Thank you Anthony Rhys and Gesture Based PLC (Professional learning community) at Trinity Fields School

A big thank you to the Anthony Rhys and the Gesture Based PLC (Professional Learning Community) for providing some feedback on the Alpha versions of Somability last week at Trinity Fields School http://www.trinityfieldsschoolandresourcecentre.co.uk/. Sequence 01.Still002As always the day was a great success with teachers, carers and professionals coming together to share evidence, discuss new technologies and provide a genuine support networked group for educators working within special needs http://gesturesen.wikispaces.com/. If Anthony’s movements are anything to go by, Somability will provide fantastic exercise for all those using it! 🙂

Looking forward to catching up in the new term! 🙂

 

SOMABILITY developing workshops a Gladys resource centre Aberdare, with Eluned Parrott AM

We have had an amazing two days with Cath and the team at Gladys Resource centre, Aberdare. We have been developing with the carers and service users, fine tuning the final applications, ready for release soon! It is always such a wonderful experience working with such a committed team. CARIADInteractive http://cariadinteractive.com/ have been working around the clock bringing the original ideas the carers provided at the paper prototyping workshops to life. The first day was a huge success and we got a glimpse of what the final install in the centre will look like.

On day two we visited the local community hall for an interactive performance with a small group. We caught up with Wendy York from Artis Community and Eluned Parrott AM who came along to see some of our projects and the ways they take shape. It was a very special day and we were just thrilled to be a part of the service user’s engagements, they really were making movements irresistible! Thank you again to Eluned for making the trip and giving the project support. Watch this space 

CARIAD works with Connected Studio at the Millennium Centre

CARIAD has a fantastic day at the Millennium Centre today facilitating Connected Studio developing ways of making classical music more accessible to audiences through digital content and platforms. We also learned about new technologies and ideas to further establish links between academia and the media. We were reunited with Peter from PDR, Emily from School of Education and Katherine from CSAD.

We had an eventful day designing our new ‘Classy App’, a prototype to condense and consolidate some of the content on BBC 3 Radio, to renew and reinvigorate an audience with an interest in classical music but perhaps a bit shy about taking those initial first steps into the genre. Thank you Connected Studio, BBC, Hannah, CEWN and everybody else organising such a successful dynamic day, lots of possibilities!

CARAID visits CEWN event Living Longer, Living Well

Leah DSC05227and Gary Beauchamp from CARIAD had an informative morning at The Atrium this week, collaborating on the latest CEWN event, scoping potentials for creative knowledge exchanges under the title ‘Living Longer, Living Well’. It was an eventful morning, developing persona profiles and brain storming early ideas and interventions for our scenarios.

The afternoon saw the development of our int3erventions to new heights through re invigorating an old collaboration with ThinkArk and PlayArk creative companies in Cardiff. Looking forward to further collaborations developing our new ‘Breaking Bread’ service, facilitating residents in care homes to make bread. Watch this space!

CARIAD visits Exeter House School to discuss potentials for video tagging

 
Thank you Andrew from Exeter House School http://www.exeterhouseschool.co.uk/ for hosting such an eventful day yesterday: exploring the possibilities of video tagging to capture Intensive Interaction sessions with young people with learning difficulties. Leah from CARIAD and Jon Moore from Analysis Pro http://www.analysispro.net/ had an eventful first meeting at Salisbury yesterday. We looked at some videos of ‘Intensive Interaction’ with the lovely Dawn all the way from St Luke’s Foundation School, Hertfordshire http://www.stlukes.herts.sch.uk/tv_radio/index.html showing us the amazing work they are doing capturing evidence of their intensive Interactions with young people with learning difficulties. Lee from IT and Rachel another teacher from Exeter House completed our group.

DSC05102We started by discussing some of the problems encountered particularly with evidencing children’s engagement and communication. The focus was on the Intensive Interaction sessions, a widely used model to encourage communication and one that has had incredible results. We also learned about some research into capturing these Intensive Interaction sessions using video, and the strategies and recommendations the teachers have developed. This ranged from the angle of the camera to the size of the frame. We learned that the focus is always on the face in Intensive Interactions and that it has been argued that video can capture nuances and idiosyncratic details within these sessions more effectively than other measurement models.

