Interactive Games

Fun in the Forest Earns Dizzywood Online A NAPPA Gold Award!

September 23, 2009 by Amy Jussel Leave a Comment

Sept. 23, 2009 Ah, the first day of fall... An apt time to think about leaves, forests, colorful worlds and transitions into autumn when kids spend more time indoors and parents start hand-wringing about media management, homework hazards and how to balance back to school commitments with screen time online. The National Parenting Publications Awards has bestowed their … [Read more...]

Filed Under: EcoKids-Environment, Emerging trends & STEM, Interactive Games, Media Literacy, Positive Picks, Pro-Social & Positive Picks, Shaping Youth Tagged With: age 8-12, barking robot, citizenship, digital kids, Dizzywood, Dizzywood tree planting, Izzy-Neis, Kids, NAPPA Gold, National Parenting Publications Awards, online gaming, parenting, Scott Arpajian, SmartyCard, tweens, Virtual-Worlds, Virtual-worlds-kids-ethics, youth

Using Digital Hide & Seek To Get Kids Outside: A Treasure Trove of Ideas

September 17, 2009 by Amy Jussel 5 Comments

Sept. 17, 2009 “Childhood obesity may be a problem of epidemic proportions in many parts of the world, but several games are doing their part to help keep kids moving. We've already covered LocoMatrix, Swinxs and The Hidden Park, and now a new contender launched last month takes kids on a wifi-based treasure hunt outside,” says Springwise (one of my fave industry resources for … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Consumerism, Counter-marketing, EcoKids-Environment, Emerging trends & STEM, Interactive Games, Marketing Shaping Youth, Media Literacy, Mobile Media, Apps & Gaming, Nutrition & Wellness, Positive Picks, Pro-Social & Positive Picks, Shaping Youth Tagged With: Amy-Jussel, Aspyr Media, Case for Make Believe, Discover the forest, Gamine-Expedition, geocaching, iphone apps, Kids, Last Child in the Woods, LocoMatrix, nature, NCLI Coalition, Nintendo DS, outdoors, play, Richard-Louv, Sara-Grimes, Springwise, Stuart Brown, Susan Linn, Swinxs, The Hidden Park, Treasure World, wifi treasure hunt, youth

Storybird Kids Online Book Community Hatches Creative Fledglings

September 10, 2009 by Amy Jussel 15 Comments

Update 11-19-2014: Storybird Studio (Q&A here) launches for educators today, as a "suite of easy-to-use creative, administrative, and social tools for writing, reading, and storytelling" adding to their already successful platform reaching over 300,000 global schools. Post forthcoming, if I can reach some teachers to interview and chat about the new features! Sounds … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Emerging trends & STEM, Interactive Games, Media Literacy, Positive Picks, Pro-Social & Positive Picks, Shaping Youth Tagged With: 21st century learning, Animoto, artists, Blurb, character development, child authors, children, collaboration, collaborative learning, community, connecting people through stories, creative, creativity, custom books, Digital, digital play, Dream Village, e-books, Elf-Island, games, GoodQuests, illustrations, Kids, kids online community, knowledge sharing, language arts, learning, library, new media, online communities, participatory learning, play, publishing, self-publishing, SLJ, stories, story starters, Storybird, Storybirds, Storyboard, storyline, student stories, take turns, teens, visual arts, writers, YALSA

Playnormous Health-Edu Games Offer FREE Monster iMacs!

September 1, 2009 by Amy Jussel 4 Comments

Sept. 1, 2009 How do you improve K-12 student’s health knowledge, inspire creative writing, support eco-values of refurbished technology, and use whimsical hand-painted art of animated monsters to reach and teach? Launch a Playnormous custom-contest of amped up art that looks like it crawled out of a Pixar flick! Our friends at Playnormous (makers of the award-winning … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Advertising, Emerging trends & STEM, Interactive Games, Marketing Shaping Youth, Media Literacy, Nutrition & Wellness, Positive Picks, Pro-Social & Positive Picks, Shaping Youth Tagged With: Animation, Apple iMac, Baylor College of Medicine, behavior change, Bust a Health myth, childhood obesity, contest, creative arts, custom, Dizzywood, Edubloggers, education, edugames, escape from diab, exercise, exergaming, feed the monster, Food Fury, Food Pyramid, free computers, FREE iMacs, functional art, GameChangers, games, gaming for good, Gaming For Health, giveaways, health, health e-games, healthGAMERS, healthy games, Healthy-Kids, iMac, K-12 teachers, Kids, media-literacy, Melanie Lazarus, monster, Monster iMacs, nutrition, nutrition research, one-of-a-kind, physical well-being, Playnormous, research, school, serious-games, Students, teachers, teaching tools, technology

Blame Drew’s Cancer For My Attitude of Gratitude

August 8, 2009 by Amy Jussel 15 Comments

August 8, 2009 Who IS this hipster? Meet Drew Olanoff. Media geek. Mobile guru. Inspiration. Yesterday I wrote about kids' propensity to get their yucks at someone else's expense fostering an 'ouch, I can relate to that' empathy to bring humor to each life lesson... Today I want to focus on one of my favorite themes of 'turning a negative into a positive' and using new … [Read more...]