Every week, the Edge Games Index, produced in association with Brandwatch, rates games according to the volume of positive and negative buzz they're inspiring on the web.
Downloadable content for original Xbox titles is currently unavailable over Xbox Live, but Microsoft says that it is working to resolve the problem.
With Live support for original Xbox titles set to be discontinued in April despite the presence of active users, numerous gamers attempting to enjoy a final hurrah with the service have been unable to download additional content for their ageing titles.
Yesterday the Scottish Government announced the launch of an action plan and marketing campaign to improve the safety and of children on the Internet and also to promote responsible use.
Part of the campaign is the development of a national competition to design a national resource to help others learn about on-line safety and responsible use.
The team at the consolarium are committed to the safe and responsible use of new an emerging technologies for learning and will be developing a number of resources to support teachers and parents over the coming months.
Details of the competition are below:
INTERNET SAFETY COMPETITION
The internet is a vital part of modern life. When you log on at home or at school, when you use your mobile phone or i-pod, when you play online games – the internet opens up a world full of fun, new information, and new friends to meet and socialise with.
But with all the opportunities that the internet brings, it’s also important to know how to stay in control when you’re online, and what do to and who to go to if something goes wrong. This could be anything – like someone stealing your password and getting hold of your personal info; being bullied over text or social networking sites; or chatting with someone online who isn’t who they say they are.
That kind of thing can happen whatever your age. And as well as keeping yourself safe online, it’s important to help others feel confident about using the internet in a responsible way – people like our friends, parents, brothers and sisters.
That’s why we want you to design a resource that would help teach other people about what they should think about and do to make sure that they stay safe online.
The competition – design an original resource to teach others about online safety.
The competition is about how you would teach others about online safety, and it’s broken down into three main categories:
A. Resources for primary school-age children
B. Resources for secondary school-age young people
C. Resources for parents and grandparents.
There is also a special category for adults, like teachers, youth workers and even parents, to enter a resource that they have developed to help teach children and young people about staying safe online.
D. Original resources for children and young people
What do I have to do?
First you need to think about who needs to know about using the internet safely, and what kind of risks they might come across on-line. You could also think about the things that they might enjoy about the internet. What your younger or older brothers or sisters will need to think about will be different from you and your friends, or your parents and grandparents.
So think about what you would want to tell them to keep them safe, and then think about how you could best communicate that to them. There are 3 main ways that you could choose to do this:
1) Artwork - you could design a poster, create a game, compose a photograph, or do a sculpture or painting.
2) Creative writing - you could write a poem or song; a rap or a story.
3) Performance - you could direct a short film or animation (5 mins max); write a play, or drama script; or choreograph a dance.
Think about how other people would be able to use what you have created. Do you need to write instructions to help them understand what to do and what they should think about when they are using your resource?
What could make a prize-winning entry?
We are looking for entries that could easily be used by other people to help raise awareness about internet safety. Something that is innovative, and original, and that help get people thinking about what internet safety means to them, and what they can do to stay in control online.
There is also a new digital code – Zip it, Block it, Flag it (www.clickceop.net) aimed at helping you remember how you can stay safe. So you may want to include that message into your resource in some way.
Who can take part?
Anyone under the age of 16 can enter categories A, B and C. You don’t have to enter the category for the group that is the same age as you – in fact, it would be better if you thought about how you would teach someone younger, or older than you about what they should know about online safety. For example, if you in secondary school you might want to develop a resource for primary school children; or if you are in primary school, you could think about how you would tell your grandparents about internet safety.
Adults working with children and young people can enter category D and submit an original resource that they have developed to explore issues around online safety.
When is the deadline?
The deadline for all entries is Thursday 1st April, so there is plenty of time to get involved. Winners will be notified after the Easter holidays.
How do I enter?
Just post us your entry to the address at the bottom of the entry form, making sure that you attach the form to your submission. Make sure you clearly mark what category you are entering, and whether it is a group or individual entry. Please complete an entry form for every individual submission.
What are the prizes?
The winners from each category will receive digital video cameras. Their entry will be posted online, and may then go into a resource pack for people teaching others about internet safety.
Where can I find out more information?
