I just found out that tomorrow today (I haven’t gone to bed yet, so for me it’s still “tomorrow”) on Saturday May 3rd is Free Comic Book Day. As the name indicates, it’s a day when participating comic books stores give away comics to anyone who comes to their stores. It depends on the store and their policy how many free comics you’re allowed to receive, but every visitor will receive at least one absolutely free comic book.

Free Comic Book Day is an annual event, held on the first Saturday of May. It started 7 years ago as a promotional effort by the North American comic book industry to help attract new readers to independent comic books stores. Typically major comic book book publishers will produce special edition comics aimed to attract non-comic book readers. For instance, past special editions included titles from Archie, Disney and Battlestar Galactica.

This year’s FCBD has 41 titles to giveaway for free, as well as 2 miniature Star Wars and Iron Man figures (again it does depend on the store). If you want to see the full list of comics offered, check out the FCBD site. There are a couple of interesting looking comics, a number of which I could easily see non-comic book readers pick up*.

So people: check if your local comic book store is participating and if so, head on down to it and get your free comic books!

*Disclaimer: I am not a real comic book reader… yet. See my next post.

With Cristiano off to the Netherlands to get his wisdom tooth removed (which I am glad to report went way smoother than mine), I thought I’d be bored out of my mind. The two past days though have just been one constant stream of geek activities. I should address each event in a separate post, but I know if I attempt to do that, I’ll end up only blogging about half the stuff. Instead I’m going to try to summarize all the stuff I’ve done here.

London Girl Geek Coffee 2

I only announced it two days beforehand on the Geek Dinners and the Girl Geek Dinners site, so I kind of knew that not many people would show up. However, I didn’t expect to find myself completely alone at the chosen time. It gave me time to check out the venue (Smiths of Smithfield), but I soon discovered it wasn’t really what we were looking for. Half an hour later, Patricia Hanrahan (Gondul) showed up, with Rachel Clarke following quickly thereafter. We spoke about a whole bunch of things, including Rachel and I explaining to Patricia what we’ve experienced so far in We Tell Stories. Here’s where this event kind of flowed into the next event:

We Tell Stories Meet-up

For the past 4 weeks I’ve been following the We Tell Stories project. As I’ve mentioned before, besides the six public stories, there’s a hidden seventh story in the form of an ARG. I’m not going to explain everything here, but a couple of days ago we (all the ARG players on the forum) found out one of the characters would be in a bar…in real life! Jacques the French bookstore clerk, depressed because his girlfriend Bella dumped him. The idea was to bring him gifts and tips on how to woo Bella back, which somehow would lead to more clues.

I completely forgot to bring something, but during the GGC Rachel convinced me to write down a song and sing it for him. Weirdly enough I agreed to do this and even stranger I chose a Dutch nursery rhyme (I have no recollection whatsoever in what prompted me to choose this particular song). Anyhow, Daisy, one of the other girls on the forum, also came to the GGC, hauling along freshly baked muffins and printed out poems.

Abandoning Trish (who would wait for the other GGCers) we went to the bar where Jacques was and there we met up with 2 others from the forum. At 17:30 we entered the bar and there he was…Jacques, looking depressed as ever and drinking red wine. We all gave our gifts and each of us received an item in return. Some of them were clearly “only” prizes for showing up (a Terry Pratchett book, for instance), but others were actual clues. I got a blue Wedgwood tray with snippets of rules of a card game. If you want to find more, check out the We Tell Stories website and the Unforum.

SEO Party

After the cool weird meet-up with a fictional character, I made my way back to the GGC (now expanded with Emma Persky and Weefz), only to discover that the SoS was packed. There was no way we could talk in there. I suggested to move to the Starbucks down the street where the ARGers had gone to sort out all the clues. Patricia, though, deserted us to meet up with Judith ‘deCabbit’ Lewis at an SEO party, but invited us to join her later. After a short half an hour in the Starbucks, we went in search of the SEO party.

