Live Underground map – complete with trains: Live tube map built using information from the London Datastore.  http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/technology/iandouglas/100005267/new-tube-map-now-with-trains/

ITV News to incorporate social media into news bulletins: ITV will let viewers chat with the journalists via social media.  http://www.seotops.com/itv-plan-to-make-social-media-a-big-part-of-their-news-programmes_1429/

Global Radio aims to engage mobile users with app ads: The station uses success of their apps to interact with listeners.  http://www.nma.co.uk/news/global-radio-aims-to-engage-mobile-users-with-app-ads/3014925.article

Losing the game: Excellent post on the scrapping of promised tax breaks for the games industry.  http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/rorycellanjones/2010/06/losing_the_game.html

Utah firing squad death announced on Twitter: Tweets from an Attorney General spread quickly around the world.  http://www.deathandtaxesmagazine.com/utah-firing-squad-twitter-announcement/

blogs, datasets, Gaming, radio, social media, Twitter

Here we go again…

QR codes in the classroom: Interesting survey of possible uses for QR and AR in teaching.  http://www.dontwasteyourtime.co.uk/technology/qr-codes-in-the-classroom-qrcode/

Facebook clickjacking attack spreads through ‘likes’: A new clickjacking worm is spreading through Facebook via the “Like” feature.  http://mashable.com/2010/05/31/facebook-like-worm-clickjack/

Steve Jobs replies to UK developer on iPhone 4.0 font size: Steve Jobs replied to an email from UK developer Mark Ford confirming that iPhone OS 4.0 will include the ability to change font size in SMS – a detail for most, but essential for those with impaired vision.  http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/pda/2010/jun/01/digital-media-apple

‘Minority Report’ tech is a reality: The man behind the technology used in the film Minority Report and its real life technological reality has spoken at TED about the future of user interface design.  http://www.engadget.com/2010/06/03/minority-report-ui-designer-demos-his-tech-at-ted/

Hulu the next big streaming media outlet to hit Xbox Live?: Video streaming service to be introduced as part of Xbox LIVE experience at E3 2010.  http://www.engadget.com/2010/06/01/hulu-headed-to-a-xbox-360-dashboard-near-you/

blog, blogs, facebook, Gaming, iPhone, QR, qr codes, Usability, video

The best of the blogs this week…

NYU students raise more than $100k to create Anti-Facebook: Social networking experiment Diaspora will give users complete control over their data.  http://mashable.com/2010/05/12/diaspora

Visa to bring secure online payments to the iPhone: New casing offers contactless payments anywhere Visa’s payWave is available.  http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/18/in2pay-is-the-name-of-visa-and-devicefidelitys-money-grubbing-i/

Creator of Heroes Tim Kring creates new internet conspiracy for good: Tim Kring releases new social networking game where we can all be heroes – in a way.  http://ethrill.net/2010/05/10/tim-kring-what-is-the-conspiracy-for-good-and-i-am-not-a-member-about/

Mass Facebook exodus planned for 31^st May: Following anger over privacy issues, campaigners planning official revolt day.  http://mashable.com/2010/05/14/quit-facebook/

Game Changers: Competition for children to design a new level for puzzling platform video game Little Big Planet.  http://www.dmlcompetition.net/kidscomp/lbp

blogs, ecommerce, facebook, Gaming, social networking

More juicy titbits…

Amnesty uses social media to fund protest ad: Amnesty International to raise funds using social media platforms for a protest ad targeted at Shell. http://www.nma.co.uk/news/amnesty-uses-social-media-to-fund-protest-ad/3013243.article

Sibblingz launches multi-platform game: Social multi-device game released to the public.
http://techcrunch.com/2010/05/12/sibblingz-launches-multi-platform-social-game-engine-to-the-masses/

Hootcourse – Take your class conversation online: Classroom application uses social media to create a conversation channel for your courses.
http://hootcourse.com/

Channel 4 targets teens via games consoles: Channel 4 Education is to harness games consoles as a core channel to reach teenagers in the next phase of its multi-million-pound online education strategy.  http://www.nma.co.uk/news/channel-4-targets-teens-via-games-consoles/3013310.article

The 21st Century Classroom: An insight into modern teaching by Alfie Kohn.
http://www.openeducation.net/2010/05/03/the-21st-century-classroom-alfie-kohn/

blogs, Charities, cross-platform, Education, Gaming, social media

Creativity’s a funny thing. Not only is it often thought of as an intangible quality that is bestowed on a rare fortunate few , but we are somewhat used to thinking that those rare few work alone, or that they at the very least, call the shots. Creative agencies have people called ‘creatives’, whose job it is to be creative and direct other people who aren’t creative.

