our direction

After a good night sleep and discussions with Anthony and Marius, we have decided to focus on letters and the alphabet. Focusing more on a delightful experience with these elements rather than a direct learning purpose. I mean they have so much soul, heritage and possibilities.

after workshop

Today we facilitated a dream learning workshop with a group of 5 year old kids in a kinder garden. We used a set up we had planned and discussed with kinder garden teacher Randi Person in advance. Look at the dreamlearning_workshop_evaluation  for detailed information.

week 19 – inspiration week – dream learning workshop

Ok, so back from Berlin and ready to jump into the language learning project again and we have made a master-plan. Today we had a meeting with kindergarden teacher Randi and tomorrow we will facilitate a dreamlearning_workshop1 with a group of 5 year old children. It’s gonna be so exiting and interesting to get their input and see how they feel about the subject.  The workshop will be mix between a casual discussion about languages and library + a creative part where the children can draw, talk, glue pictures on their dreamlearning place on a workshop-sheat1. More detailed info in the set-up1. We tested the set up on my fantastic niece Freya over the phone. The first part worked out fine but the second part didn’t function so well over the phone. This is why we have decided to add workshop-pictures1 and illustrations for inspiration.

first week

We jump started the project with a workshop. Magical Fiona came and guided us through a more strategic start with personas, learning styles and learning outcomes. Me and Astrid will work on the library brief which feels inspiring and motivating. To me this was exactly what I needed. It clears your minds and makes order in my head. This is how I should start every project.  On day 2 we made a quick brainstorm on the word language and wrote down the words on cards. Cards that we used as memory cards to create early concepts. In next step we will further develop our personas, check with partner and plan a workshop with kids on dream learning.

wii fit workshop

Today we have started out the wii fit task. I’m grouped up with Ingrid and Peder (Pan). At the moment we are now playing around with the wii fit. Peder created a lovely  figure that looks like him haha. What was a bit funny was that we were actually braining about an aerobic game before we tried it out. It seemed like this was exactly that. Market research!!!

tikitag workshop week

Me and Astrid started with a Monday evening of  brainstorming on an area that we soon realized was rather unknown. We decided to work with the music and animal sound application to get some limitation go get us further. It wasn’t until  Tuesday night though there were some constructive  ideas coming out.

After we  presented our ideas on Wednesday morning, Timo laughed, hmmm is that  good? Anyway we decided to go further with the physical representation of a play list; the picture play list idea. Where the tags are placed on photo frames that you place/drag to a reader on a wall. Your play lists are  added to the frames in the tags and when they touch the reader it will play. If you want another play list you take that frame away and put some other picture there. We think this idea could enhance the emotional value there is in both photos and music. It takes two to tango and we think that this idea creates an interesting experience and stronger memory media that the photo in itself would not have. It will be a storytelling media in a way.

My classmates had some great ideas and it was very inspiring to listen to everybody. The chef idea especially (marius & bilal) was very inspiring. I loved that the presentation form was so unpretentious and spontaneous.

We put some pictures on the wall to get it up on the wall and get a physical context to get inspiration.

We went to get some frames with character in the second hand shop and played around with the tikitag.  A tool that was very easy to get started with. A problem that appeared immediately though was how to unactivate the previous tabs. Seemed like an easy solved problem but it took some time to find the tab mix plus plug-in with help from Ruben. Anyway we started to find some lovely pictures from Astrids amazing family album. We spend some time to find and decide on what frames and pictures to use in what context.

We started to work further on the reader/holder and decided to develop a couple of different ideas that would make sense in a home context. We wanted to disguise the reader and take away the technical feeling a lot of products can create.

We worked on three ideas for this. One where we use the frame list a lot of people use today, one with hands as holders and one where we used an old vinyl cover. The photo frame broke which was maybe good cause it had absolutely no identity. We were thinking a a lot about what the feeling would be like.

We put everything up on the wall on Friday morning and actually had time to create some scenography, take pictures and film. It was so lovely that the prototype did actually work. I can’t even begin to explain how lovely that feeling was.

I loved this workshop. In the beginning of the week I thought it would be hard not to limited of the technology. Which happen to be the absolute opposite. It was such a lovely task and I felt so inspired to work with it.

switch workshop

wow what can I say, the workshop with matt cottam was three lovely days. I had that nice satisfying feeling afterwards when you feel you have learned a lot and achieved something. The flash introduction was really nice and I have now got a subscription  from lynda.com today and I love it. I can have one tutorial here and one there.  The bone tool is of special interests and I have a feeling that I will play a lot with that and my little pony.

Anyways the workshop. 50 switch connections in one day. It was amazingly fun and playful. It got 42 switches some better than others. I know though that I could have gone wilder and bigger and more but I am after all rather happy with my contribution.

I liked the set-up a lot. It opened my eyes and made electronics much more delightful. I should make workshops like this all the time to drain myself of ideas and get them out there. Very refreshing and liberating.

reading

I’ve been reading shaping things, everyday for last week and I feel hmmm. I don’t know really but I like it. I have not taken anything out of it on paper, no mini post it or anything  but I know that a lot of the content could be useful for my report. And its so delightful.

upgraded

with 2gig extra ram and all the new software, I feel so advanced hihi

tangible interaction analysis

todays presentation:   magical-book-presentationliten