Daniel makes stuff, and, in his spare time, writes about things like movies, kid culture, and geek stuff.
"A Souped-up Picture Book"

Thoughts from Christopher Harris on what Apple’s iPad might mean for school libraries and the future of children’s reading.

The critical question for me right now is whether […] children would select a traditional, printed volume or a digitally enriched electronic version. Not what we would select, but what our students would choose. We know children aren’t born with the love and respect we have for print books; consider volumes from your own collection, which young ones have drawn in, gnawed upon, or otherwise destroyed. So why are we often so intent on imposing our preferences on our students?

I’ve been thinking a lot about the Apple iPad since, well, long before it was announced – and the possibilities for how it will revolutionise literacy are immense. More relevantly, I don’t think any of us really know how kids are going to interact with the device, and what it will be like to grow up reading digitally. I’ve taken a few stabs at pondering this future (including in the Talkback for Christopher’s post, and a few unfinished essays about it), but I always stop myself short simply due to the awesome, far-reaching potential.

It’s fascinating to think about, and I don’t think we’re giving near enough prescience to to the quiet revolution that is about to take place.

Mar 02, 2010 :: Tagged under: , , , :: #

A Continuing Conversation About New Media and Education

Part two of a series of posts from Henry Jenkins, about “Learning in a participatory culture.”

Feb 12, 2010 :: Tagged under: , , , :: #

A Conversation About New Media and Education

Part one in a series from Henry Jenkins entitled “Learning in a Participatory Culture.” A must-read for anybody interested in education, technology or how children learn and why they choose to spend so much of their time in front of a computer or playing video games.

Here’s one particular lesson we could all stand to remember:

At the end of the day, it isn’t about the technology. It certainly isn’t about the screen per se. It is about the informational affordances and cultural practices which have taken shape around the computer and other interactive technologies. It isn’t about the computer replacing the book. It is about a world where students learn with a book in one hand and a mouse in the other, rather than one where they are taught that book culture is so fragile it needs to be protected from the computer.

‘Informational affordances’ is an important frame to view technology through – it emphasizes what’s good about technology, and is a refreshing break from the ‘Doom and Gloom’ rhetoric we’re used to. It urges us to think about what technology allows children (and the rest of us) to do that they couldn’t have done before, rather than focusing solely on its own detriments. In short: There’s something that attracts kids to technology, and we would be wise to find out what it is instead of immediately writing it off. We need to consider the sheer, unending wealth of possibilities an Internet-equipped computer has to offer – the unending knowledge of Wikipedia, the direct, global visual communication that YouTube offers, the vast meta-narratives and stories that video games put forth to indulge in – and then compare that to the increasingly restricted mobility kids are given outside, the shocking dearth of compelling outdoor environments and stimulating activities, and the social sanctions we implicitly place against children when they do decide to “hang out” in public spaces. When we think of it like that, it’s no wonder they retreat indoors – they simply get ‘more’ by sitting in front of a computer.

If we truly want kids to play outside more, then we’ll have to consider the obstacles in the way of enjoying the outdoors – and not only work to minimize them, but find ways to turn the outdoors into a space that also offers similar affordances to what children get from technology. Even more preferable than this, we have to think about how technology and the outdoors can complement, and their affordances can be enjoyed in a balanced, holistic way of living.

Henry Jenkins is the first guy I go to to better understand how to do this.

UPDATE: For another perspective, Morgan Leichter-Saxby urges us to consider our own technological habits, in a piece called “Do As I Say, Not As I Do.”

Feb 08, 2010 :: Tagged under: , , :: #

A Decade of Children's Media

Amy Kraft shares what she feels are the past decade’s most groundbreaking products and contributions to children’s media: from Dora the Explorer, Yo Gabba Gabba and They Might Be Giant’s “No!” album – media and cultural artifacts that have become loved by children – to YouTube, the Nintendo Wii and Apple’s iPhone – technological breakthroughs that have changed the very fundamental ways in which children interact with media and culture.

Astonishing to think about how different all of this – kids’ mediated cultures and the ways they contribute to and interact with childhood – was even just ten years ago. A lot can happen in a decade, I guess.

Jan 01, 2010 :: Tagged under: , , , :: #

Blogging the 'Showcomotion' Conference

This is fantastic: David Kleeman, President of the American Center for Children and Media, is blogging from the Showcomotion Children’s Media Conference right now in Sheffield, UK.

