Naturally, I answered: “*bleep*! and finally finish all of those video games.”

This post, however, is not the same, but rather, talks about how the iPad can make education fun for kids. While my kids love school, the iPad (or any tablet for that matter), can supplement the education they are getting in school.

Here’s how:

At the very basic level, kids, as young as 2 or so, have an eagerness to learn their ABCs. The ABC Animals app helps you do that.

After kids start to learn their alphabet, they want to start spelling. It’s part of their curiosity scale. They are like sponges and want to continue to learn and after ABCs, spelling is next in line. The Word Magic app can help kids with their spelling curiosity.

Kids are also visual and audio learners. The interactivity of some iPad apps really help kids soak in the knowledge. The Spell and Listen Cards app is a cool way for kids to become the sponge.

Want to teach your kids about the history of the US. Check out the Manual for the United States of America. Believe me, you’ll learn a couple of things too because you were probably falling asleep in history class.

How about Astronomy? Pocket Universe: Virtual Sky Astronomy is pretty bad ass.

Another great way to learn, though the industry is dwindling, is newspapers. Keeping them up to date with world events is a great educational experience. Newspapers is good app to check out.

What about tunes? You gotta teach your kids about music. The Preschool Music app is fantastic. You’ll find yourself playing this one for sure.

There’s a slew of other apps I’d add to this list. What would you add?

My oldest is the one that plays it the most and she’s seven. My youngest, of course, wants to do what her big sister is doing. As a result, I succumbed to pressure this morning and got her an account to the tune of 60 bucks for the year.

Now they are both happy, doing their own thing on Club Penguin, but I have to ask myself, is it too much? Should I limit their computer time or let them explore the digital world as much as possible? It’s a tough call because I’m a gear head and love technology. But there’s something to be said about playing and using your imagination?

How do you limit your kid’s technology in-take?

Don Martelli is just a dad, moonlighting as a PR exec, photographer and civilian journalist. Known on the social web as “The Big Guy,” Don is a former journalist for the Boston Globe, long-time PR executive, co-founder of Every Other Thursday and the lead digital strategy writer for the PR Finish Line, the blog for his agency, MSL Boston. Connect with him at www.donmartelli.com or @BigGuyD via Twitter.

image from Gamestop.com

This is undoubtedly going to be part one of my reviews of EA Sports’s NCAA 11 Football for the XBox. I got the game on Friday night for my birthday and have had about 6 hours played on it thus far (hey, busy dads have things to do!) and will continue to build on this review as I explore more features, functions and options added to this year’s edition. Yes, there are that many changes to cover and rather than half-ass it I’ll go through them in a methodical, timely manner. So, onto my review:

First impression

Tim Tebow on the cover. Huh. Being a Big Ten guy I’m more interested in someone who’ll actually play in the NFL, but I understand he sells boxes. And jerseys. I do have to point out that EA decided to put a picture of the him in the Florida jersey with the weeds (or wings? fingers? what the hell are those things?) on the cover versus the traditional Gators jersey. That’s the first sign to me that they were taking a risk and that this game’s going to be different.

The game loads with an intro video to the new game. After that you never see it again and get a different video — again, right from the get-go you know this is a different experience. The graphics, imagery, game introductions and gameplay have all been massively upgraded. If you stop reading this post now I hope it’s to run out and buy the game — it’s that good. Here’s the trailer for the game in case you haven’t seen it:

New features

I’ve played the game for about three days and haven’t even come close to scratching the surface of new features. How do I know this? Because all of the new features are labeled as such with the word “NEW” across it. There’s a new dynasty mode that can also be played solo or with folks online, there’s the ability to reorg conferences (I remade the WAC using the top 10 teams from various conferences), there’s a ton of new detail including displaying player numbers on the side of helmets (Roll Tide!) to name a few.

The gameplay is also filled with new features, like acceleration being added to the game engine, team-specific entrances (Michigan players slap the “Go Blue” banner, Notre Dame players do the same “Play Like a Champion Today” sign), gang tackling, on-field referees that get out of the way but are present – and that’s just the beginning from what I’ve seen. Needless to say they took this game to the proverbial next level and made it more realistic than ever.

