Spotlight

Very excited and honored to be featured in the MacArthur Foundation's Spotlight on Digital Media and Learning. They got our titles wrong, but I hope that will be fixed soon.

Here is the feature:
Toward a New Ecosystem of Learning: Reflections on the Digital Media and Learning Conference

The History of Prosciutto

The History of Prosciutto from marty on Vimeo.

it is playing fast. sorry, you'll have to pause it to read the text. i'm still figuring out these compression issues with vimeo.

The Slow Food Learning Community

I finally got around to making movies to demonstrate how my prototypes for the Slow Food Learning Community works. For some reason it plays really fast the first time and then will play normally. Go figure.

Community Identification

The Slow Food Learning Community_1 from marty on Vimeo.

Exchange

The Slow Food Learning Community_2 from marty on Vimeo.

Collective Task (Part 1) For those of you who don't know about this part of the project, it was a rapid exploration into how this might work. I just wanted to visually explore how a student might connect their analog garden work with the online collective tool.(sub text = it was quick and is kind of wonky)

The Slow Food Learning Community_3 from marty on Vimeo.

Collective Task (part 2)

The Slow Food Learning Community_4 from marty on Vimeo.

Raleigh Revealed

I just finished a group project with Robert Ruehlman, Daniel McCafferty and Caroline Prietz. Our goal was to create a web experience that revealed something about Raleigh, utilizing schemas outlined in Kevin Lynch's book, Image of the City. This is a prototype for an interactive web experience with the goal of revealing the history behind current raleigh locations. we focused on history related to the civil rights movement.I will post the process work soon, but wanted to test this video. I have figured out how to record a flash animation with a cursor in it. So, here is an animation of simulated user interaction with our site.

Raleigh Revealed from marty on Vimeo.

off to MICA

friday morning, a few of us grads will be heading to baltimore. we are going to attend the AIGA Education Conference at MICA: Social Studies: | Educating Designers in a Connected World

Rebecca and I are presenting together on the MFA panel.

Design Thinking Exhibit Wrap up

Our design thinking exhibit has come down, but the posters will live on on the Cooper Hewitt website. They will be scaled down to 8 1/2 x 11 and be used by teachers who want to implement design thinking in their classrooms. Always happy to be involved with education! Alberto took some great photos of the exhibit, and I thought Kelly B. would like to see the final version of my poster and her cameo!

Design Thinking Exhibit

Our recent graduate project is featured on the New Raleigh Blog

check it out....

thesis development

last week we met with md to present our thesis "lists" that we have been developing over the summer. along with the lists, we were to attempt to write 7 – 8 potential thesis questions(this is hard!). the lists are content interests, ways of working and future goals.

content interests:
• educational collectives
• collaborative interactive educational tools
• culturally diverse groups needing to learn same information
• multiple perspectives building educational collectives
• student to student learning
• learning complex histories or information
• teaching beyond dominant subject matter: how to include it all
• incorporating other (alternative)sources
• collections and dissemination of current world issues to students in next 20 yrs
• online tools as effective and valued as a text book
• achieving greater understanding,not just memorizing,providing context and situating subject
• interactive tools that allow students to become teachers
• individualized education
• co-creation web 2.0 informing how data is collected in research in schools
• learning from remote tools: integrating non-school life with school
• creating collective research beyond blogs, delicious, etc (still viewed as non-academic)
• interactive systems that combines book resources and online resources
• student-centered learning: allowing students to adapt lesson for themselves
• time based learning
++++++++++++++++++++++
i'll keep my ways of working and future goals to myself, but here are the rough ROUGH questions...

1. In what ways could an interactive system allow for diverse users to learn same information through empathy?

2. How can collaborative interactive “mapping” allow for alternative sources to be included in upper k12 cultural studies classes?

3. How will design affect the way in which current history is recorded and disseminated for future generations?

4. How can an interactive system that allows students to explore multiple connections help students achieve a greater understanding of complex material and move beyond memorization?

5. Could students become teachers by utilizing online tools that allow them to research and present approved research to class?

