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Spore demo creature creator soon to be available

The big event of the summer for me is not the Olympics in Beijing, not the European football Championships in Austria/Switzerland and not even Wimbledon. No it's the long awaited release of Spore, the evolution game from Will Wright of Sims fame.

Its release seems to have been a long protracted affair but to wet our appetites Electronic Arts are to release a Spore creature creator demo June 17th.

I look forward to creating my very own micro-organism that will evolve in to the most powerful and despotic beast ever to have stomped around the universe. I might however create a Ghandiesque being who will encourage dialogue to ensure harmony in the evolutionary process. (Don't think he'll last long somehow!)

Subscribe to Spore updates via this link.

Look Cara...my phone can publish to the web

See! You might want to try something similar on your Bebo page.

Hoppipola: looking at things from a different angle

I was trading YouTube clips the other day with my friend from school John Whyte (programmer extraordinaire with Rockstar Studios)   and I fired through this clip of the video for Hoppipola by Sigur Ros. The first time I saw this video I could not believe how it made the hairs stick up on the back of my neck. Packed with pathos and humour it inverts our normal view of life to some degree and looks at age and behaviour from a somewhat leftfield.

I love things like that: a little different, creative, not the norm but most interesting! Hoppipola should be the anthem for the Consolarium.

Games design: get involved with Spaceship!

I had the pleasure of speaking to John Kirriemuir recently about the work that I have been doing with games based learning in Scottish schools. John was writing a piece for the Guardian's Technology site and it appeared yesterday.

I think John caught the ethos of what it is we believe in and what it is we are trying to do when we put games in the class. I also liked the way he mentioned that the people who question what we are doing are asking for hard 'evidence' that our approaches work before they might even consider it. This as he points out, doesn't seem to have happened in the past when thousands and thousand of pounds have been splashed out on interactive whiteboards, interactive voting systems, VLEs and all manner of other ICT products, Nevertheless, it's great that we are getting this evidence from our work and that this is helping to validate and celebrate the rich learning experiences that the teachers and pupils that we are working with are undoubtedly having.

As I scanned the page where the link to the article was I saw and interesting post from Alex Krotoski. A new games design project called Spaceship! has just been launched and its aim is to get people involved at the very earliest design stage...even before a line of code has been written. This could prove to be a very interesting project and it is one that I will most certainly be keeping an eye in terms of how such a methodology could be applied in schools to encourage and facilitate collaborative working in such a project.

Handheld Learning 2008

It was with great interest that I read the programme for this year's Handheld Learning conference. It's being held in The Brewery in London from Oct 13th -15th.   I've attended this event for the past two years and have found this to be a particularly lively and worthwhile conference to travel all the way from Scotland to. Last year I even managed to get myself on the programme!

One of the main sponsors this year is Nintendo. Yes, Nintendo are sponsoring a conference that's all about mobile learning. Some of you who have followed or found out about what I've been doing in Scottish schools with games consoles, including the DS and the Wii, and will no doubt appreciate the wealth of learning opportunities that are inherent in many of the games that can be played on theses devices but to see this feature so prominently at and education conference is for me a massive step in the right direction.

I believe that these devices have so much potential due to the fact that there is a low technology skills threshold when users get their hands on them. The DS for example is a device that teachers of all ages and dispositions to technology can get success with in a very short period of time. Teachers are learners just like pupils in class. They need attainable success targets and when this success is achieved confidence grows and inhibition to use the technology dissipates. This then allows the teacher to use the cultural cache of the games device, as well as the dynamic and challenging learning environments within the games, to create rich tasks and contexts for learning. I tell you, it works.

Now, if you sign up early to this conference then you will receive a FREE Nintendo DS to use during the conference AND you'll get to take it home with you when it finishes. I'd get signed up asap if I were you!

I'm also pleased to say that LTS have agreed to support this years event and we'll be taking a number of speakers down to London to share much of the exciting and progressive work that we have been doing in our schools with our friends and colleagues in London.. More of this to follow...

Well the dates for HHL 08 are in my diary now and this event is one that I am looking forward to. I also look forward to challenging the delegates to  all manner of games on my DS.

Fancy a PS3 laptop? Get your bid in.

If you can't wait to get home to play Call of Duty 4 GTA IV on your PS3 then fear not fare gamer player. Just imagine getting your hands on the PS3 laptop and unleashing this beast on the table top of the train back to your home town. It's a one off so get your bids in. I wonder if my budget could extend to this ;-P

So you think you're fast at x20?

I'm up in Aberdeenshire at the moment kicking off my Nintendo Dr Kawashima project. It's been great to see the enthusiasm from the children and the teachers for the project and a fuller blogpost about this will appear on the Consolarium's blog very soon.

I thought I was great when demonstrating my prowess at the x20 game within Brain Training during the initial input with the children until I was told about this YouTube clip of someone only taking 8 seconds to complete the x20 test. So you think you're fast...think again and look at this chap in action:

Right, let's see how fast we can get! I'm going to practice and practice and get under 10 seconds, wait and see.

Guitar Hero for the DS

Bored on the train, can't wait to get home to nail Surrender by Cheap Trick on Guitar Hero? Then do not fret rock fans...Guitar hero is now available for the DS. Look:

Not quite sure that it has same the allure of actually holding the guitar and looking the part as you strike your rock and roll bravado poses. Also, I think the spandex outfit, face paints and six inch high heels are a little over the top with the DS in your hand. Nevertheless this is a game that I must have! Town centre tomorrow methinks.

Consolarium to storm the music charts ;-)

My very good friend and colleague from the University of Dundee, Bob Doig, has taken it upon himself to jettison me in to the world of dance music! Poking a little fun at my appearance on the BBC he has sampled my 'choice phrases' and mixed them into a dance track. (link below my picture on the site)

He's done quite a decent job may I say and I think that there's a touch of the Prodigy about what he's done....

Bob's real musical passion is Scottish folk and his band are well worth a listen. Have a look at 'Aff the Cuff's' website. Who knows Bob, maybe we can collaborate on the classic and much loved singalong song Dolphin Boy and share that with an unsuspecting public!

Consolarium blogpost: Nintendogs in P.2

New blogpost on LTS' Consolarium site. All about the fantastic learning project that we have been doing in two schools in Aberdeenshire using Nintendogs for the DS.