I don't believe in bashing on kids playing video games. In moderation, most of them are fine.

But Guitar Hero (sigh!). I wish kids would learn this other interface instead of the game console remote: Nine-year-old plays Ozzy

Thanks to Boing Boing for this video.

Gotta remember this great article from Smashing Magazine when doing the WPA Council website redesign this spring: How To Use Help Elements To Improve Your Designs.

Another typical April Fool's Day on the Internet yesterday. My favorite from Slashdot was the Instant Messaging Vulnerable To New Smiley Attacks.

At the 2009 meeting of the Intellectual Property Caucus of the Conference on College Composition and Communication, I mentioned that our department is designing a new 300-level course for our writing major at Grand Valley State University: Authorship, Creativity, and Copyright.

Last week, I posted to Kairosnews about Writing Spaces: Readings on Writing, a new open access writing textbook. This has been a long time coming. Pavel Zemliansky and I have discussed it for a few years now. Technology and other opportunities have finally made such a project possible.

And maybe now the time is right. Textbooks are a hidden cost that impact how much students can pay for tuition. It's doubtful that the current economic crisis will end anytime soon. If higher education could reduce textbook outlays by students, some of that money could be as a savings for the student to reduce the overall cost of education, and some of it in tuition increase. It's a matter of economics. Is the commercial textbook industry the most economical method of providing textbooks for students? Doesn't seem like it to me.

Rodriogo y Gabriela and have a new song, OK Tokyo, from their Live In Japan album (see below).