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Why can’t I dislike something?

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Facebook dislike 1024x336 Why can 8217 t I dislike something

When I was a school, we had a simple merit / demerit system to help improve behaviour.

Each child in the school was a member of a house (I was Owls), and good deeds or work earned you merit points, bad behaviour earned demerits for the house total.

At the end of each term, the merits were added up for each house, then the demerits subtracted and the house with the most merits won the house cup – yes, a bit like Harry Potter.

Some classes had weekly or monthly prizes for the child with the most merits as well. Read More ...

Gamification: Learning from our kids that the Task can be the Reward

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Gamification 300x56 Gamification Learning from our kids that the Task can be the Reward

Let me just start by saying, I am not an expert in the subject of gamification nor am I trying to be. These ramblings are just my opinion.

This opinion is based on the following experience. 10 years in the IT industry, a life time of playing games, running a games review website, writing about and reviewing games for 5 years, teaching martial arts and working in the education sector for a few years helping to develop learning materials.

People learn and develop in different ways, but one thing has become clear over the last few decades of education. Fun makes learning easier. Just look at how your children are taught their ABC’s. We all were taught the song. Some of us were shown flash cards – C is for Cat. Read More ...

Reviews – Resetting the Value baseline

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[dc]A[/dc]s a person who runs a games review site, I am extremely fortunate and get to try out not just games, but gaming related hardware. Anyone who has seen my site will know there are quite a few headset reviews as well as reviews of gaming mice.

Just recently though, I have had a slight crisis over how I perceive value. One of the things people often criticise reviewers for, is the lack of connection they have to average buyers. I always thought that I was pretty good at this, but I may have slipped a little! Read More ...

Meet the distracted, multi tasking and gamified workforce of the future.

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Recently I was lucky enough to be given an hour to chat with a group of 16 and 17 year olds about Social Media and technology in general.

It started with a general chat about how we communicate in day-to-day life. I was amazed that the first answer I got was “Facebook”. I had twitter, Xbox live, MSN and email before we got to talking! Face to face human interaction. However, as I spoke to them more and more I began to understand why. They take digital communication for granted in the same way we who are older take face to face communication for granted. They thought that was the answer I was looking for. It is just as natural to them. Read More ...

Bath time blogging and walking on the moon.

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Image Bath time blogging and walking on the moon

Despite the title, this is actually about how amazing technology is and how much we take it for granted!

Right now, I am lying in my bath, typing this up on my iPhone. When I am finished, I will press publish on the WordPress app and moments later these words will become available to millions of people over the internet.
Whilst I am doing that I am also chatting to old friends over Meebo, Live communicator, Twitter and email.

Now, scrub that mental image from your mind and let the basic message sink in. We can communicate with friends and family and potentially connect with millions of other people all from a mobile device like a smart phone. Technology is amazing. Read More ...