Graphics

Graphics upgrades were made across the board, especially in the post-play/replay modes. The on-field play, which everyone knows is never shown in the ads, is improved greatly. And you saw the video above — the post-play highlights look real; even the conference logos got a makeover and look terrific. The overall look of the game has changed as well to be identical to ESPN’s coverage of college football; Touchdowns are called out within the in-game scoreboard with ESPN’s TV graphics, the in-game scoreboard looks like ESPN’s College Football coverage. Even the menus and fonts are different but much better.

Because of this it feels like they went back to the drawing board and re-thought the entire experience to make it feel “bigger”.

Commentary

It’s the same cast of characters from NCAA 10 Football sans Lee Corso. Brad Nessler and Kirk Herbstreit return for the play by play and color commentary and Erin Andrews, who for some reason is propped up as being a sex symbol once again (personally I’d rather see Rachel Nichols), does the sideline reporting. I’m actually glad that Corso isn’t in the game as his commentary didn’t add value to NCAA 10. I mean, how many times can you listen to “Yo!” and “Not so fast!” during one game? It would be cool to see them throw in other ESPN personalities like Chris Spielman, Dave Pasch and Mike Tirico for regional or national games but I understand it would cost EA more to do so.

Game play

In a word, I’d say “realistic”. The acceleration engine that’s built in means your kick returners can build up speed as do your running backs when they’re tossed a pitch. The gang tackling feature is also something new and brings a wonderfully realistic dimension to the game. It’s also much more comparable to the real thing when a player may break one tackle but breaking four, as possible in the previous versions, doesn’t happen.

Overall they added in shortcuts and several upgrades. Play calling, for example, is better as you’re able to hop between plays and modes much faster than before; after scoring a touchdown you can press the “Y” button to get right to the special teams plays, which defaults to an extra point kick.

Offensively your wide receiver’s routes are displayed and changing routes happens at a much quicker pace. During hurry up mode, you’re given a visual display of available play calls as well. This goes back to the redesigned user interface mentioned earlier, which makes the game much better to manage.

Defense has also been improved via shortcuts. I’m still learning to use one in particular, which is the ability to hit “B” and point the right stick in a direction to select that player. This is obviously preferred to cycling through each player to get to the one you want to control. I’ve also noticed that making defensive plays, especially on passes, is greatly improved and more realistic; a good corner can easily swat a bad pass and potentially pick it off as well.

Any downsides?

Yes, actually. One is that I can’t seem to connect to the EA servers to save my game. I downloaded the most recent update so I should be good to go, but my victories for Boise State aren’t adding to the online playing totals for some reason. Also, the Coke Zero and Reese’s ads are a bit sickening. Seriously, I just dropped $60 on a game and my reward is to have to watch ads? Please don’t throw that crap in my face every time I make a great play, learn who the player of the game is. I know they’re trying to simulate the TV experience but ads are the one thing I would love to cut out.

Summary (Thus far)

I’ve barely scratched the surface of this game and am already in love with it. It’s a much more realistic experience and as I mentioned above it just feels “bigger”.  I can’t wait to try the customization features when I create my own player and go through the Road to Glory mode, which was carried over from last year’s version. If you’re on the fence about whether or not to buy the game my advice is to run out and get it  - or wait for my next review.

I contemplated not picking up NCAA 10 last year only because I already own NCAA 09 and figured how much could this game have improved in a year? Let me say this: A lot.

The Good

If you’ve ever played a college football game the first thing you’ll know is that the previews and highlights are nothing like the actual game itself. NCAA Football 10 is no different, however there are improvements to the detail of the grass, stadiums and players. Is it a huge change from 09? No, but enough to let you know you bought a different game.

There are a ton of enhancements and new features, including mini games, career modes and opportunities to play online that make the upgrade well worth it. I’m a fan of the Road to Glory mode, which replaces the Campus Legend feature in NCAA 09. RTG allows you to create a high school senior and take him from his senior year high playoffs through four years of college football and beyond. The Road to Glory series is hosted by Erin Andrews, which is OK, but don’t expect anything more than a little eye candy and generic comments about your athlete.

