A new version of Freedom Fighter ‘56 game, educational game based on the Hungarian Revolution, includes a graphic novel based on the game’s story. The publisher is Lauer Learning, although I think the creative work is by The Inspiracy. The books “56 stories” contains 56 personal recollections of the Hungarian Revolution, with original photographs, sketches, an original map, timeline, and glossary.I wish I had these sort of things at school…

A book to be printed out from contributions of MySpace users is already something completely new, but what is best about it is that the topic is, again, environment (could it be that we are all, finally, getting rightfully scared about it?). On MySpace/OurPlanet you can write your thoughts about environment, learn a lot about ecology, meet other ecologists, feel like an activist without actually being one, AND you can have your reflections, from a sentence to a paragraph, published in a book, credited to your username and geographic location.I wonder how many other books are going to be prepared this way. The pivotal “First Person”, edited by Noah Waldrup-Fruin and Pat Carrigan, I remember was born on the website of the Electronic Book, and benefitted from online comments that were included at the bottom of the pages in the printed books.In a previous post I mentioned how one of the models for future journalism is collective writing organized by a “moderator”, who will take the place of the traditional journalist; many essays and scientific writings already feature several different authors.Social networks are making young people used to express themselves in a social context, although this seems contradictory with the blog (solitary writing) being the main expression form on the internet.In this scenario, what are the odds for collective writing to become an official form of writing?/news courtesy of Angela Thomas

Arden, the world of William Shakespeare, and also of Edward Castronova who conceived the online experience, has been released last week, together with Castronova’s book “Exodus to the Virtual World”.You can play it here.Various press releases highlight in turn its educational potential, the power of virtual worlds as “theme” social networks, the power of interaction and play in learning and so on. The question on how much can virtual worlds fall into the category of “gaming” is still open.At first sight Arden might fall under “adaptation” rather than transmedial storytelling, but in fact the player is engaged in creating new subplots within the storyworld, so the whole experience is truly cross media. I just started playing, will update later.A post on Terranova by Castronova says that as an experience “it’s rather boring” (it’s just a quote!) and that several of the playtesters said “Where are the monsters?”Apparently the lack of monsters were badly affecting the game experience. The answer to that was to take back Arden I and release Arden II: London’s Burning, which was initially conceived as a game.(This would answer somehow the question if virtual worlds experience can be considered as “gaming”, and the answer would be a sound “no” - more debate to follow)So, what you can see now online is Arden I, boring, apparently (I didn’t say that), but of immense interest for the academic community.

During the Cross Media Storytelling conference I had the chance to learn more about LAMP, (Laboratory of Advanced Media Production), aimed to upgrade media professionals to cutting-edge production modes, which means of course cross media.As far as I know nothing like that is actually happening in Europe, except maybe the (internal) training at BBC 360°, the Immovator meetings in the Netherlands, which are not exactly training, and perhaps something within the Media program (the brilliant Sagas courses have been denied funding this year, let’s hope in the next one). I understand something in that direction is going to happen at the MEC centre in Mechelen, will post about it later on.Probably for this to happen in Europe we will need cross media to reach some sort of “official” status, which it still has not. Let’s wait and see..

While googling for inspiration about children and new technologies, I found this intriguing post and a website:“This is Sophia Berglund - Right now she is 25 months old and growing so fast in her capabilities in communication - already she can muster small sentences in English, Korean, Japanese and some German! She can even translate! Sophia can create lines, shapes and forms by way of painting her communication…”“Part of her 1st and 2nd years were spent in S.Korea where she was born into one of the most advanced mobile “handphone” cultures in the world - literally 5minutes after birth her first ever picture (and video) taken by a mobile/handphone and sent to our friends and relatives, she made her first mobile location based phone call at 5months and at 6months she was surfing mobile internet and watching mobileTV! She had her first “co-location” experience in 2006 when friends “broadcast” the ? / Bi (Rain)**concert live over their handphone to my handphone - Seoul - to - Jeju…Sophia is growing up into a digital world. Already she has a real-demo phone given to her by a friend at LGe - which she mimmicks her immediate social circle in making calls and surfing data.”My apologies to Andrew Berglund (the father) for thinking at first this was a hoax I must have been reading too much SF novels. He said the child is now , hope he will post more.My question about technology usage in toddlers is first: how do we avoid sedentary attitudes and postural problems, not to talk about the over-developed thumb, a urban legend regarding mobile use among japanese teenagers, recurrent in Sunday magazines.Another question would be: although communication tools encourage enhanced sociability, how does the lack of face-to-face interaction affects learning of emotions, empathy, and all the other skills that Daniel Goleman calls “emotional intelligence”.