In the early days of the project, when there was little else to go by, the team at Crystal Dynamics rallied around a single sentence: ‘You think you know me’. It was stark yet evocative, an elegant reminder of just how much work lay ahead.
You’re a slave to love, the grind, or ’80s metal, sure – but are you also a slave to videogames? It’s a familiar critique (“You’re not playing the game; the game is playing you”), but one that seems increasingly to the point. Take the fashion for motion control. If you are sprawled at princely ease, pressing small buttons to achieve dramatic effects, then you are in command.
Organisers of Brighton's Develop conference have announced the programme of events for this year's conference.
The main conference runs across seven themes, or tracks - Design, Coding, Production, Business, Evolve, Art and The Den. As we reported last month, a keynote address will be given by Mick Hocking of SCEE, in which the head of Sony's worldwide studios stereoscopic 3D team looks at the first year of 3D gaming on PlayStation 3.
Organisers of Brighton's Develop conference have announced the programme of events for this year's conference.
The main conference runs across seven themes, or tracks - Design, Coding, Production, Business, Evolve, Art and The Den. As we reported last month, a keynote address will be given by Mick Hocking of SCEE, in which the head of Sony's worldwide studios stereoscopic 3D team looks at the first year of 3D gaming on PlayStation 3.
It's taken him 14 years of development hell, but Duke Nukem is back on top of the UK all-formats software chart with Duke Nukem Forever.
The Take-Two shooter knocks another of its games, LA Noire - which had occupied top slot for three weeks - back into second place, with 505 Games' Zumba Fitness rising one place to third.
PS3 sequel Infamous 2 is the week's second-highest new entry at fourth, with THQ's Red Faction: Armageddon making its debut in eighth place.
Nintendo and Epic Games have joined the growing ranks of videogame firms whose websites have been hacked, with the Club Nintendo website currently offline and Epic briefly taking down its websites and forums.
Epic admitted it had been attacked on Friday, with founder Tim Sweeney explaining: "The hackers may have obtained the email addresses and encrypted passwords of forum users. Plaintext passwords weren't revealed, but it's possible that those passwords could be obtained by a brute-force attack on the encrypted passwords."
For all of our coverage from the event, visit the E3 topic page.
For all of our coverage from the event, visit the E3 topic page.
Some months ago we began a pilot project in three local authorities using a resource called The Land of Me. At one of the early meetings in Dundee we met Bernadette Donald from Wallacetown Nursery and she talked about how she planned to use this resource to help support teaching and learning in her setting. Bernadette talked about the opportunities that can arise from the context of this resource, particularly in relation to taking the children outdoors. This aspiration to take learning outdoors resonates very loudly with the aims of Curriculum for Excellence. Part of the rationale that can be found in Curriculum for Excellence through Outdoor Learning states that:
Outdoor learning experiences are often remembered for a lifetime. Integrating learning and outdoor experiences, whether through play in the immediate grounds or adventures further afield, provides relevance and depth to the curriculum in ways that are difficult to achieve indoors…it signposts ways for teachers, educators and their partners to plan for and use the outdoor environment to provide imaginative learning and teaching which is relevant, lively and motivating.1 all staff at every level of involvement with the education of children and young people have a responsibility to make the most of the outdoor environment to support the delivery of the experiences and outcomes of Curriculum for Excellence……Well-constructed and well-planned outdoor learning helps develop the skills of enquiry, critical thinking and reflection necessary for our children and young people to meet the social, economic and environmental challenges of life in the 21st century. Outdoor learning connects children and young people with the natural world, with our built heritage and our culture and society, and encourages lifelong involvement and activity in Scotland’s outdoors.
Taking this rationale on board and considering the needs of her learners Berrnadette planned to take the learning away from the digital screen and to use the context of The Land of Me to allow her and her colleagues to take it out in to the woods (Templeton Woods) so that the children could build a den! She also thought this was a perfect opportunity to introduce this environment to many children who live quite close to it but who have never been to visit this forest on their doorstep. Have a look at this montage of photographs that shows what happened on their visit. Click on the picture to view the slideshow:
Bernadette and I managed to get some time to chat about the Land of Me and to find out why she was interested in taking learning outdoors and just what it was about this resource that enabled this to happen. Have a listen to what Bernadette had to say about this.
As a result of our conversation being interrupted by a youngster in her Royal Wedding dress the interview is in two parts: Here is the end of our discussion!
Bernadette points out a number of issues about this resource and her subsequent pedagogy when planning to use it. These include:
The experience of taking learning outdoors is seen within CfE as one of the fundamental aspects of teaching and learning that will contribute to the development of the whole person. The aspiration to expose learners to an adventurous approach to learning is also at the core of outdoor pedagogy.
It is also argued that the outdoor environment encourages staff and pupils to see each other in a different light, building positive relationships and improving self-awareness and understanding of others. Building dens in the woods is a great place to start!
UK developer Codemasters has today revealed that customer personal data was taken by hackers in an attack on June 3.
The studio has spent the intervening days identifying the scope of the attack and has ascertained that hackers gained access to its main and corporate websites, the Dirt 3 VIP code redemption page, the Codemasters EStore, and its customer database.
