Arranged Delirium

For those of you transitioning from old HTML knowledge to our work with XHTML in ITL 370 , you may find this Quick Primer on XHTML Markup to be a handy quick reference for translating what you already know into what we’ll be working with this term. Actually, I think its likely useful for folks learning it the first time too - at least as a reminder of some of the materials we’re going through here at the beginning of class…

As we begin Photoshop work in my New Media course, this MacWorld article outlining some of the application’s history is proving to be quite timely. I have a love/hate relationship with the software. I’ve been using it for nearly 20 years myself and it’s remarkably versatile and useful. But the pricing and availability of it at this point has me looking for alternatives for my classes. I suppose I love the software, but hate the Adobe business practices.

In any event, it’s always provided an excellent production platform for considering the various social and ethical implications for our current use of media. One of the more recent dramas has been the result of the image below. You can read all about it in the National Post article.

BTW, if you haven’t checked out Photoshop Disasters, you ought to give it a look. SOme of the commentary is pretty funny.

Thanks for CH for sending along this video that ties together a couple of my primary interests: archaeology and social networking. While the fieldwork described in the Onion New Network piece might not be as glamourous or exciting as that conducted in the Mediterranean or the southwest US, it’s a lot less dirty and smelly…

Now you know what happened to Friendster.

As our games course wraps up, I enjoyed this timely article at the Chronicle: 5 Teaching Tips —From Video Games. I’ve really come to appreciate how playing games can really teach problem-solving skills in ways that are inherently motivational for students. It reminded me of the early days of multimedia development when we could get students to pay attention to content merely because it was interesting to them. Then, that got me thinking about my own teaching and what elements are effective and which are less so…

For those of you who don’t know about it, World of Warcraft is an online MMORPG (massively multi-player online role-playing game). The game just celebrated its 5-year anniversary and boasts in excess of 11 million players. But in terms of recognizing it as a source of entertainment or a cultural influence - well, that requires understanding it a bit better.

This short Business Management article lays out some interesting statistics that could help us place it into context.

The Guardian article linked here provides a little more detail and description of the game and generates some interesting questions (which we’ll discuss in class). But specifically his argument regarding what exactly the game is, proves interesting.

Finally, there’s a piece in Prospect that discusses the game, and why World of Warcraft matters...