One of the greatest radio voices of all time, pioneering storyteller Louis “Studs” Terkel died today. He was 96. What he gave to journalism and radio storytelling has everything to do with my addiction to podcasts, public radio and journalism of the people for the people and to the people. It goes without saying that Terkel’s unique traveling interview style, best illustrated on 1963’s “This Train” is the model for great audio and visual storytelling of today. While riding the train from Chic

Silent Hill: Homecoming is my favorite game in the series yet. Call me crazy if you want to, but it really is one hell of a survival-horror experience, easily topping the series’ second and third installments in my book. It may not be the most original work of horror ever produced, but that sure doesn’t hinder it from being deeply compelling and rich with spine-tingling scares. With Homecoming placed in the care of California-based dev studio Double Helix, the core fundamentals of the plot ha

As the cinematic movement known as machinima matures, the animated movies made using videogame engines are finding an audience outside the hard-core gamers and hackers who invented the technique. "What we've seen over the last couple of years is that there's a certain culture developing around this work, and 'gamer culture' doesn't quite hit it right," said Friedrich Kirschner, director of the annual Machinima Filmfest, which celebrates the evolving art of repurposing videogame and virt

Yesterday was kind of a sad day for me. My friend and colleague Amanda Harby is retiring from BCcampus. Amanda is the person who first hired me when I arrived in BC, jobless but with hope in my heart and a song on my lips. Amanda (and another colleague, Randy Bruce) are two of the big reasons I took the job at C2T2 - the chance to work with people who had helped grow this amazing grassroots network of ed tech professionals across the province, and frankly, beyond. It sure wasn’t the pay Thos

I've been a constant reader of Stephen King's fiction for about twenty years (other constant readers will understand why I use this expression). Ever since I laid my eyes on the lines of Carrie, I've been hooked. It's not that I prefer horror stories over other stories (although there was a time, now I'm too scared to watch horror movies...), but I enjoy King's writing and storytelling skills a great deal. Immensely. So I picked up King's latest, Duma Key, as something to read on the trip. Con