Then we discussed some of the problems with capturing the sessions. Many many issues were discussed from technical problems (for example not enough room to store HD data on school servers), to aesthetic and communicative features of video (for example a bird’s eye view coupled with a close up, narrative within the clips, and a sense of the environment with less than perfect filming)to much more conceptual and challenging problems (for example subjective interpretations of behaviours, how much detail and history of the child is needed to make a claim for improvement)…and this was just the morning!

Later Jon took the floor and gave a very brief overview of some of the software tools and packages he has been developing in partnerships for his entire career. Originally used for sports analysis we discussed some of the potentials of adapting some of the strategies, tools and software to begin to code and manage some of the video from the Intensive Interactions. To pick out key moments, file information and use it to build up layers of metadata of rich and dynamic visual evidence of the children’s engagement. Looking forward to the next stages!

CARIAD attends second Connected Studio Event

CARIAD’s Leah attended a very informative follow up meeting to the first Connected Studio day held in Wales in November which developed ideas to engage audiences with classical music in the BBC. http://cariadblog.wordpress.com/2013/11/29/connected-studios-linking-academics-and-media/ While this was a much quieter affair compared to the frantic day of knowledge exchange in November it was certainly an exciting and insightful afternoon.

We got to meet and greet a second round of researchers, academics and creative people from across Wales and discuss some of the potentials going forward to the build day in February. The BBC as always were very excited to hear about our ideas and background as we were equally privileged to be working with such a dynamic group of researchers and the expertise of the BBC. Looking forward to our first build day on this pioneering pilot project with endless potentials for CARIAD!

CARIAD begins video documentary at Singleton Hospital for i-Magine: using technology to enhance subjective wellbeing and reduce stress for children in hospital .

 
We had a fantastic day of filming at Singleton Hospital, Swansea yesterday for the project i-Magine. CARIAD’s Leah was awarded SIP (Strategic Insight Programme) funding from Cardiff Met to work with OnPAr productions to create a video documentary funding proposal, interviewing specialists, carers and families who have experience of children’s hospital environments. Huge special thanks to Prue (Arts in Health Co-ordinator Abertawe Bro Morgannwg University Healthboard in partnership with University of Wales Trinity St David, Swansea) for sorting out the participants and making all the arrangements and to Cathy for managing the project. still

The day was a huge success and it was wonderful to give people the opportunity to tell their stories and what would be really useful for them in the hospital. Richard now has all the material and is hard at work editing together our film, watch this space! Thanks to all who have contributed again, CEWN, Cardiff Met SIP and ABMUHB.

First workshops of Somability are underway!

CARIAD’s Wendy and Leah and partner from CARIAD Interactive Joel Gethin Lewis had the warmest of welcomes and most productive of workshops at Learning Curve Gadlys, Independent Living Resource Centre in Aberdare this morning. This will be teams’ new home for the coming months working in partnership with the staff at the centre to develop a brand new set of applications, making movement irresistible for people with learning difficulties.

We are always a bit nervous going into a new centre for the first time to meet our new stakeholders. We want to give them the best possible introduction to the projects to create a supportive and dynamic workshop environment so that we can really understand and learn from the people who work closest with our end users, so the pressure was on!

After some slightly perplexed looks when CARIAD Interactive demonstrated the ‘Top Hat Smile Detector’, the group took to the paper-prototyping knowledge exchange workshop with ease, and of course smiles!
It was a true delight to capture some of the prototype ideas from the group, to listen intently to their expertise and to really get a sense of the community, the fantastic work each individual achieves on a daily basis and to be immersed in their world. Within only a few hours our group identified several key areas in designing for users with various levels of mobility.

The most significant outcome of the day was bringing on board such an engaging and involved group who (in the space of a morning) took complete ownership of this project and have integrated Somability firmly into their resource centre and local community. Looking forward to our next visit to feedback some early prototypes!

Dr. Gail Kenning and Dr. Cathy Treadaway. Cathy presented the ‘Making a Difference’ research project at the Art of Good Health and Wellbeing 5th International Conference in Sydney, Australia.

Cathy presented the ‘Making a Difference’ research project at the Art of Good Health and Wellbeing 5th International Conference in Sydney, Australia. Cathy is currently doing an International SIP working with Arts and Health Australia and developing a collaborative project with Dr. Gail Kenning from University of Technology Sydney.

http://www.artsandhealth.org/conferences/the-art-of-good-health-and-wellbeing-sydney-2013.html.