6. How can design bridge the gap between formal and non-formal learning techniques?

7. How could design assist in the development of collective research and expose unexpected relationships to users?

8. How can an interactive system allow students to modify their assignments to meet their learning styles, cultural settings, etc?

9. In what ways can time based tools assist in the learning of information by revealing information and relationships over time?

i am far too general and need to get specific. tomorrow we present 3 questions with 3 – 5 sub questions for each. i go back and forth from being super excited to terrified and back again...

situatedness_round one

here is the first version of my poster (typos and all). i received some great feedback that i am working on incorporating now. the exhibit is shaping up nicely.

situatedness

this is what i am currently working on. this is not the final form or text, but a way to visually understand and represent situatedness. i'm planning to merge this with a contextual photo of someone interacting with a subway map — something both annotative and explanatory...

design thinking

the first project of this semester is for the graduate class to work together and collectively "unpack" design thinking. as we know, this term as become a buzzword, very much like sustainability or innovation. through this process, the word has lost meaning. what does design thinking mean? what differentiates the process from other modes of thinking?

to begin, design thinking has been broken down into:
• hand/mind connections
• metaphorical thinking
• situated plans and actions or "situatedness"
• pattern finding
• visual thinking
• concept mapping and diagramming
• innovation process
• rules and constraints
• brainstorming
• modeling and sketching
• lateral thinking
• scenarios
• schemas
• framing context
• prototyping
• morphological thinking

for the next week, we will each be intensively researching one of these concepts. the research really began wed, but we are just now getting to the meat of things. following the research, we will work together to design a system to display the information in an exhibition — both physical and digital. the digital version will be displayed in two online spaces. (more to come on that later)

i am researching situated plans and actions or "situatedness" which actually connects back to a project about motivation that i was involved with in my first semester.

as always, more to come…

slowness and reflection

i came across the best post i've seen in a long time on the design observer. it's the cranbrook commencement address from this may. in it the speaker, Julie Lasky, touches on craft, technology and reflection.

"As a writer, I can tell you that, although the hand is identified with craft, materiality can be thought as well as felt — you can hear the click of a well-constructed sentence being assembled in your head; you can feel the stretch of a good mental workout. You don’t need to get your hands dirty to be a craftsperson; you need to get your minds dirty. And where I will point an accusatory finger at technology is in providing shortcuts to the slow deliberative process of acquiring a skill, which is guaranteed by working the hand. If you’re not careful, technology, with its immediacy and high resolution, swaps the illusion of mastery or wisdom for the real, hard-won thing. As the sociologist Richard Sennett recently wrote, “The slowness of craft time serves as a source of satisfaction: practice beds in, making the skill one’s own. Slow craft time also enables the work of reflection and imagination — which the push for quick results cannot.”

For Sennett, the value of practicing a craft is not just improved technique but also an ability to make imaginative connections to other parts of culture. In a recent interview with I.D., he discussed a widely held belief that 10,000 hours of practice are required to build expertise in any discipline. For the first 5,000 or 6,000 hours, the student simply learns to ingrain the physical gestures associated with his or her craft, whether glass-blowing or cello playing. “But,” Sennett cautions, “if your habit is fixed, you never get better.” So, somewhere between the 6,000th and 7,000th hour, the student begins to apply lateral thinking to develop new habits that are influenced by other areas of culture and work to enrich his or her own. There are social and ethical, as well as aesthetic, dimensions, to this process, in Sennett’s view. And he makes a very convincing case for it.

So you see, I’m not disputing or opposing the reawakening of a hunger for craft — and certainly not picking that fight on this campus. I am disputing and opposing the easy polarities that pit craft against technology, materials against ideas, and the hand against the mind."

as some of you know, my research this past semester focused on exploring reflection in interaction design. i wrote a paper, "Opportunities for Reflection: Selective Slowness in Design". (i've been encouraged to not post my papers here, but if anyone wants to read it, just let me know) i'm really glad that i came across this post today. it's so easy to put your research aside once you complete a semester, but tonight i felt that fire in my chest again — that flutter of excitement. i don't think i'm done exploring the implications of reflection in design, learning, and making just yet.

