Why I Don't Clean House

If I meant my real house I'd be in trouble, but instead I mean this blog, one of my homes on the internet. There have been several times I've thought to myself that i should delete some posts, clean up some things and so on, but in truth I just fix some typos and such and move on. While I never was sure of the reason behind my lack of motivation, I may have today. It shows the path I have walked to get where I am. That's important in and of itself, and so, it shall be kept as it is, and has been, for all to see.

This came to me while reading other blog posts, that the history, the journey, is just as important for people to be aware of as the results. Knowing about the person, or people, behind something, how they get things done, and what their views are is just as important as the things they do in public.

People don't just up and do something big one day usually. So the history also has the value of showing how others might be able to pursue their dreams. It's been a few years since my educational initiative ideas came to mind, and by sharing the hardship and journey with others I might be able to inspire people to help and persevere. That would be worth the effort of blogging.

Have fun, spread the word and tell me what you think,
Igen Oukan
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Why I Don't Clean House

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Picking One's Battles

When going through life their are some times when you have to makes sacrifices and concessions. Yesterday I made one, to be able to use a free piece of hardware. With it I can do a lot more, more easily. Without it I would have to do a lot more work. The catch was installing some software that I had no intention of EVER installing. I installed the software to be able to use the hardware, because it wasn't worth the battle to find another way.

To be honest, I've never been an Apple/Mac fan, not that I'm particularly fond of Microsoft either. It's just that I've seen Apple programs try to install other programs while updating, and I don't like the closed nature of their development stuff. This goes to the point that until yesterday, I've refused to install Quicktime onto my laptop. Then, my free iPod Nano 5G arrived in the mail.

With it I can record video clips. Those I can use to make compilation videos and add audio as I choose. Those can be used as internet content. Lots of potential for using the videos on blogs, for presentations and just doing silly stuff. All that because I was willing to install iTunes and Quicktime, which I didn't want to do.

If I had balked at that, I would have a piece of hardware that others want, that I couldn't use. Doing the videos would have been a little more of a pain using a digital camera, that isn't mine, putting together the digital videos so it doesn't seem like a boring slide show and covering all the content myself, rather than getting other people's voices into the videos.

Yesterday's Lesson: Choose your battles carefully.

This lesson is brought to you today because I was too busy with my new toy to even think of this post.

Have fun, spread the word and tell me what you think,
Igen Oukan
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Picking One's Battles

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A New Start

First, I've been sick for almost two weeks now and still working on this new start of my initiative. It's a cool little booklet I think will be really useful in helping people, and it will be freely available. Creativity, media literacy and play are big parts of the contents of the booklet, to help people in daily life. The other big thing I think I should mention is the description of learning cycles. I'm hoping this booklet will be helpful in applying for The Mind Trust Education Entrepreneur Fellowship.

I'm writing this little booklet, changing my initial focus in my initiative and still going for the same goals. Yep, that's about it for the moment. So, why am I posting this? Well, this is a blog that was started for the sake of the initiative and effort combining learning science and game design. That's not it though.

Or, at least I hope it's not all.

I like watching the Dog Whisperer, because it says that the problem behaviors of dogs are because of the behavior of humans, and proves it. There are several behaviors that just cause problems in life that become obvious while watching the show, but something else becomes obvious too. It's not enough to just hear, listen or intellectually understand ideas. Some of the people on the show are avid fans of the show and are failing in implementation, not memorization. Cesar Millan shows, corrects and encourages these people as they confront their fears and make mistakes.

One of the things noted in my house is that the dogs are behaving better, since I have been at home sick. Consistency, preventing escalation of unwanted behavior and encouraging wanted behaviors is all that has been different in their lives, because that's what I do that some of the others don't do as much. Yet, one of the big points that Cesar brings up constantly is the mental and emotional state of the human affecting the dogs. Staying calm through it all is important for the human and the dog the have a positive experience.

I think the basic guidelines and information on the booklet will help people stay calm more of the time. The reason is dealing with stressful situations and approaches to life. If you can approach life in a way that causes less stress, and have better ways of dealing with the stressful situations, life on the whole will be less stressful.

Have fun, spread the word and tell me what you think,
Igen Oukan
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A New Start

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Gaming Beyond Boudaries

It's times like this that I am encouraged in my efforts with game design a learning science. Over at the Lost Garden, Dan wrote about a project to use gameplay to make Microsoft Office easier to understand and use. Another article I'm just reading now is one put out by the Defense Department of the US about the benefits of gaming on observation, creativity and handling new situations.

"I think we're at the beginning of a new science of learning," he [Ray Perez, a program officer at the ONR's warfighter performance department] said, "that will be the integration of neuroscience with developmental psychology, with cognitive science, and with artificial intelligence."

I've been going on about this for about a year and a half, while others have been talking about it for longer than that. Now it seems like some of the scientific proof is coming to prove what we've been saying all along, that game design can help educational design. Yet, this shouldn't discourage us little guys from putting our best out there for the world to see. Instead, it should encourage us that there are better times ahead.

We've known for a while that the US military has it's eyes on educational and training uses for video games. Besides the training simulators and similar games, there were the Army games made to share the experience with the public. I've also heard of combat video games being used to help experienced combatants re-integrate with civilian life. Yet this is even bigger than just the potential military uses. This is the military saying that their game-based training programs have had certain types of results.

It will be interesting to what happens this year.

Have fun, spread the word and tell me what you think,
Igen Oukan
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Gaming Beyond Boudaries

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