The gap in this blog is due to being on the ‘research tour’ which has taken me to Glasgow, Belfast, Cardiff and two workshops in London, with 7-11 year olds. The idea is to ask 80 children about virtual worlds and immersive environments. It’s been fascinating and totally exhausting; we will have some interesting things to say on the 22nd May 2008 at the conference at the Westminster University Regent Street campus which will be jointly organised by BBC Children’s and the University of Westminster. Get in touch if you are interested in coming.
Sasha Frieze and I are talking about doing ‘back to back’ conference days on the 21st and 22nd May, one on the production of virtual worlds and one on the production of virtual worlds for children. I’ve approached Amy Jo Kim, who created the social architecture of The Sims to come and speak. She moved over from the online community world towards gaming several years ago and now hops between consultancy and academia. Amy lives in San Francisco and it would be great to get her over to the UK again to speak about her work. She calls herself a Social Architect, which I think is a very good title. Michael Smith, from MindCandy will also speak about the production of MoshiMonsters.
I still firmly believe that it’s important to get professionals to craft, organise, curate shared space environments (immersive environments); that there’s a place to move over all the expertise from linear media into participatory and immersive media. Those who were formerly known as the audience want professional content and also to be facilitated by professionals as well as having space for citizen media activities. This is not a popular strategy as it’s expensive and has staffing implications, but everything I read points to the need for production. Here’s yet another recent article which supports my thinking, this time from iMedia.
0 Responses to “Research Tours”