If you are a young person who wants to find out more, call the Young Scot Info Line on 0808 801 0338 or email info@youngscot.org
Alternatively, please email CPRP@scotland.gsi.gov.uk , with the title ‘Internet Safety Competition’ in the subject heading.
You can find other contacts and resources to do with internet safety on the Scottish Government’s website – www.scotland.gov.uk/internetsafety
Nintendo of America has said that it’s currently struggling to satisfy consumer demand for Wii hardware.
The company’s director of corporate communications, Charlie Scibetta, told Joystiq: "In the short term, replenishing Wii inventories will be a challenge. But we are doing everything we can to satisfy consumers looking to purchase a Wii system."
Activision Publishing CEO Michael Griffith has outlined the company’s hardware and software sales predictions for 2010.
Activision has outlined its product release schedule for 2010, confirming new series entries for a number of its most popular franchises.
In the final part of a four-part series, Shadegrown Games founder Matthew Burns remembers trying to score his first job in the game industry as a tester.
I remember when I first took on this secondment thinking, will I ever be able to fill my diary? I had loads of time to play a range of games and think about their application. Kim Aplin, the previous DO had left me a range of useful contacts and Derek pointed me in the direction of a few others but time was my friend and I felt a little insecure about how much work I would be able to generate and how much interest there was in GBL nationally.
Looking back now I can hardly believe I felt like that, and how naive I was. Now I look at a Diary that has almost no free time until the start of April, the Consolarium Glow Group is attracting more and more traffic and comments, a number of local authority partners are on board as well as individual schools and clusters doing some fantastic work not to forget an Education secretary quoted as saying
“Computer games are often perceived as solely a distraction to learning, however, alongside traditional learning aids, they can help make learning more engaging. And parents and teachers across the country are starting to see the benefits they can have.”
Just over the last week and the week to come Brian Clark and myself will have presented to over 300 teachers in Aberdeen, Dundee, Girvan, Glasgow and Grangemouth with no sign of abating and now that Charlie Love has joined us as anotherDevelopment Officer the capacity of the team has increased again.
I look forward to blogging about some exciting work beginning with Argylle and Bute and describing some projects with 2DIY and Kodu software that we have coming up, as well as loads of other work in preparation for SLF10 which you will hear about soon.
Activision Blizzard has reported net revenues of $4.28 billion for the year (against $3.02 billion in 2008) and for the quarter ended December 31, 2009, net revenues were $1.56 billion on $1.63 in 2008.
The publisher has also announced that its board of directors has authorized a stock repurchase program under which the company can repurchase up to $1 billion of the company’s common stock.
It’s always a treat to visit classes where the imagination and creativity of teachers and pupils has driven engaging and effective learning and teaching. But shh! What’s that noise? Can anyone else hear the drums?
I think we had better take a look around, follow me as we climb this hill for a look around. Wow! what a panorama – look at all the animals..
Every child I spoke to was enthused and motivated by their topic, as was every teacher. You want creative and imaginative writing? It’s there, from a range of different characters and viewpoints. Functional writing? How many reports, factsheets, biographies would you like? Listening and talking? Interviews, presentations with movies, audio, photographs….
In mathematics the children were learning about measurement in a range of scales (15o kg of elephant poo anyone?) How tall is a giraffe? If an elephant was 2d what would its area be ? Can we draw it to scale in the playground? If we know that can we work out the volume of an elephant? So many mathematical questions. How far away is the Safari we are going on? How will we get there, will we fly and how much will that cost? and on and on and on; learning in context
I saw a variety of media and tribal art where the visiting specialists were involved in the planning and delivery, music teachers teaching tribal drumming and African chants, Masai warrior dances by children in Masai robes and class made jewellery. I heard abou the significance of the jewellery in the different cultures and at every step the use of a range of technology enhanced and extended the learning going on.
And don’t even get me started on co-operation and collaboration as teams completed assignments together and presented their findings, reports and thoughts together. The desire of the pupils to show their work and explain it’s significance and what they had learned was excellent, not just to me but to other classes and their parents and carers. I saw children explaining food webs to their visitors, anything you wanted to know about a particular animal? Just ask the resident experts…..
This editon of the Consolarium is now available. You can subscribe to the podcast from itunes via this link or listen to it via the embedded player.