We arrived a bit before 8 and the bar was crowded with SEOers. I was surprised to discover at least one person I had met before: Chris Hambly, whom I had met at MediaCampBucks last year. I had a short talk with him about some upcoming events, including a second MediaCampBucks and a MediaCampLondon.

Despite having no actual experience in search engine optimization, I had some interesting conversations with a couple of the SEOers there and was amazed when I realized I had been there for more than 2 hours. Around the same time, Patricia and the others decided to leave too and I slowly made my way back to home. Of course, even though arriving home at a fairly early time, I managed to only get to bed at about 3.

Social Media Cafe

Naturally, I slept through my alarm and I arrived quite late at the Social Media Cafe. I had met Lloyd Davis (the organizer of SMC) back in October in Berlin and had been meaning to come to a SMC for some time now (wisdom tooth removals and sleeping the cause of missing previous ones). I’m glad I finally made it, cause I got to meet a lot of new people (I’m not even going to try and list everyone). What I found interesting was that (if I’m not mistaken that is) this was a completely different set than the usual Geek Dinners and BarCamp crowd; most people there hadn’t even heard of those two events before!

Just when I wanted to leave, it started pouring outside (even lightning!), so I decided to stay a little longer. I talked some more with LJ Rich and after the rain cleared up, she suggested having lunch at a Vegetarian Thai Buffet close by. Great food and great conversation with both of us geeking out about TV shows, books and other stuff. Having already spent most of the day procrastinating networking, I realized I wouldn’t get any real work done today, so it wouldn’t hurt to go to:

Rickmob

Three words: real life rickrolling. By now there should be enough reports and videos documenting this event.

So those were my two action packed geeky days and all I want to do now is sleep. I’ve announced the next Girl Geek Coffee on both Geek Dinners sites and a new idea for another event (Geek Meet). Let me know if you’re interested in either of them by leaving a comment on one of those blogs.

It’s a bit last minute, but the next Girl Geek Coffee will go on next Thursday. We’re going to try out a new venue and I’m hoping it’s suitable. It’s the Smiths of Smithfield near Farringdon tube (also a potential Geek Dinner venue). I haven’t tried it out yet (so fingers crossed), but I’ve heard a lot of positive things about it.

When: Thursday, April 10, 2008, 3:00 PM - 7:00 PM
Where: Smiths of Smithfield near Farringdon
Cost: attending is free, cost for coffee and food will be on a “buy your own” basis
Upcoming: 465894

If you have trouble finding the place or are running late, you can phone me (07521 294 391) or Twitter me directly (mseckington). Please use the upcoming link or comment below to indicate your interest.

I’m doing this the wrong way around, aren’t I? First blogging about an event from yesterday and then about an event from two days before that. Heck, if I have time, I might even blog about Barcamp Brighton 2, even though that’s been already two weeks ago.

Anyhow, last Tuesday I made my way to the 18th Girl Geek Dinner, this time held at The Knights Templar. The main theme was SEO (search engine optimisation) with all speakers supposedly talking on this subject. Juddith “deCabbit” Lewis held a great talk explaining the basics of SEO. It was actually an hour long presentation she uses for her clients, cut down to only 15 minutes. I would have liked to hear the full talk, cause that would have been so much more interesting than the stuff that came after that.

The second talk was from Sheila Farrell about Semantic Markup and Organic SEO. I don’t want to be too harsh, but seriously all I remember from this talk was “tables are bad, tables are bad, it’s geeky to use tables (??), but tables are bad”. The third presenter was McVitte, the CEO of Texperts, talking about the mobile search perspective. Texperts is a mobile search SMS service that allows users to text a question to a (human) team of experts who text the answer back. The talk was okay, but wasn’t as technical as I was hoping it would be.

The food was sponsored by Latitude and as sponsors they were allowed to give a small 5 minute business talk. I have to applaud them though for foregoing the marketing pitch and just wishing us a good time. We need more sponsors like that! There was more than enough food (mainly fried finger food) and by the end most platters weren’t even finished. The wine on the other hand went very quickly, although most people only had one glass. I shouldn’t complain; it’s better than having to pay yourself.