Edible Schoolyard

As you all know, this semester I am focusing my work in studio around the Slow Food Movement. For our last project, a collective task, I am focusing on the Edible Schoolyard project. The Edible Schoolyard was first introduced by chef Alice Waters. The program allows schools to set up edible gardens that are run by the students (with some help). The food is then used in their school cafeteria. Being an educational institution, learning is also a major part of the Edible Schoolyard. Students learn all types of things from eco-systems, food systems, biology, etc. It's really a fascinating project. Once we get settled somewhere it would be great to be involved with building one from the ground up.

My project, the collective task, is to create a website that allows three schools that currently have Edible Schoolyardsto share their experiences and knowledge. By allowing students to draw from each others collected data (and teachers), they are able to learn in new (non-text book) ways. I'm focusing on how students would virtually explore the gardens online and look through annotations, such as photos, data, etc, that students have attached. I'm hoping that by allowing the students to make comparisons with their peers in other parts of the country, the information will become more tangible.

As you'll see in these screen shots, I've also managed to incorporate my neices and nephews (and stella:)) into the design. It's nice to at least see their names on a daily basis, since I can't see them :) (i've still got to work gage and hayden in there somewhere)

*disclaimer: this is not a website that will be built. this is a prototype for educational purposes and should be viewed as such.

Periodic Table

Chemistry?!?! Oh my have I forgotten chemistry. For the next project in Imaging we are working in groups to create an interactive periodic table. Although I was first turned off by not being able to determine our own content, I am open to the potential of the assignment. Working with Sidney, Sam, and Kelly we are attempting to design an interactive table for junior high school students. We want to make the abstract tangible.

I've spent a fair amount of time in the past few days reviewing k-12 science textbooks. (Both for this project and my studio project.) I have so many memories from those books, but most of them are tied to assignments that involved making models. Styrofoam solar systems, with the mnemonic sentence of My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Nine Pizzas, the jello constructed Chlorophyll, the eco-system diorama... I guess I was a maker from the start...

looking for new ways to sketch

this is an exercise that i did yesterday afternoon to explore ways to visualize online conversations. it is no secret that i am challenged by new media, especially the sketching phase. i have a hard time visualizing what i don't know how to make. i've got to work past this. so... i'm leaving my comfort zone....

first exercise: depth

second exercise: interaction


third exercise: chaos?

IDEO

Last week we had the head of interaction at IDEO, Danny Stillion, in studio. He did a two day workshop with us and gave a great lecture on Thursday night. I really enjoyed his time with us — it was insightful and invigorating. I was having distancing issues between myself and "those users over there". His workshop allowed me to pull the two back together. It was great to go out into the field and do some research. It's really fascinating all of the different methods that work best for user research — exploring things besides interviews. It's amazing what you can learn about someone from having them take photos or "make" things in their environment.

I did a bit of this type of research for Design for Democracy, but had a major disconnect between that time and now. This workshop really brought all of that back into my mind. Am I really that old? What is happening to my memory?

The work they are doing at IDEO, as well as their process, gave me a lot to move forward with. It was perfect timing.

Some images from the workshop, can be seen at Kelly's Flickr page.

interactive concept maps

here are my interactive concept maps. the slow food charter functions mostly as a presentation tool — allowing me to hide and reveal information as i wish.

the map showing different member intentions really works better as an interactive map than as a printed one. it allows you to focus on limited bits of information at a time and see similar patterns between members.

flash testing

concept maps

to investigate my selected learning community, the slow food movement, i've designed two concept maps. one to explain the community's charter and the other to explain the different participants in the community and possible connections to each other.

i have also made these available in flash for easier navigation and clarity. i'll post those as soon as i can figure out how that works... you can see how the 2nd map benefits from a flash format that hides and reveals information.

both maps are designed to be read as narratives. the text that runs vertically provides the connecting information.

charter:


participants:

Dori's blog

Here is a link to Dori Tunstall's Blog. She summarizes the project much better than I did, so just check it out there :)