This edition of the Consolarium podcast consists of the following:
Reflections on BETT10
Derek Robertson and Ollie Bray attended the BETT10 educational technology exhibition at London’s Olympia. They offer their reflections of how this visit was for them…
Mario and Sonic at the Olympics at Gavinburn PS
Ollie Bray interviews Gillian Penny, the headteacher of Gavinburn PS from Old Kilpatrick in West Dunbartonshire. Mrs Penny has become a real ally and asset to game based learning having carried out some tremendous initiatives in conjunction with the Consolarium over the past year or so. Ollie talks to her about the planning process involved in leading game based learning projects in a school and they take the chance to focus on how planning for the Mario and Sonic at the Winter Olympics project is progressing.
AOCBGBL
Brian McLaren talks bout how he is using the lovely www.buildyourwildself.com resource to support his work in schools with Wild Earth African Safari.
Olie Bray recommends an website called www.blabberize.com that allows you to turn images into talking, or blabbering, animations. Very nice!
Derek Robertson mentions a new published book about computer games called Fun Inc. Why Games are the 21st Centuries Most Serious Business by Tom Chatfield
Brian Clark recommends the website www.tutpup.com. Online numeracy and spelling challenges.
I was invited to a couple of Parent Council meetings this week, asked in to explain the role of Games Based Learning within A Curriculum for Excellence and to showcase some of the projects the Consolarium already has underway and potentially what parents could do to support it in their own child’s school.
Many families will already be familiar with the range of consoles and software available and most of the folks I spoke to at the meetings had more stuff in their houses than I had; yet very few had ever played with them and almost none had played them with their children. (Derek Robertson writes a brilliant blog post “Cod Liver Oil and Effective Learning..”on his personal site at HotMilkyDrink which is well worth a read, from a parent’s perspective)
One of the best things about the job is seeing the sparks of enthusiasm and creativity created by the GBL approach and this was evident again as a room full of parents and carers were excitedly discussing the kinds of things their children could be learning. One of the meetings ended with the Parent Council pretty much demanding (in a good way!) that the school take money from them and get out and buy consoles and implement them in their children’s learning straight away.
A positive partnership between parents and school is really important and ACfE provides a perfect backdrop against which these relationships can be strengthened; and the games based learning approach augments this beautifully.
All of these consoles in homes and all of these learning opportunities. A germ of an idea is beginning to form…………
In the meantime check out the Trailer for Parent Toolkit below
A busy time over the last week or so since my last post. As Ollie mentioned in a previous post I have been toiling away updating our Consolarium Glow Group. In the past this group hasn’t been as successful as we had hoped and it was beginning to get a bit tired looking. I have tried to restructure the way the group works so that you can more easily navigate your way around and find interesting and useful resources. It is still very much a work in progress and you should see it develop over the coming weeks and months particularly with the addition of the Games Design section which will be forming a large part of the work of the Consolarium in 2010. (I am sure that you are going to hear some very interesting things from Brian Clark in the not too distant future about this…)
In order for the Glow Group to be as successful as possible though we really need community involvement. There is so much good practice going on in schools all over Scotland that should be shared and celebrated and Glow will provide an ideal vehicle for this. Join in the discussions, add your own paperwork and weblinks and encourage others to do the same. Let us know what you think about the group, about GBL in general and perhaps some topics you would like to see covered in a Glowmeet.
Other things on the go this week include a visit to Lourdes Secondary to see them using MangaHigh and hearing what staff and pupils think of it and if you follow me on Twitter (@BrianMcL) you will know that I was in Park Primary in Alloa watching some wonderful children drum their African rhythms with an energy and enthusiasm that would have made a Masai warrior proud. I’ll be heading off to Fairview school in Perth and Loch and Calderwood Primaries in South Lanarkshire to discuss the use of GBL as well as a million other things including the next humiliation of the Wii fit weight loss challenge (I am away now to start looking out my lightest clothes to wear for the next weigh in!)
Over the next few months we are going to be expanding the ways that we communicate and publicize the work of the consolarium. We have already made a good start with our bi-weekly podcast where we share what we are up to, ideas, interviews with other practitioners and top tips for classroom practice and professional development opportunities.
