I haven’t had a chance to try this yet, but my new gaming friend in Hawaii Amy sent me a link to Arcademic Skill Builders, a site full of free educational games for younger kids. They’re done in Flash so that you can play them with your mouse or keyboard, but some of them a’re also designed to be played on the Wii in its web browser, which is just too cool. Literally get kids involved in the game - wonderful.

About Arcademic Skill Builders

“Arcademic Skill Builders are online educational games that offer a powerful approach to learning basic math, language arts, vocabulary, and thinking skills. This program stems from experience, systematic observations, and research in attempting to understand student learning in school and social situations.

The software was inspired by arcade games and the intense engagement they fostered between the game and player. We reasoned if this kind of engagement could be focused on educational content, it would be truly a magical approach to certain kinds of learning.

Philosophically, the games embrace research on learning dealing with ‘automaticity’ and ‘fluency.’ Automaticity is fast and accurate object identification at the single object level. Fluency involves a deeper understanding, and anticipation of what will come next.

Fluency impacts three types of critical learning outcomes:

• Retention: the ability to perform a skill or recall knowledge long after formal learning programs have ended
• Endurance: the ability to maintain performance levels
• Application: the ability to apply what is learned to perform more complex skills in new situations.

These engaging educational games provide focused repetition practice that enables fluency to be achieved more quickly. With what we now know about automaticity and fluency in academic performance, we can help students achieve masterful levels performance faster than ever before! View our manual for more on our philosophy.

Our educational video games offer an innovative approach to teaching basic academic skills by incorporating features of arcade games and educational practices into fun online games that will motivate, intrigue, and teach your students.”

In the future, they’ll be adding “features that will enable you to save records, tailor content, track scores, pinpoint student problem areas, and much more!”

My Wii Bling got another mention today - this one at Wii Fanboy, who were led to it by the post yesterday at Hawty McBloggy. Ain't the internet grand?
Wii Fanboy had a link to another fun alternative wristband that completely cracked me up. Check it out.

bs angel (that's her gamer name) over at Hawty McBloggy posted an article about my Wii Bling on her blog today. She writes about gaming from a woman's perspective and she has a very cool running feature where she showcases Etsy discoveries. I was clicking around her site and made a little esty discovery myself - bs angel has an etsy shop too. She makes really nice cards - and a few naughty ones and cards for gamers.
You can read an earlier post about my Wii Bling here and you can find them for sale in my shop. The blue feather wristband is my favorite.

I'm waiting for some more glass to make some new pendants. In the meantime, here's something else I've been meaning to do for a while. We love the Wii, but the standard wristbands are awfully drab. Alan got the genius idea to make new wristbands and so I've come up with several designs and I've started to list them in my Etsy shop.
A super soft feather wristband for glam players. Black, pink, and red are on the way.Wear your smacktalk on your wrist with this one. It reads "Bite Mii."Flower Power comes with this one.All natural wooden beads and hemp cord for more granola and/or manly players.
This one is so Jo - a pink wristband with sparkly gems - perfect for players who always choose Daisy or Peach when playing Mario Party 8. Soon to be available in blue too.It's really easy to change the wristband and these are really strong - no Wiimotes flying through our television on my watch. But check out this funny website documenting Wii mishaps.

Alan has chosen the wooden beads, I picked the feather wristband, and Jo (the master of Wii bowling) chooses the pink sparkly one. Surprise, surprise! The unexpected benefit of upgraded wristbands? Now we all have our own personal Wiimotes.The family that Wiis together. . .

A few things I’ve wanted to blog about in-depth but am just throwing out there for now.

• Paul over at ResearchQuest beat me to the punch to post about Carnegie Mellon University’s Library Arcade. This is a must-read, must-play combo for all library staff interested in using gaming in instruction. Heck, maybe we should have a leaderboard on this one. I love the idea of adapting an old school style game (like “Diner Dash”) but putting a library spin on it.
• When I wasn’t looking, Penn State turned its Virtual Worlds blog into a big ol’ Educational Gaming Commons, now with forums in addition to the blog.
• Chris attended the Games, Learning, and Society Conference back in July (the one that I also went to), and you can read his notes over on LibLaureate. In his reflections on James Paul Gee’s opening keynote, Chris wrote, “When do we reach a threshold and go grab a walk-through or a cheat code? Is this the importance of social networks - I’ve reached so far and now I need some help?” That’s a great question, and I think the answer is yes.
• At Learning2007 later this month, they’re going to do a Rapid Learning Game Experiment. While the exercise itself is fascinating, it’s the last sentence that intrigues me most (emphasis is mine).

  “We are going to push Gaming for Learning Development to the max in an upcoming experiment. Here are the ingredients:

  • Take several undergraduate students from Champlain College’s Electronic Gaming & Interactive Development Program in Vermont and bring them to Orlando for Learning 2007.
  • Give them an assignment to create a Learning Focused Game, defined by a group of companies at Learning 2007.
  • Over the next 58 hours, in full view of 2,000 participants - with feedback every few hours - they will build an web based immersive learning game.
  • This learning activity will then be reviewed, edited and released into Open Source for the entire global community to use.“
• The following video is just awesome in every sense of the word. I laughed, I cried, and then I laughed some more. Watch the whole thing to find out who’s behind it. Not only is it an object lesson in how social gaming can be and how libraries could implement it, but it’s also a great marketing lesson for us. I’ll definitely be showing snippets of this one in my presentations.
  