The play by play and commentary by the ESPN crew is also fun to listen to, although when you’re losing it becomes increasingly unbearable. Also, Lee Corso’s “Yo!” is the new Madden “Pow!”.

The Bad

There’s not much not to like about the game other than the original price point, which, given when it was released can be had for a steal nowadays. One pitfall, which I’ll touch on below, is that the notion of a lower ranked team potentially upsetting a number one team is almost nil. I get it that the SEC has great teams but they lose too. I’ve also noticed some connectivity issues playing XBox Live, but they’re rare.

The Ugly

XBox Live is where things get ugly as bad sportsmanship is pretty routine. I routinely find users switching between handles as to not disrupt their “pristine” handle’s record, or switching to an alias so they can cut out on a game as soon as they go down by more than one score. Admittedly, I’ve been trounced and the opponent won’t offer mercy, which is where they get the win and the game ends immediately. So yes, even I’m guilty of dumping out of a game from time to time.

It’s also quite annoying when everyone wants to be Florida or Alabama when playing a Ranked Game, which is where you move up or down the EA Sports leader board. I get it that you want to win, but what fun is it to play with the best teams in the game where everyone has 99 speed and never misses a tackle? Part of the fun of this game comes from the unpredictability and the notion that “that’s why they play the game”; taking the top teams every time spoils that fun.

Conclusion

Overall if you don’t own it and see it on clearance somewhere my recommendation is to pick it up, just make sure you also have an XBox Live membership to take full advantage of the online game play.

So what. I am going to give you one more. This will be stripped down and free of any sort of big conclusions other than answering the question if your house needs one.

This EOT Dad was impressed with the iPad

First, let me say I bought our first iPad for my wife. A stay-at-home Mom, she primarily uses her Apple MacBook to surf the web, read email and do a little shopping. She’s not doing any word processing, number crunching or design work. Heck, she’s not even blogging. For her, it’s really a web device, or as my friend Vincent Ferrari over at the Shamable.com blog calls it: a “couch-browser.”

We eagerly anticipated the delivery of the iPad on Saturday and it came as soon as we left the house to run some errands. BTW, UPS tracking sucks.

Once the iPad arrived, I opened it for my wife (OK, I really wanted to get my hands on it even though it’s hers) and fired it up.

The first thing that struck me was, of course, the design and “WOW” factor of just holding it. It is a bit heavy at 1.5 pounds but you really don’t notice at first. And since we both use iPhones, to start poking around the devices was easy and intuitive. I can’t imagine even non-iPhone people having trouble figuring out how it works. The device was full charged from its trip from China and the first sync to our iMac went off without a hitch.

I’ll save you a longer and more in-depth review because you can get that elsewhere. Here at the EOT Blog, we just sort of bottom-line things. So here it is:

The iPad is a beautiful device worth its price if you’re a tech fan and like to have your tech on the go. It’s really the perfect “couch-browser” device to use around the house. Its ability to deliver entertainment content (games, streaming movies via Netflix, and television via ABC app), and easy access to web browsing and email make it a great piece to add to your home collection.

It’s actually the perfect device for my wife and myself around the house. You can browse the web for a recipe, check your email or Tweet your latest update in TweetDeck. It’s casual computing at its finest.

I don’t believe it’s a laptop killer as its purpose – at least in our house – is different. While its Apple Pages word processor is robust and easy to use with full on-screen keyboard, I wouldn’t use it as my main work tool. I suppose I could but I don’t look at the device in that way.

As a father of four kids, I see the potential for this to be a dynamite piece of equipment for your family both at home and on the road. Kids (and adults!) can use it on flights or in the car to watch movies or streaming content (if you have wi-fi in the air) that can help make a long trip seem much shorter. The limited games I tested were killer and the large 9″ display delivers unmatched quality in a portable device.