CAN PLAY TACKLE SOCIAL ISSUES AND ENCOURAGE CHANGE: A collaboration with PlayARK as part of the Play:Do Hack Week

CARIAD were delighted to have representation at the PlayARK festival this year our very own Steve Coleman reports on his very exciting week:

CAN PLAY TACKLE SOCIAL ISSUES AND ENCOURAGE CHANGE?

This was the question which PlayARK’s collaborative project, the Play:Do hack week, posed to nine individuals from different disciplines and offered them the opportunity to explore this idea in an environment that “focuses on the idea of knowledge exchange and open experimentation.”

The project took place in the week running up to the PlayARK 2013 festival, and was organised by Cardiff based company Yello Brick who specialise in playful communication approaches to create experiences for brands and organisations. The project and festival were held at the Wales Millennium Centre at the beginning of November and brought together international speakers, developers, designers, technologists, and practitioners to contribute to a two-day series of public talks and game events.
The call out for the Hack Week was more than a little enticing:

“The aim of the week is to create a playful and socially aware experience that utilises creative technology and reclaims traditional approaches to how we live and work within our cities”

The idea of reclaiming lost or forgotten processes piqued my interest. It evoked ideas from my previous research into reconnecting with our inner child and using play as a means of developing our creative processes. Whilst the idea of using play as an approach to encourage social change in a real world context drew parallels to my current project of using playful activities to encourage wellbeing in the very real context of persons with dementia. By the time I got to the part about “playful ways to break down barriers and encourage positive social engagement” I was hooked and an application was sent.

I was lucky enough to be selected as one of the nine hackers, and at the start of the week I teamed up with Ravi Thornton, an award-winning writer with an interest in narrative environments as storytelling devices, and with Andrew Price who, as Technology Director for the digital agency Moon, has an impressive client list that includes the BBC, Box UK, and the Welsh Assembly Government.

What followed was an intense semi structured few days that focussed our attention, rapidly yet rewardingly, on prototyping methods, game structure, and concepts that lay at the heart of the projects’ aims; this was achieved through a series of informal presentations from organisations such as the Arts Council of Wales and the Climate Change Commission for Wales, as well as from individuals who shared their experience in using playful methods to engage with a wider audience, such as Transmedia storyteller Robert Pratten and live events organiser Ian Thomas.

The outcome of the week was a game that linked physical experimentation with digital recording and presentation, using collaborative engagement to produce and reveal narratives to those who took part. We were looking at the idea of the transience in relation to online content, how games could be used to reveal a hidden narrative, and explored how engagement in the creation of a story could lead to a sense of ownership of the underlying message within participants. We presented our prototype as part of the festival’s series of talks and then ran a trial event with the public the following day.

For me the experience was incredibly valuable and I feel very fortunate in having attended. As a researcher definitions are fundamental to the shaping and direction of my projects, and my involvement in the hack week allowed me to understand how others define the term play and how this shapes or informs their practice. From a practical point of view the opportunity to collaborate, to such an extent, with practitioners from very different disciplines to my own was something that was quite new to me, and as a result collaborative approaches with makers and practitioners is something I want to pursue further as a researcher. My PDP has quite a few new entries about presentations and communication, time management, focus versus balance, as well as the use of social media (I need to do more of it). The biggest reward of the week is the fact that we all feel that something valuable had been created, and view the week as the beginning of an exciting development.

As a group we have set already set date to meet, chat, and take the project further, with the help of a Google doc we are currently making plans on how to develop our prototype in ways that can address social engagement, playful enquiry and even education issues. As a result of the Play:Do hack week there have been some new skills learnt, and some superb contacts made all of which will, I am sure, inform and contribute to the development of my PhD project.

LINKS:
Play:Do Blog
http://www.thinkark.co.uk/playdo-part-playark-2013-festival
PlayARK
http://www.playark.co.uk/
Yello Brick
http://yellobrick.co.uk/
Ravi Thornton
http://ravithornton.weebly.com/blog.html
Andrew Price
http://madebymoon.com/
Steve Coleman, previous research
https://thehourofplay.wordpress.com/