He offers some great thoughts on the state of children’s television programming, what might be the next forms of content distribution, how it looks when families play together, and more.

The closing words from Thursday’s plenary session, which was held in honor of the late, great Oliver Postgate and Peter Firmin:

“Kids don’t get bored because programs move too slowly; they get bored when they can’t understand what’s going on. At the animatic stage, we know what every character in every second of ‘Shaun the Sheep’ is thinking, and if we don’t we fix it before we go on.”

– Richard Goleszowski, Aardman Entertainment

(Via KidScreen.)

Jul 02, 2009 :: Tagged under: , , :: #

Risks, Rights, and Responsibilities of Children in the Digital Age

Henry Jenkins recently interviewed Dr. Sonia Livingstone – a very bright and very wonderful person, if I may say – who has been at the forefront of research about children’s uses of and interaction with media, culture, and the Internet. Her latest book, Children and the Internet: Great Expectations and Challenging Realities, has just released abroad and will (apparently) be made available in the U.S. in September.

From Jenkins’ description of the book:

It combines quantitative and qualitative perspectives to give us a compelling picture of how the internet is impacting childhood and family life in the United Kingdom. It will be of immediate relevence for all of us doing work on new media literacies and digital learning and beyond, for all of you who are trying to make sense of the challenges and contradictions of parenting in the digital age. As always, what I admire most about Livingstone is her deft balance: she does find a way to speak to both half-full and half-empty types and help them to more fully appreciate the other’s perspective.

Jenkins has posted the first of a multi-part interview he conducted with Livingstone, and there’s some truly wonderful bits from her in it. She considers benefits and risks of children’s use of the Internet, the changing dynamics of ‘risk’ over history, and how we may avoid fueling a ‘moral panic’ around children and new media.

I’ve sought to show how young people’s enthusiasm, energies and interests are a great starting point for them to maximize the potential the internet could afford them, but they can’t do it on their own, for the internet is a resource largely of our – adult – making. And it’s full of false promises: it invites learning but is still more skill-and-drill than self-paced or alternative in its approach; it invites civic participation, but political groups still communicate one-way more than two-way, treating the internet more as a broadcast than an interactive medium; and adults celebrate young people’s engagement with online information and communication at the same time as seeking to restrict them, worrying about addiction, distraction, and loss of concentration, not to mention the many fears about pornography, race hate and inappropriate sexual contact.

She argues for a balanced approach to children and the Internet and new media, one which carefully weighs its “affordances” versus “impacts”:

Many of us have argued for some time now that the concept of ‘impacts’ seems to treat the internet (or any technology) as if it came from outer space, uninfluenced by human (or social and political) understandings. Of course it doesn’t. So, the concept of affordances usefully recognises that the online environment has been conceived, designed and marketed with certain uses and users in mind … Affordances also recognises that interfaces or technologies don’t determine consequences 100% … That’s not to say that I’d rule out all questions of consequences, more that we need to find more subtle ways of asking the questions here. Problematically too, there is still very little research that looks long-term at changes associated with the widespread use of the internet, making it surprisingly hard to say whether, for example, my children’s childhood is really so different from mine was, and why.

It’s one of those interviews that you can’t pull yourself away from, so rich it is with insights and possibilities. Dr. Livingstone’s work frames the issues of children, mediated culture, and the Internet on such a broader, infinitely better level than we’re used to; really, in essence, she’s providing the framework that we’ve always needed to first properly understand both the macro- and the micro-level pictures of children & media and then digest it in the bigger perspective of children’s lives and development.

Jul 01, 2009 :: Tagged under: , , , :: #

Playing Video Games is Good for You

Forget violence and mayhem. Prosocial video games – like Super Mario Sunshine – are actually being shown to significantly increase prosocial behavior, like helping others, according to the latest research.

Of course it’s contextual – it depends on the particulars of the game – but based on a new psychological research study, lumping all video games into the “evil” category and blaming them for the world’s problems just isn’t going to cut it.

“Video games are not inherently good or bad,” the study’s authors write, “just as any tool is not inherently good or bad. For example, an axe can be used to split logs for a fire to keep people warm on a cold day or it can be used as a weapon. Likewise, video games can have both positive and negative effects. Content matters, and games are excellent teachers.”

