Thank you very much Digital Innovation week for hosting the first live performance of Somability in action. It was a wonderful event and opportunity to showcase our service users performing with Somability. 
The biggest thanks of all go to Cath, her staff and the service users at Gladys Resource Centre Aberdare, who put on a wonderful show demonstrating some of their newly learned choreography and gestural movements as a part of working with Artis Community, well done Artis Community you are certainly making movement irresistible!
Thanks also to Eluned Parrott AM for stopping by to have a look at the project development thus far, lovely to see you and to have your support. Wendy and Mareck from CARIADinteractive also gave a talk about (co)-creation, giving us all some insights into inclusive and participatory design. Filmmaker Dan was also on site, he has been awarded funding from Cardiff Met to make a film for Somability.
Nice to meet you Dan and looking forward to the end result! Finally thank you to Steven from the BBC for organising the event, coming to see the performances in Aberdare, and making us all feel a part of Digital Innovation Week, I hope the rest of the week’s antics go well!
CARIAD had a fantastic day at the Hack Funshop today. We brought together health professionals and technologists with academics and keen students interested in designing for the ageing population. The aim of the day was to develop ‘dementia aprons’ – Garments that are embedded with smart technology in order to stimulate, amuse and engage people with late stage dementia.
As 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! 🙂
and 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.
We 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.