My budding writer

Jessie’s class has been learning to write essays over the past couple weeks. That girl loves to write and I’ve read several of her stories that she’s written on her own. She has a great imagination, and I told her that she should keep writing even if it’s just for fun. (after all, I got my poetry and for a short time did write several short stories and published two of them)

So far, for her assignments, she’s written about karate and cartoons — two subjects she knows very well. LOL! Her assignment this week has been to write a description 5 paragraph essay. She was showing it to me last night — she wrote about dogs. She mentioned that her teacher encouraged her to write about something else (as the majority of the class wrote about animals!), and she was stumped and out of ideas.

I named off several things that she knows well: her various video games (UT!!), Harry Potter, Webkinz (too much like animals she said), Neopets, … she rejected them all and I was running out of ideas. Looking over across the den, we have a box of wedding stuff waiting to go into storage. I suggest writing about her part in the wedding. No dice. My next suggestion: How about the honeymoon?

“Huh?” LOL, she gave me a puzzled look that made me laugh, “You know, Disney World?”

Her face lit up like the 4th of July. Eureka! I hit gold. :mrgreen:

She scrapped the paper she had previously written and started at once writing a new one. She let me read it just before bedtime last night and she wrote more about the hotel cafeteria and pool than the Disney World park itself. LOL!

Good thing we went there instead of the royal caribbean cruise I had been eying, hehe.

So my little budding writer was all happy and giddy when I left for work this morning. She was still talking about the paper she wrote last night and can’t wait for her teacher to read it.

That’s my girl! :cool:

Posted by Nicki on April 22nd, 2008 at 8:30 am

Of health and gaming

One of my clients sent me this and I thought there may be someone who reads it here that may be interested:

My name is Susan Promislo and I am the communications officer for the Pioneer Portfolio of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The Pioneer Portfolio supports innovative projects and ideas that may spur breakthrough improvements in the future of health and health care. One area we have increasingly been exploring is the connection between gaming and game technologies and health and health care — we recently launched a new national program to support research and analysis in this emerging area.

Health Games Research is an $8.25 million RWJF national program that supports outstanding research to enhance the quality and impact of interactive games used to improve health. The goal of the program is to advance the innovation, design, and effectiveness of health games and game technologies so that they help people improve their health-related behaviors and, as a result, achieve significantly better health outcomes.

Health Games Research is led by Dr. Debra Lieberman of the University of California, Santa Barbara and it has issued its first call for proposals - I have provided a summary of the program and current funding opportunity from Dr. Lieberman below. The application deadline is Jan. 29 and we’re hoping to stimulate as many high-quality proposals as possible; up to $2 million will be made in research grants during this round, and a second round of funding will be available in late 2008. I was hoping you might be willing to share word of this new program and CFP among members of the Academy of Behavioral Medicine Research.

Please let me know if I can provide any additional information. I would be most grateful for any help you could provide in sharing this via ABMR networks and/or any other channels you think are appropriate.

Best wishes for a wonderful 2008, and sincere thanks for your assistance.

*******************************************

Susan Promislo
Communications Officer
Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
609.627.7638
spromislo@rwjf.org

*******************************************

HEALTH GAMES RESEARCH

By now, I hope you have seen the announcement of the Health Games Research national program http://www.healthgamesresearch.org generously funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Pioneer Portfolio. The program offers researchers from many fields and disciplines a great opportunity to conduct research in this emerging field, both to advance the design and effectiveness of health games and to provide an evidence base for decision-makers who buy, use, recommend, produce, or fund health games.

Here’s the Call for Proposals

http://www.rwjf.org/applications/solicited/cfp.jsp?ID=20001

for up to $200,000 in research funding. In two rounds of funding, the program will award up to $2 million in 2008 and also up to $2 million in 2009. Proposals for the first round are due January 29, 2008 (3:00 p.m. EST). The Call for Proposals provides details about eligibility and research areas.

On the web site http://www.healthgamesresearch.org you can (1) access the Call for Proposals, (2) read FAQs, (3) register for our applicant web conferences on December 13 (where we will present information about the grants program and answer questions), and (4) apply for a grant.

If the program’s web site, Call for Proposals, FAQs, and web conferences don’t answer your questions, you may submit questions to healthgamesresearch@rwjf.org and your e-mail will be forwarded to the appropriate staff member, who will send you answers.

Health Games Research has a national program office, which Dr. Debra Lieberman directs at the University of California, Santa Barbara. The RWJF funding will continue for 4.5 years until 2012. In addition to managing the grants program, the national program office at UCSB will develop a searchable online database of publications, research findings, organizations, experts, technologies, games, and other resources of interest to the field. Staff will also conduct studies of health games, create research tools, and issue reports and research briefs to summarize work in this field. And, they will work to convey the field’s research findings to a wide audience of decision-makers in medicine, health promotion, game publishing, technology and software, policymaking, government, academe, K-12 education, community leadership, etc., as well as invite and facilitate their participation, support, and research collaboration.

Games for Health http://www.gamesforhealth.org, led by Ben Sawyer, has also received funding from RWJF to work as a partner with the Health Games Research program to help build the field. Ben will convene regional and national meetings such as the popular annual Games for Health Conference, lead competitions, and lead online and offline forums to strengthen ties between the worlds of game development and health care. He will continue working to encourage and facilitate the development of high quality, well designed health games, bringing people and groups together and helping them find resources and opportunities.

Ben has already done so much to build the field, and this funding will help him boost and expand this great work.

For further information from RWJF about funding calls, publications, and news, you can sign up here http://www.rwjf.org/services/ to receive e-mail alerts.

I hope you will take a look at the Call for Proposals and, if eligible, consider submitting an application to Health Games Research in January.

Thanks!

On their website, I found the following key dates and deadlines:

  • December 7, 2007 (3:00 p.m. EST) and December 13, 2007 (4:00 p.m. EST)—Applicant Web conference calls (optional). To register, please click on the registration link found in the right-hand column.
  • January 29, 2008 (3:00 p.m. EST)—Deadline for receipt of proposals.
  • May 1, 2008—Grant start date.
  • May 6 - 7, 2008—Program annual meeting for grantees only, Baltimore, Maryland
  • May 8 - 9, 2008—Games for Health Conference, Baltimore, Maryland

I’ve read my fair share of articles and previous studies of “good gaming” — or cases where gaming benefits the player in physical and/or mental aspects. Lord knows I’ve posted my fair share over at BYKYC.

It’s good to see that many of these studies are continuing!

Posted by Nicki on January 14th, 2008 at 2:17 pm

Games, and Gaming

Had a great time at the FSU game, though was a bit dismayed to find that my Utterz posts weren’t going through. (still figuring that out) Had other technical difficulties: I found that my camera’s rechargeable batteries have pretty much gone kaput … so most of the pics I took were on my Helio Ocean. (Have GOT to get me a new camera!) We got in late Sunday afternoon, picked Jessie up from her mother’s, then pretty much crashed. I’ve been having headaches the last couple of days (first ones since the wedding, really), so I took it easy yesterday — outside of doing a little “shopping.”

Jim and I had decided instead of giving “traditional” wedding gifts to each other, we’re upgrading our machines. After all, UT3 is due out in just a couple of weeks! ;)

Jim’s pretty much got his stuff picked out and we’ve started ordering parts, but I decided to “go lighter” … I’m getting a laptop and will be shedding my box. (Shocked, I know! ;))

I still love my alien green case, but I decided that for the amount of money we’d be shelling out, I could get just as decent a machine as a laptop — and a laptop is mobile. I’d be able to cart it with me where needed and it would make my load MUCH lighter when packing up for LAN parties!

I have *SO* missed my LAN parties, and let’s face it, PCs are heavy!

Now that a new UT is coming out, I’m itching for some FPS action. I’ve been eying this beauty on NewEgg:

ASUS F3 Series F3SV-X1 NoteBook Intel Core 2 Duo T7300(2.00GHz) 15.4″ Wide XGA 1GB DDR2 667 160GB 5400rpm DVD Super Multi NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GS

The graphics card is decent enough for some medium/high gaming and design/dev works, but I’ll have to double up on the RAM as it will be running Vista. (and we all know how MS OS’s like to suck up memory!)

I’ve been playing the UT3 demo in my spare time (or what little I’ve had, LOL!) and can’t WAIT until the real thing hits! :twisted:

UT3’s Specs:

Minimum System Requirements

  • Windows XP SP2 or Windows Vista
  • 2.0+ GHZ Single Core Processor
  • 512 Mbytes of System RAM
  • NVIDIA 6200+ or ATI Radeon 9600+ Video Card
  • 8 GB of Free Hard Drive Space

Recommended System Requirements

  • 2.4+ GHZ Dual Core Processor
  • 1 GBytes of System RAM
  • NVIDIA 7800GTX+ or ATI x1300+ Video Card
  • 8 GB of Free Hard Drive Space

Posted by Nicki on October 29th, 2007 at 8:53 am

I wish I still had mine!

One of the things I’ve come to regret over the last few years is getting rid of my old NES system. When I first bought my home, I basically threw out anything that wasn’t “absolutely necessary” … among the things abandoned was my Nintendo game system and all the controllers.

This makes me wish I had kept it! :cry:

Posted by Nicki on October 26th, 2007 at 3:25 pm

I *so* want one of these!

Featured on Geekologie today:

These simple LED lamps are made by a company out of Hong Kong. Don’t you think it looks just like the mushrooms from the Super Mario Bros. series?

SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!! I want one! :mrgreen:

Too bad they won’t make me taller or grant an extra life! ;)

Posted by Nicki on October 3rd, 2007 at 12:03 pm