One of the many things I love about the Bay Area is that it is very dog friendly. My dog Keira is a curious creature. If she sees an open door she takes that as a personal invitation. So a few days ago, on an evening walk, Keira led me into my local bookstore. Since children’s books have a magnetic pull for me, and this store has a great buyer, I made my way to the Young Adult shelves where my eyes went right to a colorful spine with the title In Real Life by Doctorow (that’s writer Cory Doctorow) and Wang (that’s cartoonist, writer, and illustrator Jen Wang). I left the store with book in hand, and read the whole thing the same night.
I’m not going to review it. You can read the New York Times review here, or a Common Sense Media review here. With the World Health Organization making news this week with their decision to add “Gaming Disorder” to the ICD-11 (ICD is the International Classification of Diseases), I wanted to share some positive treatment of gaming, and in particular, girls gaming.
The WHO announcement has received some criticism.
If you have been hearing about the WHO announcement in the media, I recommend watching the short WHO Q&A video about their announcement. In addition, I recommend reading this well-written piece—WHO Calls Gaming Disorder an Illness. Experts Say Not So Fast— by Wired writer, Robbie Gonzalez, critiquing the WHO’s decision.
A few pointers to resources supporting healthy gaming:
Game designer and Quest to Learn school founder Katie Salen of Connected Camps reviews the puzzle-platformer game LittleBigPlanet 2 for the Playstation 3.
Connected Camps offers several guides to help parents “navigate the Minecraft universe” here. I recommend subscribing to their newsletter.
You can read more about Connected Camps in Why Minecraft Rewrites the Playbook for Learning by founder Mimi Ito, and in Computer Games Don’t Rot the Brain: They Help Us Learn by Connected Camps co-founder Katie Salen.
Many games today are built using the Unity platform. Here is a case study by Erik Martin and Liana Holmberg of Unity (I worked with Liana at Linden Lab once upon a time) about how the game Can’t Wait to Learn, developed by the international non-profit organization War Child Holland, is being used in conflict zones for children without teachers.
Photo from Can’t Wait to Learn Case Study, Unity blog
What I’m listening to: Continuing on the “In Real Life” theme, I am listening to the IRL podcast with host Veronica Belmont (only coincidentally related to the graphic novel). Season 3 airs beginning July 2. You can subscribe on iTunes or Spotify. Here is the blurb from the About page:
Our online life is real life. We walk, talk, work, LOL and even love on the Internet – but we don’t always treat it like real life. Host Veronica Belmont explores this disconnect with stories from the wilds of the Web – and gets to the bottom of online issues that affect us all. Whether it’s privacy breaches, closed platforms, hacking, fake news, or cyber bullying, we the people have the power to change the course of the Internet, keeping it healthy, weird, and wonderful for everyone. IRL is an original podcast from Mozilla.
If you have teens, you’ll find good catalysts here on the IRL podcast for weekly technology conversations.
As you come to understand what these platforms want from you, you’re in a much better position to use them intelligently. It’s not that scary…
—from the Season 3 Trailer, IRL, with Veronica Belmont
Upcoming Event
On June 27, 1–2 pm Pacific, 4–5 pm Eastern, I’ll be doing a webinar titled Parenting Adventures in the Digital Realm—From Surviving to Thriving with Parents Place Marin. We’ll focus on the skills needed today to create Mindful Digital Life in the family. I hope you can join us. You can register here.
