During our Back to School podcast last week, we talked a bit about using games for learning in the classroom. I’ve used LEGO in the classroom, but not games, so I started thinking about what that might look like for one of my own courses. I typically teach technical communication […]
Charlotte Hyde
106 posts
A couple of weeks ago, I was both surprised and not surprised when the story about Target and the gendered toy signs blew up. I was not surprised because I know many people still cling to traditional view of gender and toys, but I was surprised by the level of […]
I spent most of my early life thinking my father would have really rather have had a boy. I thought this for a variety of reasons, but when I talked about it, he would always vehemently deny it. (And he hates it when I talk about this, so if you […]
By now, many of you have probably heard about the controversy over Target’s decision to remove gender signage from toys and bedding. When I first heard about the change last week, I was happy because at the time I thought it meant that I would no longer have to wander […]
We occasionally get pushback from the Internet, whether it’s in the form of people seeking to engage or those seeking nothing more than to harass people they don’t agree with. Unfortunately, it’s pretty much par for the course on the Internet these days. But, last week, Anita Sarkeesian backed Sam […]
LEGO is often used in educational setting, particularly K-12 and in engineering. I have used LEGO in my college courses to teach basic instruction writing and in larger iterative design and usability projects. But, I was surprised to learn recently that Serious LEGO is also being used in corporate training. […]
I’ve often written about how I would like to see more original games, games that move away from (what is to me) the tired genre of First-Person Shooters (FPSes). It’s not that I always dislike FPSes, but I do want more from a game than just running around and shooting. […]
Right now and for the next few weeks, I’m under a self-imposed ban on LEGO building. I’m moving, so instead of building, I’m dismantling my LEGO models. It’s horrible. Not that I mind the dismantling process, it’s still gives me something to do while watching TV, but dismantling does not […]
When I first heard about Pley.com, a LEGO rental service, I had mixed feelings. As the “Netflix” of the LEGO world, Pley.com offers a similarly styled rental service. You select your desired LEGO sets and add them to your queue, and as the sets come available, they are sent to […]
A few days ago, I stumbled across Seduce Me the Otome on Steam. The game is free on Steam, and is described as “A romantic comedy visual novel centered around a girl named Mika Anderson, who gets entangled in the affairs of incubi.” I was curious and the game was […]
When I look at the list of games introduced at this year’s E3, my eyes just sort of glaze over. I don’t care for a lot of the popular AAA games. When I do find a game I love, I often become obsessed with it and play it for hours […]
This week, I’ve been reading through The Cult of LEGO, which has turned out to be one of the most comprehensive accounts of LEGO I’ve read to date. The authors included a lot of fun and not so fun tidbits about the history of LEGO. For example, I knew, of […]
As a LEGO fan and a gamer, I have enjoyed many of the LEGO video games, but LEGO Jurassic World has been my most anticipated LEGO video game by far. I like the superhero film franchises, like Batman well enough, and LEGO Batman 2 is thus far my all time […]
Recently, this article about Disney’s cartoon, Miles from Tomorrowland popped up on my Facebook feed. The article, titled “Google, NASA work together on Disney show to inspire girls into science,” describes Disney’s efforts to involve professionals from Google and NASA to help create a more representative strong female character in […]
I’ve been waiting for Act 2 of Broken Age for over a year, and it’s finally here! Broken Age, Double Fine’s point-and-click adventure, was released in two parts, and, as I wrote about last year, the end Act 1 sort of broke my brain. Act 1 really impressed me because […]
For an Adult Fan of LEGO (AFOL), the term dark ages refers to the time period between playing with LEGO as a child and picking it back up again, later, as an adult. I experienced such a dark age in both gaming and with LEGO. Although, I have no way […]