Don’t listen to Apple when they say iPhone apps run fine on it. The apps run as a small rectangle in the middle of the big display and it is a completely crappy experience. Also, how Apple didn’t ship it with its popular Remote application is interesting. I’d love to use the iPad to control my Airport Extreme which I use to listen to music from my iTunes library throughout the house. They should have updated that app prior to launch. Tisk, tisk.

At $499 for the wi-fi iPad, the price is a little steep for most folks. But if you’re like me and an early adopter who likes the latest gadget, this is one worth the price.

One note: I can see where this device could have some great business uses. Imagine your waiter having one or your doctor. This device could grow in adoption amongst businesses who need computing on the go. We’ll see if app developers go there.

Will the iPad change the world and how it uses computers? I wouldn’t go that far, but it’s very cool and we’ve enjoyed using it.

Now, how do I convince my wife we need a second one for Dad?

EveryOtherThursday.com iPad Review Takeaways:

Pluses:

• Beautiful design and functionality
• Amazing entertainment opportunities
• The perfect household/mobile device for utilizing the Web
• Great applications
• A social media addicts perfect tool
• Lean, mean

Minuses:

• Cost
• Doesn’t replace your laptop completely; at least for most folks
• No camera for video chat
• No multitasking

One fairly new service that I have embraced wholeheartedly, however, is Google’s new voice over IP (VoIP) offering, Google Voice.  There are a couple reasons for this.

First of all, I’ve come to despise my regular phone provider and doubt the necessity of land lines. We signed up for one when we moved to our current house in 2005. Back then the notion of Internet based phones seemed down right dicey, while the promise of always-on copper service was attractive. Since then, though, we’ve ditched the copper for a VoIP based offering delivered on Verizon’s FiOS. If the power goes out, we’ve got a few hours of service from our battery powered unit, but then that’ll go dead, too. So much for always on. In the meantime, Verizon stuck us with an easy to remember number that’s close cousin to both a local Top 40 radio station and the number elderly people call to hear the weather forecast. The result: our landline is a spam choked conduit for a dozen or more wrong numbers a day, including lots with befuddled seniors who hang up in your ear, and teenagers saying things like “It was Black Eyed Peas…did I win the tickets!!?!” This, on top of the usual barrage of solicitations from mortgage refinance vultures and “appliance warranty” scam calls. As I see it, we’re basically paying for people to bug us. At some point I’ll overcome my fear and inertia and just ditch the land line altogether, but I’m not there yet.

Then there’s Google Voice, which is still in beta and technically closed to the public. But — as with Gmail — invitations are becoming easier to come by. It’s a step in the direction of a portable, universal phone number, with some truly nifty features. After receiving an invite, you sign up for the service and get yourself a phone number. The one I chose has a Boston (617) area code, and the exchange common in my home town when I was growing up. Very cool. With that number in hand, you can then link all your other numbers to your Google Voice number and set up policies around when calls should go where. So, for example, you could just have folks who dial your Google Voice number  always get forwarded to your mobile. Or you could say “during work hours, ring my work phone, but on weekends, ring me at home,” or just have Google call every number you might answer and see which gets picked up.  Best of all: Google Voice captures your voicemail and stores it online for easy playback AND it does realtime, automated transcriptions of voice mail messages, which are stored or can be forwarded as SMS text messages to your mobile phone. As one of a growing number of people who can’t bear to actually listen to voice mail messages, this feature is Very Cool.

Alas, the auto transcription  feature has generated a bit of flack for Google for..well…not really working all that great. I’ll be honest: the transcription capabilities of this V1 service aren’t strong. As more than one reviewer has pointed out, Google Voice often has a darned hard time making heads or tails of what your callers are trying to say, especially when there’s a noisy connection, slang or fast spoken english or background noise to throw off the transcription.

But that’s not necessarily a bad thing. I’ve generally been able to catch the gist of what my callers are trying to tell me. In the meantime, I’ve been treated to a steady stream of amusing foul-ups and even some chin-scratching “found poetry,” courtesy of Google Voice’s auto transcription engine. In some cases, the mix-ups seem to hint at deeper truths.  Google Voice heard the name of our local car dealership, Cityside Subaru, as Cityside Switcheroo. Accidental? Maybe…and maybe not!

I've seen the best algorithms of my generation...

In other cases, Google Voice does an exemplary job transcribing, only to sprinkle little bits of absurdity along the way. A perfectly captured voice mail from a running buddy ends with a one word sentence that reads, simply: Cement. Another innocuous voice mail message ends with the three word alliteration Hi Heather Hooks. I don’t know what the caller was trying to say…but I like it!

With other messages, meaning is utterly lost, leaving only a kind of loose prose poem that makes you want to grab the bongo drums, a bottle of cheap Spanish wine and that dog-eared copy of Howl and start reciting aloud.

My favorite, so far, is this transcription of a voice mail message from my wife. (I’ve added some line breaks where I think they make sense.)

Yeah suck. Bye drinking. Her it. This is Paul. This is Martha.
I’m running a little bit and I’ve got the yes I don’t know. Yahoo.

But hey, I’m guessing you’re bringing it like a letter in the bye bye colossal of alright.

So I was cleaning up on my I think that yeah okay bye but I didn’t know if I don’t know.

Again – i know we’re talking about algorithmic guessing here, but you’ve gotta tip your hat to anything – man or machine – who cooks up something as evocative as  ”You’re bringing it like a letter in the bye bye colossal of alright.”

At some point, Google will iron out the deficiencies in its transcription, the found poetry will disappear and I’ll be left with the quotidian task of actually responding to the voice mail messages that Google Voice captures. For now, though, I’m enjoying the chaos and looking for more Google Voice poems. If you’ve got some good ones send them along to paul(at)everyotherthursday(dot)com, or Tweet them to me: paulfroberts!

from VideoGamesBlogger.com

I found the new generational divide this holiday break. It’s not music; it’s how we play Super Mario Brothers.

Instead of my annual jigsaw puzzle, I decided to take up the challenge of conquering Super Mario Brothers for the Wii.  I had been dabbling here and there for a couple weeks when my eight-year-old son would play on the weekends.  But, I hadn’t taken it seriously.

Like most of my generation, video games have been a staple of my recreational diet.  The Atari 2600 came out when I was in grade school and was followed by the steady stream of new gaming systems like Colecovision, Activision, Apple IIc, Atari 5200, and many more.

Since the earliest days of gaming, sharing secret tricks has been part of the culture.  According to my nostalgic memory bank, these secret tricks were shared on the playground and when playing with friends.  They were magical currency traded like precious gems and to be used judiciously.

Even though YouTube can demonstrate that “How-To” videos have been around most of my life, they weren’t as prevalent and expected as they are today.  For a little nostalgia, check out this guide for Zaxxon on the Colecovision system.

I guess that’s why I take issue with the magazines they sell alongside new games sharing the secret tricks and cheat codes.  My son reads and studies the Super Marios Bros. for the Wii often enough to have all the alternate exits, vines, and other Easter Eggs memorized.  Plus, you can find whatever you need on Youtube to learn what was once rarified knowledge.

Am I alone in thinking this cheapens the experience and takes away the joys of discovery?  I think it’s how Lewis and Clark would feel today if they took a car ride or airplane across the Louisiana Purchase.  Sure, they would still get to Oregon and back, but it’d be more sterile and less adventurous.

Perhaps, that’s why I took great satisfaction in not only conquering Bowser and his minions, but doing it way before my son.  Of course, I am a grown adult with 28 years more experience than him.  But, those 14 hours of my life that I’ll never get back were well spent solving complex puzzles, demonstrating leadership skills in dynamic environments, and overcoming great odds.

So, what do you think about how secret tricks and cheat codes are so easy to get? Is this a new generational divide or one man’s personal issue?

This is a guest post from Scott Henderson, who is most famous for being the father of an eight-year-old son and husband to his wife of 11 years.  He is the principal of Rally the Cause, a strategic consultancy specializing in cause marketing online. You can follow his other musings at rallythecause.com or on Twitter (@scottyhendo).