We are also working on another few resources that we hope will benefit the whole games based learning community and more information on these services will follow soon.
As part of a bigger project we are working with the on-line service team to audit and up-date the ICT in Education website and the Consolarium pages on sharing good practice. We have a load of other case studies that will be going up online soon and we are just waiting for the interviews to be transcribed.
Brian has also been working hard on the Consolarium Glow Group and again we hope to make use of the new blogs and wiki features of Glow when they become after the Glow refresh in March / April.
Finally, we also now have our own dedicated Twitter Channel (www.twitter.com/consolarium). As well as pulling in the RSS feed from this blog we will also be tweeting from the various conferences and events that we attend around the UK.
The whole of the Consolarium team is on Twitter – we find it a great way to keep in contact, to share ideas and resources. You can find us at the following accounts:
Isn’t the Christmas and New Year break just great. However, getting back to work and attempting to 
fit in to the work clothes can bring one back down to earth with a bump as the two weeks of festive excess appears to still be with you! Fully in-keeping with our Health and Well-Being agenda the team at the Consolarium has resolved to try to shift from their expanded wasit lines the trifle, turkey, mince pies, Black Bun and possibly the occasional beer that they had consumed over the festive break.
The Wii Fit Weight Loss Challenge
We are quite lucky at the Consolarium as we do have access to a variety of exergaming titles. Dance mats have always been popular but we have decided to focus on looking at how the Wii Fit can help us lose weight. The Wii Fit Weight Loss Challenge is now underway! We all weighed ourselves on Wednesday 6th January 2010 and we plan to undertake our exergaming exercise programme over the next 8 weeks with a finish date of Wednesday 3rd March 2010. Here are our initial weights in kilogrammes:
| Week 1 | Week 2 | Week 3 | Week 4 | Week 5 | Week 6 | Week 7 | Week 8 | |
| Derek |
82.75 |
|
79.90 |
|
|
|
|
|
| Ollie |
94.55 |
|
94.10 |
|
|
|
|
|
| Brian M |
103.00 |
|
102.4 |
|
|
|
|
|
| Brian C |
82.70 |
|
83.80 |
|
|
|
|
|
| Charlie |
85.72 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
If you would like to participate in the Consolarium’s efforts at getting the weight off then feel free to join us. We are posting our weekly weigh-ins on Twitter with the hashtag of #wiifitweightlosschallenge. Have a go and let’s see if we can make those work-shirts a little less tight fitting!
Stirling Council visits the Consolarium
A recording of us using the Wii Fit board to record our initial weights is part of our second podcast. You can access/subscribe to the podcast via this link. This podcast also contains an interview with our colleagues from Stirling Council, Margaret Cassidy and Joe Shaw. Margaret and Joe have been great partners of the Consolarium and have been involved in quite a few projects with us for example Moshi Monsters, Endless Ocean and Crazy Talk.
AOCBGBL
Our AOCBGBL (any other competent business games based learning) section sees us talking about these resources:
Blue Murder Mystery Files: A narrative driven puzle packed murder mystery game for the PS3. Beautiful graphics, an engaging narrative and real challenge in those puzzles.
Light-bot: Control a robot by giving it commands. Use programmer-style logic for more complex levels that include functions to re-use.
Yudu: A lovely little tool that allows texts to be converted to page turning digital books.
Let us know what you think of the podcast. Your feedback would be appreciated and do feel free to join us in our #wiifitweightlosschallenge!
Well that’s it, Christmas has been consigned to the memory banks and most of the New Year’s resolutions have been broken already (although with one notable exception that we will get to in a minute!)
Santa was particularly generous this year bringing both a Wii and a couple of Dsi s for my children so if we add this to the hardware I use for work and my own stuff, my house now contains
2 x Wii 1 x PS2 1 x PS3 1 x Xbox 3 x DSi 1 x DSlite 1 x PC 2 x Notebook 1 x Macbook
And a selection of software for each of them. Is this too much? I see it as a level of my commitment to the job 
I am very excited by the work that is being taken on by the Consolarium team this term. For my own part I am looking forward to watching how the trial of Mangahigh pans out across nine schools in Glasgow and one in Edinburgh. My colleague Brian Clark and I will be meeting all of these schools, teachers and pupils collecting thoughts, feelings and data.
