2D kids drawing to 3D soft toys: Strange idea, Remarkable outcomes (unevenly adopted by their creators : ) check out the site

Child's Own Studio is a place where a child and a craft artist, together, can create 3D soft creatures out of 2D drawings. Here goes one of my favorites.


By Bryce, age 33 months.

[Excerpt from site]: About a year ago, 33 month old Bryce drew this on the sidewalk with purple chalk, calling it “monster”. His father was pretty impressed by the drawing and sent it to me, with some colour suggestions. He wondered if his son would recognize it in softie form. Bryce recognized it immediately, calling it a monster, but unfortunately, he didn’t want anything to do with it! (luckily, his brother wanted it, and so it all worked out.).

Other kids love the outcomes, like the young artist below, who wanted a white body and red ears for his cat – and who was so satisfied with the result that he asked for another cat, too. Similar lasting success with Pretty Lady, drawn by Hannah, 4 years old.

Meet the Dreamers — I am one of them : )


check out the link: and also, watch the children's art work (drawings, video). Some of it is really nice.

Here goes a precious resource for anyone interested in the clever uses (and re-uses) of all things digital by folks who still care about the physicality and materiality of people and things around them. The blog, curated by David Gauntlett (and funded by the AHRC Digital Transformations in Arts and Humanities, UK) includes a host of events, ideas, and references on the pros and cons of projects designed to engage communities via digital services, and how these creative communities can be supported and sustained. Its mission is well captured in the following excerpt:

"A generation ago, cultural and media organizations, such as the BBC or the National Gallery – had a reasonably straightforward relationship with their audiences. They created material – such as TV programs, publications and exhibitions – in a ‘broadcaster’ mode, and it was consumed (or not) by the public. But today, these organizations are merely one part of a creative ecosystem, within which communities of amateur enthusiasts may be the producers of the most innovative material. This project studies those changing relationships, and explores ways in which cultural organizations can work with creative communities to make great things".

Enjoy! and let's hope the blog will survive after the research project ends, in August 2012.

I thank Ricki Goldman for inviting me to revisit, and hopefully cast some new light on old questions and lasting theoretical interests that we both share, from our times together at the Epistemology and Learning Group, MIT Media Lab. I spent a wonderful day with Ricki, her colleagues and doctoral students, chatting about ideas close to our hearts and minds.

Click here to see the video of me talking, and talking, and talking... about constructivism, constructionism, digital natives, new media literacies, and participatory cultures to Doctoral students at the CREATE Conference Center.

Abstract

Many new tools and mediations are at today’s children’s avail that we couldn’t dream of when we were growing up. At the same time, the millennium generation is also facing new challenges, which call for creative solutions. Today’s kids are growing up in a world increasingly shielded from nature; of ever more busy work and entertainment schedules; longer commutes; ‘disappearing’ third places; reorganizing neighborhoods; communities in transition; and recomposed families. And yet the children are extraordinarily resourceful. They invent their own surprising ways of navigating rough seas and seizing opportunities. Much can be learned from their genres of engagement. This chapter addresses six areas of change that inform how today’s kids play and learn, and, more generally, how they see themselves, relate to others, dwell in place, and treat things. Together, these areas offer a framework to rethink some of our own assumptions on what it means to be literate, knowledgeable, and creative, thus opening new venues for designers and educators to cater the native’s strengths while, at the same time, providing support for what they may be missing on, if left on their own.

If you want to know more, paper can be found and downloaded from Child Research Net, Japan a wonderful resource on the future of our children worldwide!

Yeah! The film is out! You can now hear the piano concert held on the first day of the conference (Paris, August 2010), as well as the 15 plenary speakers (of whom i am), 5 panels, and one of the dance events. These images bring back some good memories. Looking forward to Constructionism 2012 in Greece.

The film collection is divided in 3 parts: general, plenary talks, and panels, all of which have active links. I here focus on General includes welcome talk, Logo history interview, and piano concert. Plenary sessions include 15 talks, listed in alphabetic order (mine is the first).

You can directly listen to the talk by clicking the title below

Constructivism(s): Shared roots, crossed paths, multiple legacies

The Sens[e-Res]ponsive Architecture Workshop took place at the Department of Architecture at the Technical University of Crete in Chania, Greece. It was organized by Marianthi Liapi and Kostis Ougrinis, with the support from Maria Voyatzaki and Constantin Spiridonidis, and other colleagues and friends, from Greece and elsewhere. I was lucky enough to be invited, together with Susanne Seitinger, Peter Schmitt, and Kostas Terzidis, from Boston, and to be a part of what turned out to be an extraordinary adventure, in more than one way.

