Jaci Wells's blog

Final Random Comments

Jaci Wells — Sat, 08 Dec 2007 14:37:47 -0500

Before the semester officially ended, I wanted to get in a few final observations. Be forewarned: they’re pretty random.

Creating a video game≈playing a video game

Party like a Rock Star

Jaci Wells — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 16:47:25 -0500

We've talked this semester about Guitar Hero, but I wanted to add another, similar game to the list: Rock Star. I had never even heard of the game, but a few days ago, I had the beautiful opportunity to witness it in action. For those of you who aren't familiar, it's actually pretty similar to Guitar Hero, but it's a multiple-player game; one person sings, another plays guitar, and a third person plays the drums (I think there can also be a bass player for a total of four people playing the game at once).

Attention Second Lifers--so funny

Jaci Wells — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 19:08:02 -0500

I just had to share this thing that I saw on t.v. a couple of minutes ago while enjoying my nightly frozen pizza and Everybody Loves Raymond rerun. On Channel four, there was a preview for tonight's news at 10:00. This deep, imposing voice (think of the guy who does the horror movie voice overs) comes on and says "people making money...off of nothing at all: tonight at 10:00." It's hard to imitate in a blog, but the point is that he said it as though we have something to fear, kind of like the idea of teenagers having fun. Anyway, I hope someone else sees this advertisement tonight.

A Flash genius is born...

Jaci Wells — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 17:04:35 -0500

She was born in the Heavilon second floor computer lab at 4:32 today. A bouncing girl, sixty-five inches, no-one-needs-to-know how many pounds.

AAAAGH! (but it's okay)

Jaci Wells — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 15:11:07 -0400

I've spent the last couple of weeks figuring out what I want to do for my final project, thinking about other projects that have been done, and getting advice from tech-savvier people than me. I found a space to publish my final project (the OWL, not surprisingly) and even got H. Allen Brizee, fearless OWL coordinator, all worked up about it. Upon the advice of my tech savvy friends and after a little investigating on my own, I've decided to use Adobe Flash for what I want to do.

Unicef game

Jaci Wells — Sat, 27 Oct 2007 14:32:52 -0400

So, I'm obsessed with that Unicef game that we played in class; I can't stop. I've actually gotten pretty good at it, though, in the sense that I can keep the whole family alive and debt-free for all four seasons. I wanted to share a couple of strategies that I've discovered:

1. Don't let your daughter go to school. It's a waste of money, because there aren't any available jobs that more education qualifies her for anyway. Just make her work.
2. Don't let the wife go to school either. It doesn't qualify her for squat anyway, so it's a waste of time and money.

Thinking about Bogost...

Jaci Wells — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 22:49:18 -0400

Like Lars, I wondered if Bogost’s concept of procedurality is really specific to videogames. While I was reading, I kept thinking about the board game Life. My brother and I always used to play it when I was a kid. I would inevitably lose (he's eight years older and we played when I was like, 9), and then I would lay awake all night worried that because I couldn't win at the game of Life, I would end up sucking at life. I was an anxious child.

Games Forum

Jaci Wells — Sat, 13 Oct 2007 11:36:15 -0400

The panel I attended was “Brain, Behavior, Cognition and Gaming” with Ben Stokes, Alice Robison and William Watson. There were a number of themes that came out of the presentation that I found particularly interesting. The first was access, though not access in the same way we’ve been talking about it throughout the course. A second, related theme that I found interesting was the potential for gaming to build empathy in students; though none of the panelists discussed this directly, they all implied it in some way or other, and Stokes touched on it in his discussion of access.

What do we teach?

Jaci Wells — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 11:50:02 -0400

I'm teaching Business Writing this semester for the first time, so I'm in the PW mentoring class. This is the first time in a long time that I'm teaching a brand spanking-new class, and it's that way for many of the folks with me in mentoring. Teaching the new course and taking mentoring has led me to return to many of the same fundamental questions about teaching writing that I first had when I started. The one that comes up more than any other is, what exactly is the range of what we should be teaching in writing courses?

Girls and Guitars

Jaci Wells — Fri, 21 Sep 2007 20:52:30 -0400

I wanted to add a couple of comments to Morgan's fabulous discussion of women and music.