The main problem with this event was the venue. While The Knights Templar is a great pub, it’s not quite suitable to hold an event like this. We were in two small upstairs rooms, but upstairs meant half a level higher in a sort of balcony overlooking the rest of bar with all the hassle and noise reaching us. Yeah, that’s not that great when you have an event with speakers.

Next to that, the two rooms were connected with a small dark doorway and the presenters were forced to stand somewhere in the middle, so that people in both rooms could kind of see them talk (actually from where I was sitting I didn’t see anything). The rooms were supposed to fit 50 people, which might have been able if everyone was standing and all the tables were moved aside. As it was though (with everyone sitting at the tables) there wasn’t that much space at all; I barely left my seat only because there wasn’t any room to maneuver around.

It wasn’t the best Girl Geek Dinner I’ve been to, but as usual it was great fun meeting up with some old friends and some new friends. The next Girl Geek event is going to be a joint Geek Dinner and Girl Geek Dinner event with a surprise mystery speaker on April 26th [Upcoming]. Before that though is another Geek Dinner event on April 7th with David Terrar with a talk about creativity and the current education system [Upcoming]. So set the dates in your calendars, people, and I’ll see you there next time!

The idea of a London Girl Geek Coffee had been spinning in my head for a couple of weeks, but I never had the time or effort to actually organise it. While talking to Emma during the Girl Geek Dinner last Tuesday, she took matters into her own hands and on the spot created an event on Upcoming for two days later aka: yesterday.

So yesterday in the late afternoon the first Girl Geek Coffee took place at the Starbucks inside the Espirit on Regent Street. It was a small gathering with 5 Girl Geeks, including Emma and me, showing up. For a good two and a half hours we chatted and sipped our Lattes, Mochas and Espressos. The topics covered a wide range of things, from TV shows to university life to geek chic clothes (I’m thinking of cutting up conference swag T-shirts and turning them into minidresses).

The coffee was lovely, but the location this time wasn’t that great. It’s normally quite nice (I’ve used it as a work cafe a couple of times), but now they had turned up the heater quite high and it was just too warm to sit there comfortably. Next to that there was another group (of about 6 people) who decided to meet up there and they were as loud and as annoying as you can get. Next time we’ll have to find another location (if you have any suggestions, email me).

All in all, the first London Girl Geek Coffee was a succes and we’re definitely going to hold more in the future. I’m thinking we should hold this event every other week, so the next one would be Thursday over two weeks (April 10th). In the future we’ll have an actual Girl Geek Coffee site (maybe something together with the Geek Dinners, Geek Werewolf and I’d like to see Geek Poker), but for now if you want to join us keep an eye on this blog and Upcoming for the next event.

Before moving to London I used to be a boring student hanging out with student friends at student events (not that there’s anything wrong with that, mind you). Once in London I discovered a whole different world with engaging Dinners and Camps to go to. For me, it started when a couple of months ago Cristiano went to Barcamp London, came back completely enthusiastic about it and dragged me to a London Girl Geek Dinner (LGGD). I really liked the LGGD, but wasn’t really that sure about the Barcamp from what I heard about it. At the time I just thought that it wouldn’t be something for me. Then Cristiano dragged me to Barcamp Brighton (the dragging isn’t as bad as it sounds like) and I really loved it. The atmosphere and dynamics of the event were just so inspiring and interesting, I even held a last-minute presentation myself on emotion recognition (which to be honest wasn’t that good).

When Cristiano suggested we should go to Berlin for the Barcamp and the Web 2.0 Expo, I was initially not too sure about it. I mean, it’s in a different country with a different language. I know, I know, I’m Dutch and should be able to speak German, because we get it at school, but I only know how to read German. Listening and speaking? Nope, not my forte at all. Anyhow, in the end we did decide to go and so last Saturday I found myself at the Cimdata Medienakademie for Barcamp Berlin.