Now of course we have partnerships like Lennon and McCartney, Simon and Garfunkel, Morecambe and Wise, Adam and Joe, examples of people who were on the same wavelength to such an extent that they can produce things which are wonderfully more than the sum of their parts.

But lately I’ve got thinking that creativity itself is starting to take a different turn. Permit me to take you on a tangential dive into one of my pet loves.

Those who know me will know that I go on about gaming a lot. Too much, perhaps. And not in a l33t speak, last-weekend-I-played-CoDMW2-til-my-eyes-bled kind of way, but in a way which acknowledges that gaming’s move into mainstream is an event of real cultural significance, and that entertainment and art may never be the same again.

I have also been, for some time, fairly convinced of the analogy between a game having a designer and a novel having a writer – great novels can be crafted into works of art because often they are written by people with singular visions, who have control over every line, word and punctuation point (to a degree – I realise this is a somewhat naive conception of the contemporary publishing world, at least).

As gaming and the means by which to create games became popularised over the last, say, 20 years, it has become more and more possible for the creators of computer games to exhibit an analogous level of control over their creations. Picture lone programmer/designers, hunched over their machines in the late hours, just as the penniless artist might at their desk furiously scribbling / painting / typing when in the throes of an idea on a dark night, until everything is Just. Right. I believed that if the trend continued, you would eventually get games which were just as honed, just as artful, as great novels.

However, having worked at a digital agency for some time now, it hit me the other day that that vision is unlikely to be the future, for computer games. I’m not discounting the possibility that single individuals can produce captivating gaming experiences; people like Jason Rohrer and Daniel Benmergui. But the thing about games is that they can be so complex and so full of variables, and require so many different skills, that actually the creativity you need to produce a great game is of a very different kind. Some games like Aquaria are created by designer – programmer collaborations, so you get a kind of Lennon-McCartney partnership, more still are created by small teams, like a band jamming to thrash out a song, and others are created by vast studios, like an entire orchestra getting together and saying ‘hey guys, shall we write a concerto? Dave, you take violin.’

To give an example: Bioshock contains innumerable imperceptible touches contributing to the feel of the game as a whole – the way that desks are left open when they’re searched; the way that Houdini splicers teleport in a plume of blood red mist; the way that lone enemies talk to themselves in wrecked corridors as a manifestation of their insanity.

Now, although it’s entirely possible that the same person came up with all of these little ideas, is it really likely? Is it likely that all of these were dictated by the same person who came up with the Ayn-Rand inspired dystopia that is Bioshock’s setting? Is it even likely that whoever decided to set the game in a decrepit, dripping art deco labyrinthine city under the sea, is an individual, rather than a group of writers?

Or is it more plausible that all of these things fell out of when a group of people threw everything they had into a Magimix and pressed ‘On’? For the record, I don’t know who came up with those ideas. Perhaps not even the people who came up with them know. Or maybe it was in fact all one person with a savant-like ability to describe the minutiae of a nightmare they had after finishing Atlas Shrugged in a single sitting.

To bring it back here, the point I’m making is that digital experiences are now so complex, so involved, that to rely on one person to call all of the creative shots would be a nightmare. I’ve produced websites with little touches which I couldn’t have foreseen and told a developer to implement – these decisions come out of discussions and collaboration, and that’s where creativity lies now. We’ve all heard about megalomaniacal directors or musicians dictating absolutely everything on the projects in which they’re involved – but that’s a very difficult thing to do with a digital experience, more so than anything else, I would venture.

And as digital experiences become increasingly common, and increasingly admired, perhaps that will change our conception of creativity. I’m not for a moment suggesting that there’s no room for an individual’s vision, or for the leadership of a creative team, but perhaps there will be less of an emphasis on “genius” as applied to an individual – perhaps what will be most important will be people’s capacity to interact with one another. If games (and digital experiences in general) will become significant contributions to culture, and many of those games are produced by teams, perhaps some of the most valuable contributions to culture in times to come will be put forth by groups, rather than lonely artists. Your thoughts, ladies and gents?

