Actually, the blog is back. I’ve moved it to my new hosted server. It was running on a linux box in my basement for the past 5 years. Time to retire that thing and move to a hosted option. It’s on the same site as my main domain name that I haven’t touched in years (hence the strange URL to some). Sorry about the funky characters in the old posts — the mysqldump must have done it. I’ll also have to go back and fix many of my picture links. I plan to re-activate this especially as I’m going to be at Frye in June. Seems like a good time to blog about my experience to help me remember it — much like Ireland!
I was listening to Weekend Edition today and was spellbound by this story on Video Games Live. This is a traveling concert experience where a full orchestra plays video game songs with a multimedia show behind. For one thing it brings young people into concert halls which is great. But I’ve been thinking about how its another way the virtual life more of us are experiencing is brought into our real life. There’s of course the World of Warcraft gold farmers that make the news that shows how commerce can crossover between worlds. That should not be surprising. If there’s money to be made people will find it.
But I find it interesting that people are seeking traditional (real) expressions of the experiences they have in virtual worlds. I know hearing certain video game themes trigger memories of completing a difficult objective and the sense of accomplishment that followed. This is so interestingly similar to how different pop songs make us think of times of our lives and what we were experiencing then. This is also a strange generational connection. Parents of today’s kids played video games, although visually simpler, just like the kids are. Both can come to this concert and share in a strangely modern experience of virtual meets real.
I stumbled upon this newsletter that speaks highly of the presentation given by my partner-in-blogging at the COTF conference in May.
I’ve been catching up at work from being gone and hope to get some more reading in today so I can post here.
I just noticed that I started blogging just over 6 months ago with this post. I also looked at my November posts and saw one on M-learning… and I was just talking about it again. I hope I’m not just repeating myself here.
I’m back from the Educause Management Institute . That took place last week. It was a great….
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