As you’ve no doubt noticed things have been very very quiet around here for the last while. There’s a variety of reasons for this, not least of which is I just don’t have time to blog much lately. A new job, new writing projects and various other newnesses have lured me away from feeding change. So, after about four and a half years of blogging, I’m pressing the pause button and stopping the feed. I’ll still post updates about my writing over at my main page, but my rants on technology for kids, education and other stuff will all just have to stay in my head – where they knock around with some frequency but lately rarely make onto the interwebs.

In the meantime, I’ll leave these pages up for the random google surfers who drop by. I’m pretty sure this isn’t good bye. It’s just, see you later.

Seriously. Thanks.

C’mon America. You can do it.

Leave it to Jay Smooth to explain (kinda) what’s going on in the economic mess swallowing the US.

If you really want to know what’s happening, then you better listen to Naomi.

It’s been quiet around here lately, but it’s not due to me having a lack of things I want to say. It’s all down to time and energy, of which I have had little when it comes to blogging. It’s the classic bloggers dilemma, so there’s little to say on that.

I will say that I recently submitted the first draft for Media Makers: Graphic Guide Adventures #4 and I’m very happy with it so far. Writing about media literacy and media empowerment for kids is a difficult task – one I definitely underestimated when I started this project. But it’s getting there and I’m totally having a blast putting my media studies background into my writing. Will have more on that as it develops.

Another development, as you may have noticed, is a new look for my site. I’m kinda digging this look right now, but will continue tweaking it in the coming weeks. So, if you find something that’s broken, let me know and I’ll try to figure out what wire goes where.

Until then, I leave you with this in-depth report from the Onion on Disney’s new line of genetically engineered child stars. I, for one, am very excited. After the jump.

Last month I read Little Brother by Cory Doctorow and really liked it. Liked it so much that I wrote a review of it for the upcoming issue of Canadian Bookseller Magazine. Little Brother is a YA novel dealing with issues close to Doctorow’s heart (and mine): increasing loss of privacy, surveillance in our society and a growing apathy toward giving away our most intimate life details in exchange for new shiny tech devices or web apps.

Recently, Doctorow spoke at the American Library Association’s Conference in a panel called: “Privacy: Is it time for a revolution.”

Doctorow eloquently explains his fears over where GPS enabled, tethered appliances like iPhones and RFID embedded items, like UK Tube passes are taking us as a society. He quotes Mitch Kapor when he says “Architecture is politics.” The technology network we are building now with GPS enabled smartphones, tell-all social networks and tethered appliances able to remove features after purchase is also evolving the political system that will come out of them.

The video is on BoingBoing, but you can watch it here:

These are the discussions that must be added to media literacy classes from elementary to high school and beyond.

Last March, I wrote the post Levelling Up: two-digit math in kids’ video games, about how I used experience points and coins in kids’ mmos like Runescape and virtual worlds like Club Penguin to teach my Grade 5 students two-digit math. Writer Cora Lee and the editors at the great kids science magazine, YES Mag, took note and have featured my experience in the article “Adding Culture to Math”, appearing in the July/August 2008 issue.

Ok, so here’s how it goes: Writer announces that he’s delving into World of Warcraft, purely for research purposes and doesn’t blog for nearly a month. A classic case of gamer widowhood? Not really (honest!) I have been busy and there is much to report. For instance:

Wild Ride has gone into its second printing AND has been picked up by the Scholastic Book Club for the 2008/09 school year. Very cool. This is first time any of my books have gone into a second printing and it’s completely due to my fantastic publisher, Orca Book Publishers, and their even more fantastic connections in the USA.

Not only was yesterday Canada Day, but it was also the day I learned that Max Finder Mystery Collected Casebook Vol. 2 won a 2008 Distinguished Achievement Award from the Association of Educational Publishers in the United States.

This is the second year in a row that my Max Finder Mystery series of graphic novels has received the nod from the AEP. The Collected Casebook Vol. 1 picked up a 2007 Distinguished Achievement Award for its innovation in children’s publishing.

I’m honoured that the AEP enjoyed the second book in the Max Finder Mystery trilogy as much as it liked the first. The AEP seal of approval means a lot because it more librarians will purchase the book and more kids will get to read Max & Alison’s mysterious adventures.

Cool!