One of the things I hate about our Internet-connected world, is the way that all these cool niche sites raise the bar for everyone who doesn’t share their weird obsession. Take pumpkin carving. Back when I was growing up in the 1970′s, pumpkin carving was a fairly straight forward: you cut a hole at the top, scoop the guts out, carve two triangle eyes, a triangle nose and a toothy grin and you’re done.  The biggest challenge was lining the eyes up and not making the mouth too big. (For those who need more instructions, fellow EOT blogger David Binkowski has a nice how-to here.)

It would never have occurred to me, or my parents, to depart from that design — say, using round expressive eyes instead of triangles or..ohh..dispensing with the face altogether and instead making our pumpkin look like the Death Star from Star Wars. Frankly, I just didn’t know that kind of thing was allowed. But now there’s the Internet, which brings to my doorstep all manner of variations on the toothy triangle face — there’s the Che faced pumpkin and the naughty pumpkin, the giant squid pumpkin, or bas relief pumpkins depicting Barack Obama or The Predator. There are all manner of puking pumpkins — an idea so obvious and funny that I’m ashamed that it never occurred to me. There are whole Web sites devoted to envelope-pushing pumpkin carving, like Extremepumpkins.com, which has whole subcategories on pumpkin pyrotechnics, tools and design strategy.

The puking pumpkin - why didn't I think of this?

No surprise, then, that these pumpkin carving Mozarts leave earth bound mortals like myself  feeling like Salieri by comparison. This season, I’m doing what I can: I’ve purchased the requisite pumpkin carving tool kit (again: these did not exist when I was growing up) but am passing on the use of power tools. My daughters, true to form, will decide on some ornate patterns: the flying witch or a princess or wolves howling in the clearing of some mind blowing, filigreed forest. They’ll obsess about their choice, “ewww!!” a lot when scooping out the guts, then conveniently disappear to turf the actual carving to yours truly. I’ll sit down at the kitchen table, shoo them away, knit my brow and try my best to pull off some cucurbitan masterpiece while not severing a digit in the process. Toothpicks will be used to patch together the design when I cut too deep or too far and, in the end, it will all look pretty cool. My advice to all the dads out there: start in the middle, not at the edge. Have a strong drink at your elbow and be prepared to sell whatever you end up with as EXACTLY what your kids wanted. As with so much in life, its all about the presentation. We do the best that we can, and our kids love us for it.

At the risk of being devoured by hordes of slavering undead Gloria Steinem’s hungering for man-flesh, it’s fairly safe to say that this state of affairs generally continues if you have a daughter. Various flavors of princess, fairy and other assorted cute costumes will fall in and out of favor over the years — with the occasional deviation into Gothic or, god forbid — Twilight costumes — depending on the personalities involved. Apart from dreading the day that puberty strikes and Halloween becomes a skin to win proposition, dads in these situations often have the opportunity to sit back and allow mom to take the lead on creating and purchasing wings and other sparkly accoutrements.

Not so when a son is involved. As boys age and approach their teenage years, Halloween often becomes an excuse to delve more and more deeply into the hideous and more grotesque side of myth. Where Power Rangers and ninjas once romped with abandon on October 31st, now range werewolves, Grim Reapers and maggot-eaten corpses. As a general rule, dads are left to deal with this new expression of testosterone. For what is man, if not creepy? So deal we do — teaching our children the finer uses of blood capsules, pioneering the use of liquid latex in pursuit of the most realistic putrefied flesh, and visiting untold numbers of Halloween popup stores and surplus hardware outlets to find the crowning touches that will transform our beloved child into a grotesque mockery of the adorable munchkin that once stood in its place. A creature so foul it will, we proudly proclaim as we sip our perfectly mixed Manhattan, cause every preschooler who beholds it to wet themselves and run screaming for their mommas.

And as our creation disappears with his friends into the night to seek their promised treats and the jack o’ lanterns are lit and leering at all who might come to the door, we can sit down and entertain ourselves by turning the family photos into undead carnivals with Photoshop effects until the little monster returns to split the booty with his loving father.