Overall Impressions

Compared to previous Barcamps, the Berlin one had a very different feel to it. I may have only been to the Brighton one, but other more experienced BarCampers also claimed the atmosphere was slightly off. It wasn’t that it was a bad event, but it didn’t have that feeling of a BarCamp to it. In part, I think this came through various circumstances.

For starters, the event wasn’t overnight, forcing you to go back to your hotel, which created the option of sleeping in. The second day I got up at 11:00 and arrived at BarCamp only at 13:00, missing the first 2 sessions. Yes, that is my own fault, but with an overnight it definitely wouldn’t have happened. Further, the overnight generates a more relaxed and informal environment, creating a great atmosphere for burgeoning friendships, hack sessions, last minute presentation mashups and a string of Werewolf games.

Next to that, the food organization was a bit weird; there was bread and toppings available for lunch on both days, but no dinner at all. I did hear though that with previous German BarCamps they did provide more food, but because of no-show-ers they had to throw a lot of it away.

Day 1

The first session I went to was about how game mechanics could be applied in the design of web community sites. They gave a list of 10 principles that were used within games and showed how they could be used for web communities. My problem with this presentation though was that most examples weren’t that convincing. With some the connection to game design seemed forced, as if the presenter was seeing a game design that wasn’t there. With others, they didn’t use the strongest examples available; I don’t remember it all exactly (unfortunately), but I came up with a couple more powerful examples.

After that I went to a presentation of Kathrin Grannemann about procrastination. Most of the techniques she showed I had heard about already and it would have helped a lot if she had used slides. What I found most interesting was that most people there had never or only just recently heard of the term “procrastination” before. Some wanted to know who made up the term and when it first appeared, as if someone just recently invented it. It’s a fracking normal English word!

I then went to see a presentation about OAuth, a web-based protocol for API authentication. The idea is that most APIs (Flickr, Facebook, Upcoming) all use different authentication methods, while there should be an open standard used by all parties. I had heard about OAuth already before at the Future of Web Apps, so I was interested to know some more about it.

Cristiano then held a session about how he created a lifstream with Yahoo Pipes. Most people though didn’t know what Yahoo Pipes was, so it would have been more interesting to do just the presentation about Pipes. FYI, Yahoo Pipes is an online service that let’s you combine, filter and edit different feed types, creating personalized feeds. I haven’t tried it out myself yet, but I have some RSS-feed problems that could be solved with this.

After all the sessions were over it was announced that an hour later the games evening would begin, including the BarCamp favourite Werewolf. So together with Cristiano, Reinier, Alper and Eelke, I quickly went in search of some easy dinner; I couldn’t risk missing Werewolf, especially because we wouldn’t be able to play whole night (like normal BarCamps). We ended up getting Doner Kebab at a cute little snackbar, where the sweet guy behind the counter gave us free tea (cool and weird at the same time, right?). After that we hurried back to the BarCamp where Ian was organising and explaining the rules to all the newbies of Werewolf. We had a couple of fun games (3 if I remember), one of which was the weirdest game of Werewolf I ever played.

Although there wasn’t any official food, some people had the idea to order pizzas. Great idea, only it took more than an hour for it to arrive. Slightly before 12:00 when we were supposed to be kicked out, the pizzas finally arrived and everybody quickly wolfed them down.

Day 2

The second day didn’t start out that well, waking up at 11:00. Add to that the difficulty of finding a coffee place open in the morning on Sunday and the general hassle of getting up, dressing up, getting ready and getting there, we only arrived at the BarCamp venue at 13:00, missing the first two morning sessions. I was actually planning on holding a presentation, but to my surprise (and a lot of other people’s surprise) the whole day was booked! Every single session slot was taken! Anyhow, I’m definitely going to have a session at BarCamp London 3, you can count on that.