MooWee Plays Internet TV with Your Wii

“MooWee is an application that lets you watch Internet TV content on your television screen using your Nintento Wii game console. You’ll need an Internet broadband connection with a minimum bandwidth of 384kbps as well as an Internet browser on your Wii console in order to hook this up to your television….

The MooWee service can be enjoyed online as well. MooWee is of course an alternative to other set top devices like Apple TV, and other game consoles like the Xbox, which has recently indicated that it would like to work with th BBC on providing content for users. Sony is another company that’s looking to be more competitive in this market, and will be using a collection of devices and services to do so. Other services include Building B and Jaman. StumbleVideo offers a similar service for Nintendo Wii.” [Mashable]

Anyone tried any of these services on the Wii yet? If I have time this weekend….

(Yes, this is the first one without Macaulay Culkin, which doesn't bode well. Or does, depending on your point of view. But hey - IMDb says Scarlett Johansen was in it, so that's something.)

Wendi and Jo are gone for the last time this summer, and I have a few days to tackle The Brooklyn Nine without distraction. Well, unless you count the house being built outside as a distraction. Ugh.

This is a rewrite on The Brooklyn Nine, the first major revision, and I have a good game plan based on editor Liz's comments. I'm very happy with how the first "inning" has worked out, and I'm well into the second. Here are today's totals - since yesterday I spent the day in Asheville at a baseball game:

Pages (re)written: 17!

Mellow Mushroom pizzas eaten: 1

Wii played: None! :-(

Books read: One (I had a two-hundred page head start)

Episodes of No Reservations watched: 2

Walls erected: 1

How pathetic am I? Jo just trounced me at Wii bowling. SHE'S FOUR YEARS OLD FOR CRYING OUT LOUD! She didn't leave a single open frame! When it's her turn she just pops right up, zips her player into position and carelessly flings the ball down the lane. She even picks up spares - just as cool as can be the whole time. Near the end of the game she looked over at me and - completely without sarcasm - said, "It's ok that you didn't get a turkey Mommy. I don't get one every game."

I blame Alan.

A quality writing day, if not a quantity writing day. I've abandoned hope of completing the manuscript by Friday, mostly because I see more time-eating tasks on the horizon: like the possibility of having to walk all the way BACK to the service station to pick up my car tomorrow. I may have a ride, but it depends on his schedule. I had hoped to go into Asheville tomorrow night to get a pizza and play trivia (I came in second among eleven teams the last time I was home alone and earned a $30.00 gift certificate!) but that plan will be scrapped if it means walking two hours to pick up the car. I love Mellow Mushroom pizza (and those who know me know what an understatement that is) but I don't think I would walk two hours and drive another two hours there and back for one.

We also have the tree guy coming tomorrow. Regrettably, a couple of trees have to be taken down to make way for our new house - but fear not! We'll plant far more than we cut down on this lot. I also still have to sign a contract and get our blueprints okayed by a building inspector, which I ALSO hoped to do tomorrow.

Did I mention I wanted to actually do some writing tomorrow too?

Okay, here are your daily lotto numbers:

Days home alone: 3

Chapters written: 4

Pages written: 30

Wii baseball: Within 200 points of pro

Wii bowling: Bowled four games; maintained pro status

Wii tennis: Still pretty hopeless

Wii golf: Shot another 3 under; maintained pro status

Mellow Mushroom pizzas eaten: Still just 1

Miles walked: Still just 5, thank goodness

In a day interrupted by a trip to Asheville and then a very long walk home, I managed to write one chapter of eight pages. Unfortunately, I realized that I've been miscounting the number of chapters I have left to write - I had eleven left to write when the week began, not ten, so I've got three down and now eight still to go. Not sure I can make that by the week's end . . .

Here then are the new totals:

Days home alone: 2

Chapters written: 3

Pages written: 22

Wii: No change

Mellow Mushroom pizzas eaten: 1

Miles walked: 5

Wendi and Jo are on the road this week, which means I'm home alone. I spent most of the day Sunday using violent pratfall traps to ward off two inept bandits who were trying to rob our home, but I did manage to squeeze in some writing time and some Wii time. Here are the totals:

Days home alone: 1

Chapters written: 2

Pages written: 14

Wii golf high score: -3 on nine holes!

Home run challenge: 10 in a row

Mellow Mushroom pizzas eaten: 0

As you can see, I hit two personal bests yesterday - 14 pages written, which may be some kind of a record for me, and 3 under on golf, which is certainly a record, as my previous best on my own Wii was 2 over. I also discovered that our Wii is wireless! It picked up our in-house wireless internet connection, which is totally cool. I have yet to discover how to play others online, but I will. In the meantime I went to the Wii shop just for kicks, and learned you can buy and download old NES and Super Nintendo games. Oh mother of Mario, if they ever offer Super Dodge Ball I will never leave the house again. Why oh why did I ever get rid of my old Nintendo Entertainment System? Perhaps I knew that someday the Wii would let me re-live my former NES glory. Or maybe I just couldn't keep a fifth game system hooked to my television . . .

