The Adventures of Links: First week of November

Henry Jenkins has a detailed interview with the authors of the new book Changing the Game: How Video Games are Transforming the Future of Business.  I haven't read the book yet, but it was mentioned by some of the speakers at GLLS 2008.  As always, the thought provoking analysis on Jenkins blog is time well spent.

Back at the beginning of October, Microsoft announced their funding and support of a new initiative.  The news was covered on a variety of sites including Serious Game Source and Grand Text Auto.  But now there are more details coming forth.   The post is a summary of a speech given by Katie Salen at Toronto's "Future Play" conference.  I'm interested to see how these projects develop and how the take advantage of gaming educational properties.

Ian Bogost over at Watercooler games had a post about the online game that National Geographic is running this week.  The game itself is based along the lines of traditional point and click adventure.  While it may not be the most advanced gameplay, it is a great attempted to add value to the expedition shows each night.  The shows provide additional clues that open up information in the game.  But the games themselves are decent discussion starters.  I've been reading The Magic Tree House series with my five year old son and all the locations covered in the game are ones that the book characters have visited.  I am going to use the game as a way to add content to his interest sparked by the books.

There is some good activity over at UNC's Games4Learning.  Chad Haefele over at Hidden Peanuts recently spoke about ARGs.  His post makes some important connections between potential ARG experiences and information literacy skills.