May 28, 2009 :: Tagged under: , :: #

Tintin is ready for Hollywood

The Los Angeles Times:

He turns 80 this year but still looks 18, with the same fair-haired quiff. Like Madonna and Sting, two other famous blonds, he goes by one name. Mention him and a European is likely to cheer, while an American is more apt to go, “Huh?” But that’s destined to change now that Steven Spielberg is making a movie based on his life.

He is Tintin, intrepid cub reporter and nemesis of evildoers, whose long career in numerous cartoon strips and comic books, with faithful dog Snowy at his side, has made him one of Belgium’s most celebrated exports (up there with chocolate and waffles).

… Just in case you hadn’t yet heard about the $130 million dollar project, which just wrapped.

Spielberg’s had the long-running Tintin comic series optioned and under development for decades, and it was announced in 2007 that he would partner with Peter Jackson to produce a trilogy of films featuring the young reporter – with the two trading off as directors, Steven directing the first, Peter the second, and then them co-directing the third. They’re using an innovative motion-capture method – similar to what was used to create Gollum in “Lord of the Rings,” as well as to make Robert Zemeckis’ “The Polar Express” and “Monster House,” and even to age Brad Pitt in David Fincher’s “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” – which will allow them to hopefully replicate the original style of Georges ‘Hergé’ Remi’s comic books.

From the sounds of it, though, Tintin will mark a fairly revolutionary advance in this kind of movie-making. I’m picturing something of a stylized, film noir-like mix between the 2004 “Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow” and maybe a more two-dimensional and alive-looking (i.e. sans creepy, glass-eyed Santa Claus) “The Polar Express”, though I could be completely off. Here’s what Jackson said to Variety about the film’s look in 2007:

Jackson said WETA will stay true to Remi’s original designs in bringing the cast of Tintin to life, but that the characters won’t look cartoonish. “Instead,” Jackson said, “we’re making them look photorealistic; the fibers of their clothing, the pores of their skin and each individual hair. They look exactly like real people — but real Herge people!”

Daniel Craig, Andy Serkis, Simon Pegg, and Nick Frost are among the cast, and Jamie Bell stars in the title role. (Though I much preferred the first casting choice: Thomas Sangster. That kid has just got it.)

“The Adventures of Tintin: Secret of the Unicorn” is set to release in 2011.

May 25, 2009 :: Tagged under: , , , , , , , , , :: #

Turning Books into Blockbusters

What movies have you seen with kids in the past few years? There’s a growing chance that the stories were based on pre-existing material, writes Rachel Abramowitz for the Los Angeles Times:

“Audiences today are looking for family experiences,” said Elizabeth Gabler, president of production at Fox 2000 Pictures, which is producing the live-action “Percy Jackson.” One result of the recession is the rise in ticket sales, as movies remain one of the relatively cheaper forms of entertainment.

“With market and world conditions, it’s a much easier form of entertainment for a whole family to do together. It’s almost like a sporting event,” Gabler said. All the movie studios are hunting for existing properties with tested concepts — at least as books — that can be turned into films, though none exist on the scale of J.K. Rowling’s “Harry Potter,” with its more than 400 million copies in print and vast cultural footprint.

With movie adaptations of works like “Avatar: The Last Airbender,” “Yogi Bear,” “The Smurfs,” The Lone Ranger,” and more in the works, Hollywood is pillaging television for stories – and also reaching for the bookshelf to find classic children’s stories to draw upon. The advantage, as executives see it, is a built-in audience and the ability to reach out to parents as well as kids. Of course studios must strike a careful balance – a “balance of intensity,” one Hollywood executive says, where parents know exactly what thrills to expect.

If you’re interested in the state of children’s movies and what kids watch, I’d heartily recommend the article.

Also don’t miss the fantastic conversation at the end with the screenwriters responsible for the upcoming “Goosebumps” film:

To prepare to adapt the series into a movie (slated for release next year), screenwriters Larry Karaszewski and Scott Alexander watched 1980s flicks like “Gremlins,” “The Goonies” and “Poltergeist.”

“They’re more realistic than a lot of the family films today,” Alexander said. “The kids feel like real kids. They mess with each other. They swear. They’re uninhibited. There’s an appealing level of chaos.”