So today may prove a busy one. I'm expecting a call from our builder, telling me the contract for building our home is ready to sign. Then I need to collect a copy of our blueprints and go down to the building inspector's office to get a building permit. Why the rush? Construction on our new house is due to begin this week. Then later this afternoon I need to run down to Asheville to deliver Wendi's pinafore project to Lark Books. I think I'll also eat a Mellow Mushroom pizza while in town. You know, to be different.

But I've gotten up at what is for me a decent hour, and now I'm going to get busy so when the distractions come I'll already have some writing out of the way. I don't know if this is going to be a two chapter day or not, but that would be nice. I always look ahead at the chapter I have to write the next day, so I sort of wake up thinking about what's to come, and today should be a fun one. Horatio will confront a suspect, learn he's got the wrong guy, and then have a revealing chat with his mysterious ally, General Sternwood. (Fans of Chandler will recognize that name, borrowed from The Big Sleep.)

Those who know me as a writer know I outline everything before I write it, which allows me to look ahead like this. I wonder if other authors who outline do the same thing. I get excited when I know I've got a good chapter coming. As I go off to my office I'll tell Wendi - "I have to go kill someone today," or "today's the day Horatio gets the snot beat out of him." I kind of like thinking about it that way - enjoying the events as they unfold. Maybe authors who don't outline get that same sort of feeling after the chapter has been finished, like "Oh, today was fun - I ran over my main character with a golf cart!" But I've always been a pizza-is-half-eaten kind of guy. I'll take a whole pizza staring me in the face over a half-consumed one any day.

Wendi and Jo are gone for an unprecedented second trip to her parents', and I'm once again home alone. This is very good timing, as I'm exactly ten chapters away from finishing the first draft of Something Wicked - and I have an ambitious Friday finish in my sights.

So what was the first order of business? Playing the Wii, of course. Although I should note that I am no longer playing my friend Paul's Wii. I'm now playing with my own Wii. (I know, I know. But please, let's keep this clean - this is a family blog after all.)

The story of how we actually FOUND a Wii to purchase is one perhaps best saved for a later blog - or over a game of MarioParty 8 - but I will say that when I finally found a place that said they had two in stock they only had one left by the time Jo, my Dad and I got there fifteen minutes later - with another two callers supposedly on the way trying to beat us there. Had the second been there we would have bought it for Wendi's sister Niki, who actually has scouts around the United States on the lookout for a Wii of her own.

So, after one week of owning our own Wii (and having to start all over at establishing records and benchmarks) I've yet to improve upon my Paul's Wii best in golf (par for a nine hole course). I have nonetheless practiced and progressed far enough to be rated as a "Pro" golfer on the system. So I always have a career on the Wii PGA circuit to fall back on if the writing career doesn't pan out, I guess. I've also become a "Pro" level bowler - and I've managed to blow my old Paul's Wii high score out of the water with a 268. (Which I hit today.) I attribute that success to the Guide to Natural Bowling book I picked up in Spruce Pine, North Carolina a couple of months back. To my chagrin though, I've been unable to reach "Pro" level in baseball - my favorite sport. I'm getting close, but the computer opponent really gets tough on you when you get better, and I don't know any other way to combat him. Perhaps I'll have to buy a hint book. Which will of course cement my status as loser supreme.

So, um, back to the novel - which I really am eager to get back to. We just spent all day yesterday at the Grandfather Mountain Highland Games in Linville, North Carolina, which was the original inspiration for the setting for Something Wicked. I was recharged and re-invigorated - and came up with nice tweaks to a couple of scenes I had already planned. We also purchased four CDs from great bands we heard - Albannach, BarleyJuice, and Mother Grove, all of which I'll be listening to as I finish the book. I hope to mention one or two of them in the context of the book too.

All right - I've played the Wii and I've blogged to begin my Home Alone sequel, so I'm off to write. Writing updates to follow -

Did you realize you could save the life of your favorite book? 

The wonderful Words Without Borders blog has a story about two dedicated readers who founded a publishing company just to rescue one of their favorite novels from oblivion. In this age of quick publishing, it may be easier than you think to save your favorite book. Thanks to Maud Newton and The Mumpsimus for the link.

Steve Bryant notices a nefarious trend in storytelling: "In other words, another inside baseball story of the type becoming so common these days; sometimes it seems like we no longer tell stories straight up, we tell stories about the making of those stories." How can we stop this slow slide into meta-life? I don't know, but Steve suggests we play the hot new sport all the kids are talking about: Wiimbledon!!!

The monthly Fahrenheit reading -- as featured in Time Out New York -- will be held on Sunday, June 3, 2007 at the Black & White bar in New York City. I'm going to read a story. The list is still open if you want to tell your story. Visit the site for details.

Publishing Spotted collects the best of what's around on writing blogs on any given day. Feel free to send tips and suggestions to your fearless editor: jason [at] thepublishingspot.com.