Category: Digital

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Digital

Featured in @GeekDadGamer new @TamingGamingDB

Andy Robertson has been my ‘go to’ person for any questions about online gaming, and also we have a lot of conversations about opportunities for people (including young people) provided through the digital. My book Raising Children in a Digital Age, provides the general insight to digital as a whole (for parents, carers and organisations), and Andy’s new book Taming Gaming provides the more specific gaming insights - and comes with an online database, where ‘recipes’ for new games will appear. As the website says:

Taming Gaming is an unflinching look at the impact of gaming on family life by journalist and parent Andy Robertson, drawn from years of covering this topic for newspapers, radio and TV. It compiles the latest research and advice from psychologists, industry experts, parents, schools and children’s charities.

Discover what really happens when a child plays a video game. Face fears about screen time and start steering your child’s gaming from violence, expense and addiction towards fulfilling, connecting, affordable experiences.

You don’t need to be a gamer, or want to play games but to guide your child to gaming health you need to understand the actual benefits and dangers of gaming rather than the worrying headlines and reactionary news.

The second half of the book (and this online game advice library) offers simple to follow, tried and tested Family Gaming Recipes. They are a super-easy way to discover games that are beneficial rather than stressful for your family.

Each beautifully laid out recipe tells you everything you need to know with jargon-free instructions that take the guesswork out of gaming together. Accessing this broad diet of cutting edge games your children will love, enables you to help them navigate this unavoidable part of life.

Taming Gaming sets the bar high for your child’s video game health, with insights from the latest video game research. It helps you tame the games your child plays, by equipping you to make informed decisions, engage in this area of life and guide their gaming diet.

I was really happy to contribute to the book:

Find out more about the book.

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Digital

A collection of tweets from #PremDAC20: Premier Digital (Awards and) Conference 2020

Wakelet is a great tool to be able to curate content …. this is just a very simple collection of (unsorted) tweets, before the information disappears into the ether:

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Digital History

[EVENT] Zoom with @TechForGoodTV - and a Suggestion of @AllusionistShow re Keep Calm

I’ve just come off a Zoom event with @TechForGoodTV - always encouraging to hear about the ways in which tech can be used for good, the enthusiasm of people to want to change the world, despite (and especially because) the extra challenges presented by COVID-19 - when there is more need, and much less money being given to charities:

What was that about Keep Calm and Carry On?

At the start of the event we were thrown into breakout groups (well, it was the start for me, who’d come in late from my walk), and hearing that I’d done my PhD on wartime propaganda posters/written the original history of Keep Calm (before it was discovered), was asked if I’d come across the Allusionist podcast (interesting to hear who they asked on this topic):

Twenty years ago, a 1939 poster printed by the British government with the words ‘Keep Calm and Carry On’ turned up in a second-hand bookshop in Northern England. And lo! A decor trend was born: teatowels, T-shirts, mugs, phone cases, condoms, and a zillion riffs on the phrase.

Bookshop owner Stuart Manley talks about unearthing the poster that spawned countless imitations; author Owen Hatherley explains why the poster was NOT, in fact, an exemplar of Blitz Spirit and British bulldog courage and whatnot; and psychologist and therapist Jane Gregory considers whether being told to keep calm can actually keep us calm.

So, will find time to listen to that podcast … and you all, of course, can read the book! They did pick up on the video the IWM produced around my book, which I missed doing as I was dealing with something cancer-related (what’s new) - though these days I could do it myself at home (and may do so) - as I have a light ring and a proper microphone too…

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Digital Event

[EVENT] #DigitalLabs Conference by @ChurchOfEngland

The last couple of days have really made my brain work… but I’ve really enjoyed the mix of sessions (strategic and practical), and been able to listen to a number of them whilst doing other bits and bobs, whilst capturing some of them for Twitter! It’s encouraging to se how much the Church of England digital work has moved forward over the last few years (I used to run training sessions at Church House, London, especially on ‘Social Media for the Scared’, and always felt more was needed).

I found the Whova app really straightforward to use (I’ve only used one other online conference platform - Hopin)… although of course there will have been work put into thinking how to use this well. I used a mix of the web platform and the mobile platform - and aside from having to manually connect to the audio for each session - it was easy to find each session in the agenda, and connect to the associated Zoom. I can look back at each session and see the Q&A and chats that happened down the side, though I never quite made it to the community chats (which looked very busy). Delegates could contact each other, upload photos, comment/enage (and there was a competition with scores for those who engaged the most) - and the slides were available at the end of the event - plus a few other bits of functionality.

Categories
Digital Media & Press

[MEDIA] Talking about online church with @RevCharBP for #COVID19 and beyond @BBCRadio4

Post pandemic many say that the Church of England will never be the same again. While their doors may be physically closed - spiritually – some believe that God is reaching into more homes than ever. Online services are booming and pulling in record numbers of participants. But when all of this is over and the doors to places of worship reopen will there still be a demand for congregations gathering via the web? William is joined by Rev Charlotte Bannister-Parker, Chaplain to the Bishop of Oxford for Online Services and the author and academic Dr Bex Lewis who studies how we interact with the digital world.

I was drawing particularly from some of the thoughts that I put together in the book ‘The Distanced Church‘.

You can listen to the whole programme here.