This just tickles me to no end, and my gut instinct is that Karaszewski and Alexander might really have nailed it with “Goosebumps” – unlike many of the other productions mentioned. “An appealing level of chaos…” How fantastic is that?

May 25, 2009 :: Tagged under: , , , , , , :: #

Pixar, John Lasseter, and The Brave Little Toaster?

John Lasseter, recounting in a 2006 interview about his first introduction to Thomas M. Disch’s story of The Brave Little Toaster: A Bedtime Story for Small Appliances:

“A friend of mine had told me about a 40-page novella called The Brave Little Toaster, by Thomas Disch. I’ve always loved animating inanimate objects, and this story had a lot of that. Tom Willhite liked the idea, too, and got us the rights to the story so we could pitch it to the animation studio along with our test clip.”

John Lasseter, as you may know, began his career as an animator at Walt Disney Feature Animation in the 1980s. The above quote recounts Lasseter’s efforts setting up The Brave Little Toaster as an adaptation at Disney, proposing a 2D/3D hybrid blend of animation for it – a technique which they first decided to try out in 1983 on Where the Wild Things Are (another project Disney was working on).

The “Brave Little Toaster in hybrid 2d/3d” idea was not a hit, and Lasseter got booted from Disney specifically for suggesting it – at which time he headed to a then-fledgling company called Pixar. The Brave Little Toaster was produced – as a traditionally animated film – by Hyperion Pictures and then distributed on home video by Disney in 1987.

Of course the game has changed since then, with Lasseter now effectively in charge (as Chief Creative Officer) of all of Pixar’s as well as Disney’s animated films. And one interesting idea floating around out there – based upon an interview with Pete Docter, the director of Pixar’s “Up”, where he mentions a new Pixar project called “Brave” – is that Lasseter might just be digging “The Brave Little Toaster” back out of the archives for a revamp.

At this point it’s rumor-mongering, put out there for consideration by the folks at the the film blog /Film, but this much I can say: for a rumor, I like it much. It probably will never happen, but if it did I’d be happy.

“The Brave Little Toaster” was a favorite of mine as a kid, and while the original film will always remain a favorite, I’m all for talented companies like Pixar exploring the story in different ways.

May 25, 2009 :: Tagged under: , , , , , , , , :: #

The Game Boy Turns Twenty

Ars Technica looks back at the Game Boy’s creation and offers up 6 reasons why it’s is still #1:

Twenty years ago this week, Nintendo released the Game Boy, its first handheld video game console. Excited Japanese customers snatched up the innovative monochrome handheld by the thousands, which retailed for 12,500 yen (about $94 at 1989 rates) at launch—a small price to pay for what seemed to be an NES in your pocket.

Happy birthday, Game Boy. I can’t believe I had to go three whole years of my life without you.

Apr 20, 2009 :: Tagged under: , , :: #

Addicted to Video Games?

The Washington Post reports on a study out of Iowa State:

In what is described as the first nationally representative study in the United States on the subject, researcher Douglas Gentile of Iowa State University found that 8.5 percent of American youths ages 8 to 18 who play video games show multiple signs of behavioral addiction.

Gentile’s study purports that their “game addiction” negatively impacts other areas of kids’ lives – such as their performance in school, willingness to do chores, and so on. Other bits: boys are four times more likely than girls to be pathologically addicted to video games. Kids with addiction lie about the time spent playing, and sometimes steal games or money to play more. And the study couldn’t say whether kids play video games because they perform poorly in school (seeking a feeling of mastery), or whether kids perform poorly in school because of video games.

But here’s my question: 8.5% of American youth are addicted to video games. But what about the percentage of adults? I’d wager the number is just as high, if not higher. Why divorce kids from the broader problem? And given the ample research speaking to the strong benefits of video game play for children, are major news outlets such as The Washington Post just fueling more fear and skepticism toward video games – instead of acknowledging their value (for all ages, kids and adults alike) when treated in a balanced way?

There was at least clear voice in the Post’s article speaking on the study:

“I think kids use this just the way kids watch television, the way kids now use their cellphones,” said Michael Brody, chairman of the media committee of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. “They do it to relieve their anxiety and depression. It’s all a matter of balance.”

Apr 19, 2009 :: Tagged under: , , :: #