Wallace High School in Stirling is running a very exciting cross curricular interdepartmental topic for S1 using Professor Layton and the Curious Village. Maths, Geography, Art, English, Music and ICT departments are all involved and being coordinated by a very enthusiastic 
Maths teacher, Suzanne Harris
If you can believe it, the planning for SLF10 is well underway and the Consolarium team has some very exciting things planned for this year. Follow our blog and podcast and get your school involved. We will also continue to instigate, develop and support a huge range of work across Scotland, if you are undertaking work in the area of GBL and games design please get in touch and let us know.
And as for the only resolution left. The #wiifitweightlosschallenge. Last week was the inaugural weigh in, oh dear! There is nothing like a bit of public humiliation to provide some serious motivation. Follow our progress on the podcast and if I am visiting your school over the next couple of months please hide the biscuits.
LTS in conjunction with 4ip worked with SixToStart to create and pilot an iPhone/iTouch App called TapTale. TapTale’s primary goal is to promote literacy through the reading and writing of tales using the tap, tilt, shake and swipe functions of Apples touch screen devices.
When creating a tale, pupils are asked to write chapters using the touchscreen keyboard on the device. In order to progress from chapter to chapter, the reader must use one of the tap, swipe, tilt or shake sequences. It is up to the author of the tale to decide what action must be taken for the reader to see the next chapter.
Once a tale has been created, users can upload them via the device to the taptale website. This allows other registered user to download and read their tales directly on the device. Registered users can provide feedback on any tale via the website using a ‘fridge magnet’ style form. Anyone can read the tales created directly from the site, but of course the tapping and tilting functions are not possible in this view.
This App looks really promising. I really like the idea of pupils incorporating the device’s actions in their tales. For example, each chapter could provide clues to what action is expected for the reader to progress.
Chapter : “… Anum waved goodbye to John …”
Expected Action – Shake
Chapter: “… heard a knock at the door …”
Expected Action – Double tap
Encouraging pupils to read and write, provide and receive feedback using interactive and relevant technology should not only improve literacy skills but digital literacy skills.
Needless to say, I am delighted to be involved with the forthcoming pilot and am looking forward to seeing the impact it has.
The Consolarium team would like to invite you to listen/subscribe to our fortnightly podcast or alternatively have a listen.
Now that we have an extended team at the Consolarium we are all looking forward to sharing with you the wide range of teachers and pupils in schools across Scotland who are using game based learning and other emerging technologies in their classroom practice. In episode 1 you will:
Highlights from our community-written blogs, featuring the morals of murder and the future of games.
Games have us kill a lot of enemies, but Jason_Seip finds himself killing 800 people in five hours playing Call Of Juarez. Is that a little too many? And in what ways can games avoid such single-minded carnage in favour of deeper play experiences?
Grant Duncan “Do you think there are some people that are actually robots?”
The user-generated virtual world platform will close on New Years Day.
The company, founded in 2007 by Raph Koster, the game designer who worked on the seminal MMORPG Ultima Online as well as Star Wars Galaxies and EverQuest II, announced that it has not gained enough traction to be a viable product.
The announcement, communicated via email, read: "Today we have unfortunate news to share with the Metaplace community. We will be closing down our service on January 1, 2010 at 11:59 pm Pacific.
Blizzard has said it will "definitely work on a console game at some point," in an interview with Gamasutra.
Game Developer Research has revealed results of its third annual Game Developer Census, which monitors North American developers and publishers, that show a slight increase from 44,400 to 44,806 employees.
The small rise in North American game industry employment was attributed to “an unusually high number of new studios, particularly in social and online gaming, springing up to counterbalance the many closures that occurred throughout the rest of the industry.”
The Futuremark YouGamers Forums have been updated to report that a number of layoffs have recently hit the Shattered Horizon developer.
Take-Two Interactive has signed a deal to sell its Jack of All Games distribution business to Synnex Corporation, a business process services company that deals in the distribution of IT systems and software.
An investor relations note explains that the transaction is expected to be valued at around $43.25 million, which includes $36.50 million in cash and up to a further $6.75 million based on the achievement of certain items. The deal is expected to close in the first calendar quarter of 2010.