Digitalkatie's blog

Maternity Leave? (Part 2)

Carrying on from the previous post, I forgot to say Louis was at his first business meeting on Friday. I had done work with Scottish Screen in the past, training Primary and Secondary teachers how to use moving image in class. Some of the advice and materials for creating video was later put onto a website, but now they want to complete the other sections of the website.

I will be helping out with a couple of the other Lead Practitioners in writing pages for the Analyse and Explore sections. Analyse will look at activities you can do with pupils to study the sound, colour, camera angles etc of film clips. Explore will help pupils understand more about our moving image cultural heritage and hopefully help them enjoy films beyond the mainstream Hollywood.

Thankfully I am able to work up to 10 days on maternity leave. Saying that I don't know when my maternity leave started, if it even has started - my last payslip was still showing me as off ill rather than on maternity leave. Ho hum.

Maternity Leave? (Part 1)

I took Louis to his first Science class today. Well I went and he slept and fed. He did have a look around briefly at the start of the class but I think the sight of me on roller skates and with bright red hair and a flowing cape confused him!

One of the projects i'm helping out with during my maternity leave is a Science class being taught at the High School of Global Citizenship (HSGC) in Brooklyn, New York. Sean and I have helped out with Global Kids projects before, and the timing of this is perfect for keeping me from going gaga at home!

Every day the class has Science from 8.30 - 9.15am EST (1.30 - 2.15pm GMT). Until summer they will be learning about the environment and sustainability issues etc within the virtual world of Second Life. For example they will learn about materials used in housing design by creating a house in SL.

Afterwards a few of the Global Kids people met to have a voice chat in SL. Louis and I then went to Asda, the best thing I could think of doing with the rest of the day, which helped me remember why I'd decided to help with the science class!

Louis goes to University

We've just had a great day out today. Chenoa and the Nerf family texted us and asked if we fancied meeting up for pizza...in 30 minutes! We didn't make it on time but there was a queue for tables anyway so it was fine. It was lovely to see them, and Dylan was looking really happy which was fab.

After lunch we headed up to Appleton Tower to catch a bit of this year's BarCamp Scotland. We heared a couple of talks then Ewan Spence did his end-of-conference entertainment - a talk about card games called Fluxx and One Thousand Blank White Cards.

At the end of BarCamp we sneaked into a particular union bar that shall remain unnamed. I say sneaked, because we were pretty sure they don't have a kids licence. I carried Louis in his 'cocoon' cot part of the pram (it looks like a wide lime-green sports bag, except you can see a baby's face peeking out the top). The security staff were only concerned that we had voucers to let us in and didn't see him.

We then sat in the corner of the Committee Room with Ewan and Vicki, with Louis in his cocoon on the floor. He slept peacefully while we played several games of Fluxx and had some food (major loss of brownie points for the union for a) not having the vegie platter b) putting the veggie spring rolls on the meal platter and c) not telling us there were also meat spring rolls. They gave us free nachios and veggie spring rolls but Vicki was understandably upset when she realised she'd eaten a meat spring roll)

Fluxx is a very cool card game that is now on my ebay list. The rules change as you play as well as the goal of the game (i.e. how you win). It made for a fun evening, well it was helped by the G and T (my first drink since giving birth!).

Just as we were finishing eating Louis started stiring and looking hungry so we decided to make our move. I could have tried to hid him as I fed, play the daft lassie if questioned, or just be kicked out but we didn't want to get BarCamp in trouble. Louis was pretty quiet all the way home too :-) He's wonderful!

Barcamp: Social Gaming, Web 2.0 Constructs...

...and Freedom of Expression (including 1KBWC)

Ewan Spence is having fun with blackboards and looked very hppy when he realised there are buttons to move the blackboard up and down! Now he's having fun with the visualiser and cards from game called Werewolf. Ewan describes Werewolf as a good example of Web 2.0.

Next example is Fluxx. Ewan has two volunteers (one of whom is called Milk!) Its a nomic game, where the rules change depending on the cards that are played. It's turning into a Royal Institute Christmas Lecture! ;-)

Nomic games - the rules change as you play, the goals change as you play.

1K BWC
One thousand blank white cards (created 1974)
Nomic game, a game of scoring points.

Barcamp Scotland: Virtual Fishing

"Living on Virtual Fish" by Tim Howgego (tim@capsu.org)

Talking about the revenue surrounding websites on World of Warcraft. Millions of dollars of affiliate advertising revenue.

Don't apologise for having advertising on a site. Adverts that are most successful are those that look most like the site content (is this tricking users?). Better to have ads down the side rather than at the header.

Most affiliate sites only pay out when you reach $100 so best not to go for too many different affiliates. Vary advertising though for repeat visits. Not sustainable, as the MPOG won't go on for long.

Nothing physical in the chain as buying knowledge to use in an online game. Similar to buying virtual gifts in Hot or Not or Facebook.