‘Promoting Playfulness Amongst Older People’ OPAN RDG workshop 1

Posted on by Wendy

DSC02112 ‘Promoting Playfulness Amongst Older People’ was the first of the OPAN RDG workshops for the ‘Making a Difference’ project held at Swansea University 31th May 2013 as part of the ‘Coming of Age’ arts trail and exhibition supported by ABMUHB and OPAN.

CARIAD members Leah and Cathy enjoyed the best Swansea University had to offer today (including the sun) at our first workshop for ‘Making a Difference’ supported by OPAN (Older People & Ageing Research and Development Network). We had a long overdue reunion with Graham Dean one of our friends from Lancaster University (http://www.research.lancs.ac.uk/portal/en/people/graham-dean(4ee2e191-9ee4-41b1-868c-92c43452aab6).html) and a core member of the project.

We also welcomed over 16 experts from the fields, of mental health, well-being, technology, interactive design, music, arts, creative business, academics and many more to brainstorm possibilities. After an introduction and summary of the projects themes and aims, we invited our audience to create Lego avatars of themselves to encourage sensations of play and memory.

Our Lego avatars then introduced themselves and their interests in the project. Graham presented some wonderful food for thought showing videos ranging from whimsical musings to state of the art technologies in memory boxes. Check them out here: Spotify box – http://vimeo.com/21387481More4 Rebrand -http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQ5U3t1zZ_s Music Memory Box – http://www.watershed.co.uk/dshed/music-memory-box

Finally our paper posit ideas board drew out some of our experts poignant and novel contributions leaving CARIAD with endless possible explorations from bread making to Ukulele orchestra’s. Our next step is to think about ways to encourage our stakeholders to play!

Workshop with CARIAD and Barry Farrimond of MUSE

Posted on by Wendy
Discussing the ways sounds of intent can be used as a coding template
Discussing the ways sounds of intent can be used as a coding template

A thoroughly informative workshop took place at the Centre for Performance analysis today, where CARIAD members Darrell Cobner, Dr. Wendy Keay-Bright and Leah Mc Laughlin met with Barry Farrimond of MUSE (Multimedia Used in Special Education) http://www.museproject.co.uk/meet-the-team/ to work on video coding for the Listening Aloud project http://www.museproject.co.uk/portfolio/listening-aloud/, one of our collaborative projects.

The session followed on from our first scoping event in March, where the principles of video analysis were discussed. Potential approaches for the interpretation of video data were highlighted, using well-established performance analysis design strategies and incorporating themes from the Sounds of Intent framework http://soundsofintent.org/soi.html. Moving on from this, today’s session resulted in a series of coding templates, starting with Sounds of Intent, which can be used to analyse video footage of the Listening Aloud prototypes in use. The aim of analysis at this stage is to highlight the ways in which the Listening Aloud interactive technologies can facilitate child led engagement with musical activities. A broader aim will be to consider the impact of this experience in relation to holistic objectives for individual children – for example gross motor movement and expressive communication. With further input from staff at the participating schools, the next phase of the project will refine these methods and templates to include established diagnostic tools and profiles in special needs education.