The idea of the workshop was to create intriguing and playful sens[e-Res]ponsive environments for young children. The scenarios addressed by 3 teams of students were:
1. Life-cycles: Create spatial configurations to help children understand the notions of 'time' and 'change,' through play.
2. Storytelling: Create spatial configurations to help children develop their narrative and memory skills, through play.
3. Traces: Create spatial configurations to help children understand their own, and other children's "presence" from the traces of their movement in space, through play.

Besides its interest for architects and interaction designers, the workshop struck me as an extraordinary educational achievement in its own right. Facilitated by a selected team of "instructors" (from Harvard, MIT, TU Delft, University of East London, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, and Technical University of Crete), the structure proposed put a healthy demand (i said healthy. not heavy : ) on all of us to bring in our insights / expertise / questionings at the right time, upon demand, and at the right "level of granularity", in order to help evolve the projects. We were guides on the side more than sages on a stage, sometimes midwifes (or coaches) and sometimes students ourselves, without a fixed hierarchy, always in the flow! We were more like a samba school than a regular classroom or a design studio: all in it together, little time till carnival, lots of good energy, hours of hard work by the students and organizers, and sometimes, a well-deserved moment to rest.....



This has been an extraordinary 10 days, both work and otherwise! Calls for more!

For more information, please visit the official site
You may also check out a video that Marianthi and Kostis just posted on you tube
And for your amusement, enjoy Kostas Terzidis' very cool video clip.

I stumbled upon this gem by Michael Zoellner on Facebook. The piece is called: My Dog Light Writing “Makers”. Brilliant!

Michael writes:" Mounting 5 LEDs on a moving object creates one of the cheapest and largest displays: Persistence of Vision. It’s been done on bicycle wheels, fans and other rotating objects.
In this project i am sewing a Lilypad wearable Arduino board and five LEDs with conductive thread on my dog’s shirt. She (Ianto) is a Miniature Pinscher running very fast for fun. In curves fast enough for Persitence of Vision. And she likes running in large circles in the park! Light writing".



"I chose Cory Doctorow's “Makers” for her writing with light. It’s one of the most influential books i read in the last years. A book about our generation of Makers set some month / years in the future. And Cory released it under Creative Commons license. Thus anyone can remix it".

Check out Michael's blog: and Cory Doctorow's novel

Sherry is both an accomplice and an inspiration. She has been studying our changing relationships with digital culture for over three decades, charting how mobile technology, social networking, and sociable robotics are changing our work, families, and identity. Her latest book "Together alone" marks a turning point in Sherry's thinking.

After "La France Freudienne", "The second self", "Life on the screen", Sherry is now looking back and taking her deepest dive ever! She is helping us rethink how today's digital technologies have become the architecture of our intimacies. In her words: Thirty years ago we asked what we would use computers for. Now the question is what don’t we use them for. Now, through technology, we create, navigate, and perform our emotional lives. In her introduction, Sherry further writes: "Drawn by the illusion of companionship without the demands of intimacy, we conduct “risk free” affairs on Second Life and confuse the scattershot postings on a Facebook wall with authentic communication. And now, we are promised “sociable robots” that will marry companionship with convenience".

and she goes on...

"Technology promises to let us do anything from anywhere with anyone. But it also drains us as we try to do everything everywhere. We begin to feel overwhelmed and depleted by the lives technology makes possible. We may be free to work from anywhere, but we are also prone to being lonely everywhere. In a surprising twist, relentless connection leads to a new solitude. We turn to new technology to fill the void,but as technology ramps up, our emotional lives ramp down".

I particularly enjoyed Sherry talking about her book to fellow pychologists at the Psychotherapy Networker Symposium, 2011 . Check out the video: . You can skip intro (lasts 4 minutes)

Manifesto - Stop and ask questions (...) Stop and ask yourself. Quo Vadis?

Quotevadis is the coolest site on identity, time, place, growth, and evolution. More than just quotes. Here go some of my favorites: “The only function of economic forecasting is to make astrology look respectable” (John Kenneth Galbraith); “Be yourself is about the worst advice you can give to some people” (Thomas Lansing Masson); “You measure democracy by the freedom it gives its dissidents, not the freedom it gives its assimilated conformists” (Abbie Hoffman); “Hofstadter’s Law: It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter’s Law” (A law forumlated by Douglas Hofstadter in his book Gödel, Escher, Bach); “The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources” (Albert Einstein); “The time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time” (Bertrand Russell); "After one look at this planet any visitor from outer space would say ‘I want to see the manager.’” (William S. Burroughs)
and the last, by George Bernard Shaw, Irish playright...


Want to see more? Check out the Website: