Gaming: A Battle Over Anorexia In World of Warcraft

June 7, 2014 This coming week I’m attending the colossal gaming #Gsummit in S.F., a four-figure fee fandango (won in a drawing) that I’m eagerly sweeping my slate for in order to learn from ‘the biggies’ how large scale gaming and gamification can impact behavior change, physical/mental and social-emotional environments, education, imaginative play, and even widespread public … [Read more...]

The Nature Principle: Experience the Earth Beyond Instagram

April 22, 2015 Update Recycling my resource roundup of eco-literacy quizzes on greenwashing, nature apps in a wired world, and games for good like TiltWorld that build on green media themes of kids' exploration and discovery (like TumbleLeaf to get kids outside) in order to add a very LOUD shout out to this poignant Richard Louv post about Hybrid Minds: (premise: The more high … [Read more...]

Summer Fun & The War Play Dilemma (+Online Gaming Stats)

May 22, 2014 Adding this article from The Guardian Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare; a non-gamer's guide and Jinny Gudmundsen's Common Sense Media's post, "10 Most Violent Video Games and 10+ Alternatives as it's important to reinforce that Memorial Day is about honoring the fallen in "RL" (real life) vs on a leader board.Critical thinking, parental pre-screening and co-viewing … [Read more...]

Disney XD: A Case Study on Packaging Boyhood

Nov. 3, 2009 In diving into media messages targeting boys for my weekly Tuesday Packaging Boyhood posts, my mind snap went to ‘gaming’ pronto. Is this a stereotype? Or did I just do a Malcolm Gladwell style "Blink” in rapid cognition? I flipped to the Packaging Boyhood chapter on “What Boys Do” since we know marketers are tapping a boy’s desire to be ‘powerful’ and admired … [Read more...]

What About the Boys? ‘Packaging Boyhood’ Authors Respond

Oct. 12, 2009 Tomorrow Shaping Youth advisors and authors of Packaging Boyhood launch their sequel book to my favorite media literacy teaching tool on the 'pink think' stereotypes front, Packaging Girlhood. For years I've been asking the 'what about the boys' question in my work, because frankly, boys are getting just as hammered with negative cues about what 'real men' … [Read more...]