That day I first went to a discussion session about which Mac Apps you use and recommend to others. I had a lot to say, because I was one of the few which knew which apps worked under Leopard and I have a lot of obscure little apps. I like this type of session, but only once the “usual” stuff has been handled; they always mention the obvious apps, like Quicksilver, Twitterrific and TextMate. I’m thinking of doing a similar talk at BarCamp London 3, but adding some kind of twist to avoid all those boring apps.

I then attended the discussion session about fostering Barcamps over Europe, led by Nicole Simon. She explained the problems they had with organizing the Berlin BarCamp and the reasons why it couldn’t be like a “normal” BarCamp. Some people mentioned future BarCamps they were planning and I am glad to see the BarCamp wildfire is raging everywhere.

As my final session of BarCamp Berlin, I went to the Librarian session by Patricia Hanrahan. I didn’t really know what to expect; I mean, librarians, they’re those stuffy old people with books, right? Who uses books nowadays anyway? (Just kidding, if you know me, you know my obsession with books. I’m the type of person who loves the smell of old crumbling books) Patricia explained though that librarians use a lot of digital techniques; heck, they’re the ones who invented tagging! There’s a problem though with the mindset of the younger librarians versus the older (stuffier) librarians, with the older ones not fully embracing the digital era.

We ended BarCamp with a great party at St. Oberholz, meeting a lot of great people (*waves at Patricia, Nicole, Frode and Nav). I’m really looking forward to BarCamp London 3 now; so many people I know are coming, it’s sure to be great!

It’s exactly a week ago that I arrived in Berlin and I am now just so exhausted. So much has happened in these last seven days, that I haven’t even had time to blog about any of it yet. To make sure I actually will blog about it and not let it go completely to waste in the obscure labyrinth that is my memory, I’m making a promise now of the posts you’ll see from me in the next couple of days:

1. Barcamp Berlin + After Party
2. Web 2.0 Expo Berlin + Web2Open
3. Girl Geek Dinner Berlin

Not sure yet when I’ll post them, cause I’m just so tired now, but you should expect them to roll out the next couple of days. If not, feel free to kick me :D.

It’s been a bit quiet on my blog the last couple of days, but with a good reason. After a few days travel (it’s not as dramatic as it sounds), I finally spent my very first day in Berlin (Germany). The trip didn’t go as smoothly as we expected though:

Wednesday

All the last times I went to Holland I took the Eurolines bus; it’s a whole lot cheaper than plane, train or any other means of transportation between the UK and the “Continent”. This time though Cristiano wanted to take a RyanAir plane, because it didn’t matter that much in price and (of course) is a whole lot quicker. I find it ridiculous though that you now have to pay an extra fee for every piece of cargo luggage you’re taking with you and that you have to pay extra for being able to check-in online, but that you also have to pay extra if you want to check-in at the airport (either way you have to pay extra!).

Anyhow, we took the Terravision bus from Liverpool Street Station to Stanstead Airport and neatly arrived at the airport 15:35, 1.5 hour before the plane left. We checked in straight-away and after zipping all our 100 ml bottles of liquid in bags we still had 1 hour and 10 minutes left. The boarding time was 16:25, meaning we still had half an hour left. Now comes our stupidity: we didn’t realise that the gates that we saw weren’t the final boarding gates, but the security check. So we first had something to eat, arriving neatly “at time” on 16:25 at the “boarding gates”, only to discover we were in a very long row for the security check. Oops! It took us 30 minutes just to get through there, which left us desperately running for the plane. And of course, it would have to be one of the furthest gates! In the end we did make it, but it was a very, very close call. After landing in Eindhoven, my parents picked us and drove us to Arnhem.

Thursday

This day we didn’t do that much traveling; we spent the day shopping in Arnhem getting the last couple of items we needed for Germany.