Creative, crowdsourcing, games, Gaming, social media

So a recent Geek Dad post on Wired.co.uk asks us whether children are getting spoiled by touch screen technology. It raises an interesting point, particularly in the context of Adam Standings description of catching his son: “smearing his hands all over the TV screen in a bizarre fashion. It turned out that he was trying to change channel the same way he had seen me select music on my iPhone by scanning the Cover Flow system.”

It also interestingly echoes Matthew Robson's glib declamation to Morgan Stanley last summer that 'anything with a touch screen is desirable&apos.

With the developments in gesture based control on the Wii, DS, Playstation Move and Natal, not to mention the iPad and MS Tablet, it&aposs not all that wild a speculation to suppose that the not-too-distant future may see office workers in their cubicles flinging images and files around a la Minority report, like a weird and solemn mass game of charades. But is it spoiling children? Are we setting them up for a fall? Well, no. At least, no more than the development of the telephone or the automobile did (which some might argue is a great deal). Let's imagine a situation where someone who grew up believing touch screen control was completely ubiquitous, was presented with a 1980's gameboy. At best it might excite their curiosity, in the same way that floppy disks or betamax do current adolescents. At worst, dripping disdain.

I would, however, be very surprised to see them left paralysedly clueless, pawing ineffectually at its 2 tone screen. But then, I rather naively think I could get along alright without my mobile phone.

What is worth noting is that Adam's son smearing his hands on the television set may be a harbinger of a real step change in UI design. As people's expectations change to the degree that they think every screen is a touch screen, so UI design will have to keep up. It may be that the UI designer's skillset may be virtually unrecognisable in a couple of years.

Design, touch screen, Usability

Wednesday 13^th January sees this year’s BETT Show roll into town. Housed within London’s cavernous Olympia and playing host to 600 exhibitors and almost 30,000 visitors, BETT is the largest educational technology conference in the world.

Every year BETT gives teachers and those involved in education the opportunity to enhance their knowledge of learning through technology. We will be there, catching up with friends, partners and clients – and investigating some of the new developments at the start of an exciting new decade for ICT in education.

The central theme that seems to be coming out of the build up to BETT 2010 is playfulness. Professor Stephen Heppell will be running a new feature at the expo entitled ‘Playful Learning’ – an interactive area where visitors can immerse themselves in educational gaming at its best and use fun technology to overcome learner engagement issues.

Prof Heppell points out that “survey after survey suggests that our UK schoolchildren may be some of the least happy in Europe” and thinks he has the solution: “Playful learning is great fun and has re-energised classrooms, rekindled school-parent relationships and re-engaged brains.”

Other new features for BETT 2010 include the Future Learning Spaces area, which will give visitors a glimpse of what classrooms could look like in several years’ time, and TeachMeet Takeover – thirty minute slots when vendors hand over their stalls to informal, teacher-led discussions.

BETT 2010 looks set to reflect the trends and developments of the past year. The last twelve months has seen the continued rise of social media, and particularly the explosion of Twitter into the mainstream. There has been a degree of acceptance that these media are valid forms of communication for children and young people, with suggestions that they can improve confidence and literacy.

The prominence of these topics is reflected in the seminar programme at the event. Other significant issues of the past year include augmented reality (AR) and eSafety. The former is represented by Futurelab’s Spark, a mobile exhibition which uses 2D AR markers to enhance pupils’ experience in the classroom. Meanwhile Roar Educate’s Us Online seeks to educate pupils on safety, security and good citizenship in the online world.

The Government’s Home Access scheme is being formally launched at BETT 2010. A trial of the scheme – which will seek to remedy the ‘digital divide’ by providing 270,000 low income homes with computers and internet access – “went like a rocket” according to Becta, the government agency in charge of it. The scheme is exciting news for all those working with ICT in education – but it is likely to cause controversy given the state of the economy as a general election approaches.

We will be helping our good friends at QCDA. Since last year’s event we have been working hard together on mycurriculum.com, a website which allows teachers to connect and collaborate with each other by discussing best practice and sharing resources, activities and examples of pupils’ work. QCDA will be showcasing the site on two of their four ‘pods’ so come and check it out at Stand J30.

See you there!

BESA, BETT, BETT 2010, conference, Education, event, exhibition, expo, ICT, schools, technology