases of a Game
Category: essays
Four Elements of Game Experiences
I’m not a game designer. But, it wouldn’t be a stretch to call me a designer. Nor would it be a stretch to call teachers designers. They design experiences for others to have in order to learn. Teachers are Designers The staid way to describe this work is lesson planning. Planning isn’t a word I… Continue reading Four Elements of Game Experiences
Adventures in Using LLMs
This past week I’ve been using the three major LLMs available to the general public: ChatGPT, Microsoft Co-Pilot, and Google Gemini. I’m not writing this to compare the three, but to report out how a few things I’ve learned and how I’ve adopted these tools to help me in one of my hobbies. Image Generation… Continue reading Adventures in Using LLMs
How we learn
Reflecting Sometimes I have to remind myself that I’m a reflective person. And among all the things that have fascinated me about the field of education is how we learn, and to some extent, how this body of growing knowledge may contradict classroom practices. I remember well thinking I had “how to learn” mastered by… Continue reading How we learn
Gamify?
In 2023 I began some intensive research around the topic of gamification. This topic seemed to have its heyday in the literature (books, articles) nearly a decade ago, with a seeming golden year around 2015. “Gameful design attempts to design interactive systems that serve (a) functional needs and (b) specific desired uses and effects of… Continue reading Gamify?
On Blogs
I often feel nostalgic at the end of every year. Not for what I did this year, per se, but it’s just a natural time for me to think about a lot of things, some of which are themes that attract themselves back into the front of my brain. Assuming that’s where fresh thoughts are… Continue reading On Blogs
Documenting Your Growth
I used to be an expert at a program on my computer. When I say expert, I don’t mean just good. I used Finale (music notation software) from version 1 (1988) heavily until 1999, completing a good solid decade of almost daily use of that program to write and arrange music. I knew it in… Continue reading Documenting Your Growth
Browser Bookmarks
One of the things I regret is not saving all of my chats and email from college. I remember learning how to download email at some point and kept copies of some of it on floppy disks. My many hours (days, weeks) on IRC was altogether lost. It was such a blow to lose that… Continue reading Browser Bookmarks
Memory and Scent
My Background I’m feel somewhat vulnerable for discussing this, but the topic is so fascinating to me, I feel like there is at least some benefit in putting some thoughts down about it. I have a strong affinity for smells; I can’t say I am in anyway unusual from other people in this regard, except… Continue reading Memory and Scent
Reflections on Teaching
My first year of teaching graphic communications and computer applications were intense experiences. I’d just graduated with a masters degree (in music) and suddenly I was thrown into a new job that I hadn’t precisely prepared for! But I had a lot of computer experience and I set about designing lessons on that experience as… Continue reading Reflections on Teaching