Friday

Originally the plan was that Reinier and Alper would pick us up at IKEA Duiven at 13:00. However, Reinier had spent the previous day driving back and forth from London and only arrived back in Holland at 5 in the morning. The 13:00 became 15:00 so that he could get at least some sleep. Now normally it takes only 20-30 minutes to get to Duiven from my parent’s place; we left at 13:30 to keep some time over for lunch. Today almost every possible route was blocked; it took us 1.5 hour to get there! This meant that we were right on time, but that didn’t help that much. Not only was almost every road around Arnhem blocked, every major highway towards our meeting point was congested (apparently some truck driver drove himself off a bridge). Reinier phoned us to tell that they would have an hour delay! Brilliant, now we had time for lunch anyway! Finally at around 16:00 they picked us up and we made our way over the border into Germany.

Once in Germany we found out that the navigation cd for Germany that we had with us had to be unlocked first, making them completely useless. And of course we also didn’t have a “normal” map. Heck, we didn’t even have the address or the telephone number of Eelke, with whom we would be staying in Berlin. Luckily we could phone in the help of several people, who gave sufficient information to lead us safely into Berlin. Next time, I’m definitely going to plan all this stuff ahead and create some contingency plans in case the “digital” maps aren’t available.

So Friday night at 23:00 we finally arrived in Berlin! Phew, not the smoothest journey, right? Anyhow, yesterday was the first day of BarCamp Berlin, so keep an eye on this blog; I’ll (hopefully) post about it soon!

A long, long time ago in a country not so far away I had great dreams of becoming a visual effects artist for some big studio, creating a little bit of movie magic and earning an Oscar in the process. The backup slightly more attainable dream at the time was to work in the games industry, preferably for a game (series) I loved. Since then 6 years passed in which at one point I realized:

1. there aren’t any real cool movie or video games studios in the Netherlands,
2. there is no feasible way I’m moving to some interesting place where you do have those studios, and
3. linear algebra and computer graphics are not my strongest points.

So I let my dreams of visual effects (and that Oscar) fade away to make room for a more probable and attainable future. At that time I would never in my wildest dreams have imagined that I would now live in London, with all different opportunities just waiting to be taken. It is worth saying though that without making the choice not to pursue computer graphics, but choosing another direction instead, I wouldn’t have ended up where I am now.

Why all this sentimental talking about my dreams garbage? Last Tuesday and Wednesday was the London Game Career Fair, again an event of the London Games Festival. Even though I knew I’m not what they’re looking for, it couldn’t hurt to take a look, right? So last Tuesday I found myself in the middle of the fair at the Old Truman Brewery, surrounded by booths from EA, SEGA, Lucasarts, and many more.

I stopped by almost every booth (I skipped the university and college booths) and with all of them the conversation went down similar lines: What do you do? What do you want to do? Are you looking for a job? If so, here is a business card/website/email address where you can send your resume. Oh, and here is some free cool/crappy stuff.

I discovered (had forgotten) that a lot of companies aren’t only looking for people specialized in Computer Graphics and that my background in AI and pattern recognition can actually be quite useful in the games industry. You do, however, have to be very strong in C or C++. At the moment there’s a discussion going on about whether or not they should step over to C# (similarly 10-15 years ago there was the discussion if they should jump from Assembly to C or C++). Regardless though whether or not C# is adopted in the future, if you want a job now, you have to know C or C++ now. One tip I got was to have some programs/code ready to show your skills when you’re applying for a job.

There were three times that I talked to a woman at one of the booths and each time they were surprised to find a girl interested in games and with a background of Computer Science. One of them even went so far to hug me! They all remarked on the fact that while there are woman working in games, they are still in the minority and most of the time in a non-programming role (character design, environment design, QA, etc). I was planning to go the Woman in Games mixer that same night, but sadly other plans cropped up (free exclusive tickets to 30 Days of Night, which btw wasn’t that good).

So after a day of walking and talking around, I’ve got a list of websites and email addresses, for if I ever feel ready to try to get into the games industry. If I do, I will definitely have to brush up on my C/C++ skills first and create at least some sort of portfolio. I also ended up with a great bunch of freebies: 3 T-shirts (SEGA, Realtime Worlds and Other Ocean Interactive), a Lucasarts squishy pen, an Xbox 360 bottle of water, SEGA stickers and a whole bunch of other less useful stuff (mousemat, folders, etc). Not bad for a day’s “work”, huh?

