The next podcast from the University of Mary Washington’s Faculty Academy 2006 features Rachel Smith of the New Media Consortium. Her topic: “Gaming in Education.”

Rachel has inspired a number of changes in my life, including some recent investigations into Second Life. That exploration has had several effects: some impassioned conversation, sometimes a little less sleep than usual, and most interesting of all, a sudden rush of understanding (or at least partial understanding–mustn’t be presumptious) between me and my two children, ages 15 and 11. Sure, I IM, I blog, I Skype, I have an account on Facebook where my students poke me and write on my wall, and my online bona fides seem pretty, ah, bona around my dream team and most of my colleagues. I’ve done some twitch games, watched my son become enthralled by Guitar Hero (arena-rocking to the music I grew up with–what’s not to like about that?), paid some Continuous Partial Attention to my daughter’s Neopets activities, even hoofed it now and then with Dance Dance Revolution, where there’s a pretty good version of “Let’s Groove” that I really need to get back to. But it wasn’t until I started to get comfortable with a persistent online world and an avatar that I created, one who looks the way I’d like to look–buff, but winsomely so, and sans corrective lenses–that I began to understand something crucial of what my kids prize about their online interaction and creativity.

Listening again to Rachel’s thoughtful, funny, and sensible remarks on gaming, I realize that she prepared me to make a leap I needed to make, and that life after the leap is pretty much the way it was before, with the exception of a new, brilliant window I can suddenly see through. I won’t pretend I can recognize (or even focus on) everything I see through that window, nor will I conclude, prematurely, that everything beyond the pane is paradise. I’m pretty sure it isn’t. But for this habitual learner, the latest lesson has been fun, illuminating, intellectually stimulating, and a new avenue of contact with my children–and perhaps my students as well.

Thanks, Rachel.

Technical Note: This podcast was recorded with a Sound Projects C3 condenser microphone at the front of the room, set on a figure-8 pattern to grab audience response as well as speaker audio. The mic was powered by (and fed) a Mackie mixer, which in turn fed the line input of an Edirol R-1 digital audio recorder. Audio was captured in mp3 format at 320kbps. Post-production was done in Sound Forge 8 by converting the mp3 recording to a .wav 16 bit/44.1khz sampling rate format. If I had it all to do over again, I’d put a wireless mic on Rachel. I love the Sound Projects mic, but you’ll hear a number of level changes and a lot of off-axis miking that took a long time in post-production to get even to this condition, which I hope is listenable. The speaker really does need to be untethered, and the mic needs to follow her. Live and learn.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (34.0MB)