If you’re looking to get into the games industry, I really recommend going to a fair like this. The people are genuinely helpful and give a lot of advice on how to get in. I noticed that a lot of people had brought multiple copies of their resumes (plus dvds with their work) with them to give away to companies, so make sure to bring along your resume. I’m not sure yet if I want to get into games myself, but these type of events are definitely interesting.

One of the London Games Festival events is Be Very Afraid, an annual event held at BAFTA displaying how schools and universities integrate new technologies into their curriculum. It’s meant to show policy makers what the possibilities are when children get in touch with new gadgets, ideas and creative resources. I was able to get a guest ticket, so last Monday I found myself being very afraid…

I got to speak to a couple of the kids and I found it really refreshing. A couple of weeks ago at BarCamp Brighton there was a discussion of how difficult it was to get kids more interested into technology. What I discovered was that these kids were so passionate and creative without needing any real motivation. Just the opportunity to let them play/work on/mess around with PDAs, Nintendo DSs and iPod Touchs (!!) is enough to make them realise what they can do with it.

I’ll try to describe what a couple of the schools were doing. One interesting thing I noticed though was that it was mainly the primary schools and the first years of secondary schools that were doing the really cool stuff. It seemed as if the older you got, the less appropriate it was to use gadgets and computers in a fun (but useful) way; everything turns so serious. In my eyes, you learn the best if you’re having fun with the subject, so why not try to motivate the students in a better way? Anyhow, here’s what I found out:

Dhoon School, Isle of Man

I talked to a sweet 9-10 year old girl who showed me on a iPod Touch (!!) the website her class created. It was an online learning game, where you could pick a place on the map, watch a video about the place and answer a question about the place. They also had simulated a part of it in a KeyNote (!!) presentation, putting all my KeyNote skills to shame. All the children in her class had an iBook or a MacBook, which they used on a daily basis.

St Columba’s Primary School

At this school the Brain Training game on the Nintendo DS was used to coach kids in logic and math. For ten weeks every morning every child had to “play” 10 minutes with the game. The teacher tested their grades prior to the 10 weeks and after the 10 weeks and discovered a significant increase. The boy (10 years old) I talked to was jumping up and down the whole time, desperately wanting to show how quick and precise he could solve all the math problems.

Whitmore Junior School, Essex

This school offered an afterschool club for children to create podcasts and comics. It started out with the podcasting, with the kids going through the complete process of creating regular episodes, writing the script, recording it and editing it all together. Eventually they also began making a weekly comic with several recurring characters. One of the girls loved it so much that even though she is now moved to another school (high school, secondary school? not sure what you call it here in the UK) she’s coming back every week for the podcasting club.

Capel-le-Ferne Primary School, Kent

There were several interesting things this school did. For starters, they had a special project week, where all the kids brought their robots and gadgets along with them to school. Based on the items they brought with them, they created a movie with some kids filming it, some acting in it, and others editing it and adding sound effects to it. Next to that, they built and programmed Spike (see image), a robot that could “see” the edge of tables (and not fall off) and would try to grab your hand. Finally, every child had an own PDA with camera and internet access. There was one project where 6 of the children went on an excursion to a mill, with the rest of the class staying behind at the school, but staying in constant contact because of the PDAs. The idea was that they had to write a story about the mill: the stay-behinders had help from a children’s book author, giving tips on what type of information was useful. They played this info through to the mill-kids giving them instructions on what to look for. The mill-kids in turn investigated everything and emailed the data and photos of the place back to them.

Final Note

These weren’t the only schools that were at the event, just the ones that really popped out to me. I loved the enthusiasm and creativity of the all the participating kids and definitely do feel intimidated by what these kids are learning to do. Most of them aren’t even 10 yet and they can do stuff better than I can. Just imagine what they’ll be doing in 10 years time! Be Very Afraid, indeed…