Wall of Sound

Thanks to Seb for reminding me about this great website. I think we should make one of these about the existing Thomas Tallis School.

What do you think?

Wallwisher update

I've made reference to Wallwisher in a previous post but I thought it might help to demonstrate how it works with a specific example. I decided to use Wallwisher with my sixth form photography classes. They are currently developing their Personal Investigations which require them to research, generate ideas, document the process, present them appropriately and evaluate the outcomes. Sound familiar? What I needed was:

a) a way to support them between lessons
b) a virtual notice board to post ideas
c) a resource that was available as a link on the department blog
d) a way for students to share ideas

Wallwisher has delivered all of these requirements. It's free, easy to set up and can be embedded as an interactive resource on any web page.

What I discovered today was that it's flexibility enabled students to post thoughts when they had them (at any time of day or night) and attach a relevant media file from the internet. Today, in the lesson, I asked them to refine their original thoughts, adding more precise information and defining a more specific area of study. So, for example, I had a conversation with Micah about knitting. I saw him knitting (for pleasure and relaxation) in the sixth form common room the other day. I told him that I had recently discovered a phenomenon called Guerrilla Knitting which describes radical knitters who decorate the urban environment with their work.


Fluffy graffiti! Micah did a bit more research today and found a variety of useful links online. I posted an idea to the wall for him and he responded. You can view our virtual conversation on the wall above. I hope to continue to prompt him, and others in the class, with a series of provocations over the coming weeks as they further develop their investigations.

All in all, this has proved to be a simple, elegant and free solution to a challenging problem.

Doodlebuzz

I recently discovered this (like so many other recent discoveries) via Twitter. Doodlebuzz is a mixture of drawing, typography and news. Rather than a conventional online news feed, Doodlebuzz allows you to select a topic, then doodle a shape. This creates a drawing depicting a string of related news items. You can then continue to draw lines stretching from topics you are interested in exploring further. This creates another string of news items. You can continue the process ad infinitum. What I love about this is that the journey from one item to the next need not be linear. You could start with one word or phrase and this may lead to another that is seemingly unrelated but is, in fact, connected tangentially. I also like the way the designer has captured the process of making the application, posting videos on Vimeo and photos from his sketchbook on Flickr.

I had a conversation with Mr Hawes today where we discussed the idea of an extended learning project entitled "Make it better!" that would encourage teams of students (and teams of teachers) to collaborate on creating an idea for something that would improve the quality of our lives. This could be anything from a product or service to an activity or concept. The point would be to explore the process of learning together using an enquiry cycle: do some research, have an idea, refine it, make something, reflect on it. Something like Doodlebuzz would make a great example of how people get on and do this kind of learning in the real world every day.

Our Story

I've just begun an Our Story timeline about favourite photographs. The site seems like a great way to get people to collaborate on sharing their thoughts, memories, ideas and the timeline format lends itself to historical enquiry. It would be great if you could get involved and post your favourite photograph, making sure to enter the date when it was taken, so that we can build up a personal photographic narrative.

Online collaboration (continued)

As you can see, our request for the Leadership Team to provide us with feedback about our recommendations and draft manifesto has resulted in a flurry of notes added to the online document via iWork.com. Please take the opportunity to add your own notes and comments before the end of this week. You will have received a personal invitation via email to view the document. Simply follow the link and get stuck in. Everyone's views are of equal value so make sure what you think is reflected in the final draft. Let me know if you've lost the email with the invitation and I'll send you another.

Catalytic Clothing

Arthur Mathews' mural of the nine Greek Muses (Stanford University)

This afternoon we were visited by Professor Helen Storey who came to talk to us about a new project idea with the working title of Catalytic Clothing. Helen explained that Catalytic Clothing has the potential to transform human behaviour and imporve attitudes to sustainability through the collaboration of the arts and creative sector and those working in science and technology. The aim of the research strand is the development of a product that, when deposited on an item of clothing, bestows it with the ability to break down harmful air-borne pollutants. The active agent within the product will be a material that when exposed to light is able to catalyse the breakdown of the pollutants. The product will be delivered to the surface of the clothing during the traditional laundry cycle. Currently, despite many advances in smart materials and ‘smart clothes’‚ the human's clothing surface area has not been harnessed either as an energy source in its own right, or in this case used as a potential surface area to catalyse a reaction for good use. The overall aim of the project is to enhance a given fabric in such a way that it can actively remove airborne pollutants whilst the wearer goes about their daily life.

Phil Waywell was on hand to talk us through some of the science involved in the project. He explained that advances in science are often created at the very edges of human imagination and that collaborations between artists and scentists can have remarkable benefits. He explained that the key ingredient in Catalytic Clothing worked like a hybrid between sunscreen and a catalytic converter in a car. He reminded us that, in order for a product like this to be economically viable, commercial organisations needed to be convinced that there was a profit to be made. The team were investigating several ways to evidence the effectiveness of the technology. We watched a short animation designed to illustrate the impact of Catalytic Clothing. We were asked to imagine a busy Oxford Street in which all pedestrians had washed their clothes in this new product. It would only take 40 people per minute walking along a 1 metre wide strip of pavement to strip the air of harmful pollutants.

Several thoughts were shared amongst the group. How do you prove the effectiveness of something that is invisible? How do we make people more aware of the engineering and science that surrounds us every day without resorting to scare stories and extreme scenarios? How do we manage the often instinctively negative reactions to the new?

Helen was keen to consult us about our reaction to the project idea and to see if we would be interested in collaborating with her both on a bid for further research money linked to the Olympics and, if this was successful, on further developing the educational potential of the project.

In Ancient Greece, the Olympics was as much a celebration of the human mind as it was of athletic prowess. The nine Muses were the spirits that inspired human creative endeavour and imagination. In order to make a link between Catalytic Clothing and the Olympics, Helen has proposed that we might wish to think about our own contemporary Muses, personifications of the kinds of actvities, values or ideals that are relevant to modern life. The Muses also represent inspiration and creativity but not just in the arts since there were Muses of History and Astronomy.

So, it would be great if you could respond to these two requests.

1. What did you think of the ideas contained in Catalytic Clothing? The more specific you can be in your responses, the better.

2. What activities, values or ideals would you choose as your contemporary Muses?

Home is where the art is

This afternoon I spoke to a former Tallis student, Kat Joyce, about two exciting projects. I taught Kat when she was in Year 8 (I think that was 1991) and she was later in my sixth form tutor group. She has since gone on to bigger and better things, working in the performing arts as a writer/director. The first project is called Home. This is how it's described on the website:

Whether home is a mansion, a shack, or a tent, we all strive to protect the place of safety that we’ve created. Is home a place, a language, a network of people, or a four-walled structure? How fragile is the membrane between home and the rest of the world? We wanted to challenge ourselves to create a show which did not rely on a traditional theatre building – which has its suitcase packed and is ready to be performed anywhere. A homeless piece of theatre that can happen in tents, car parks and in woods, in fact anywhere. The concept for the show sprung from a desire to challenge and stretch the ensemble’s ability to react honestly and freshly to each new performance, making each show real and live. Home is a nomadic performance which we are continuing to devise and test in many different spaces – inside and outside, in the woods, in underground tunnels, in nightclubs and at festivals, for audiences of many and audiences of one. We are still finding out what Home might become, but we are excited by the idea that, rather than making a show which has a finished, fixed form, we could create a show which is like a resourceful camper, with the outfit and gadgets to adapt to each new circumstance, which is formed afresh each time from an expanding repertoire of work, responding live to each new temporary home.

The film above is a document of a previous residency carried out by Tangled Feet at a school in St. Albans. I like the way the performance uses different spaces around the school, takes people by surprise and asks some challenging questions about the idea of home. It occurred to me that the project echoed many of our thoughts about the nature of creativity (risk, challenge, imagination, collaboration, exploration etc.) and the ideas we have shared about a site specific event at Tallis. One of the key issues we face, of course, is our own change of home as we move to a new school. This mirrors the creation of new residential homes to replace the existing Ferrier Estate just on our doorstep.

Kat is also working on a project called 1 Mile Away in collaboration with Nathan Curry. It is a new play about a one-mile-radius area of London. From Parliament to Elephant, Vauxhall Farm to Lower Marsh, Kat and Nathan are collaborating with many local people to build a literary picture of the many narratives in this complex area. Kat will be weaving all the ideas into a new play, which will be performed by a professional cast in the summer. I really liked the idea of a community generated story, the strands of which are collected using social networking tools.

Again, I thought it would be great to chat to Kat about the possibility that we could collaborate with her on our event, perhaps incorporating elements of both Home and 1 Mile Away. As a result, I have asked Kat to come in to talk to us next Friday after school. I think this will help to put some meat on the bones of our emerging ideas. Come prepared to explain to her what we've been doing and ask her questions about both of these exciting projects. I look forward to seeing you all then.

Sound Ideas

I've just received (via my school email so apology for the slight delay) this interesting message from Mr Davids. He's been having a think about ways in which we could set up sound related installations in school. Here's what he has to say:

Phew - terms finally out, and I've been giving that collaboration a good old think.

With reference to working with a digital artist, I would be very happy to do that, and I already have a concept of something that I've wanted to do for a long time, but have had neither time nor the coding skills to implement it. Do we know of any visual artists who are proficient in coding who could be involved?

I would very much like to make an interactive installation -It would be loosely based around looping of captured audio and visual input, and then playing back, or projecting live after various delays/processing. The user would be able to see a visual and audio record of their movement over the last 30 seconds, and be able to interact with it live on a projection screen. The concept links together video, audio, time/space and movement, and will hopefully encourage people to interact with the installation, and with each other.

1. Video installation with video delays/multiple copies.
Cloning and delays with visuals
Playmodes
Time Tunnel

These are some inspirations for this idea. The 'Through Time Tunnel' is an installation which has been custom coded, and is not available for download, but it looks incredible. I love the concept of the users being able to interact with past versions of themselves, and explore live choreography. Some of the aspects of this could be done with Isadora, but my 30 day trial has expired. I think it would be a shrewd purchase for the Arts College, as it is very flexible and can be used for lots of interactive installation/VJing. To produce something like the Time Tunnel would be a fairly hefty piece of coding I'd imagine, and we'd need to work with a programmer.

2. Audio Loop Room.
I've already experimented with looping sound Ableton Live and Looping using a free application called Sooper Looper for the Mac, which can be controlled via midi input, which I've already mentioned, can be done through Wii remotes / coloured balls / pretty much anything. Sam Murray and I have talked about this, and reckon that it can easily be done. For example, a rolling loop of 30 seconds could capture ambient noise in the room, and then playback with a delay and processing, with multiple layers of mini-loops playing over the top, sped up, slowed down. A number of objects in the room could be used to alter various parameters of the looping. Wiimotes, coloured lights etc. By embedding these controllers within tactile objects in the space, the users will have control (unconscious though it may be) of the parameters of that particular room. If visual feedback is needed, we could use something like Whitecap, G-Force or R4 to output video based on the sound.

3. Painting with light.
We spoke about this one or two years ago - It would be very easy to set up a live video feed, which let frames persist, allowing people to paint with LEDs/torches. Depending on how long the buffer is, you can build up extensive pictures, or short trails.

As long as we capture with a camera which has a long shutter speed, we can do this live, I think.

Another way to do this is to use the virtual graffiti tool, available for mac. Graffiti Research Lab LASER Tag. I've used this at parties and the like. All you need is a laptop, camera, projector and a laser pen, or LED lights, and people can paint virtual graffiti on any surface, as long as you can project onto it (legally).

I know this a lot to digest at once, but I've been in thought about it, and I'd definitely want to get at least one of these concepts working so people can have a play with it.

Tell me what you think.

Collaboration Tools

Mindomo - web based mind mapping tool

Freeology - graphic organisers (scroll down the page)

Gliffy - mind mapping online again

Imagination Cubed - I like this one a lot and it has the same feature where you can collaborate together at the same time on one page. You can change the background to be different papers (like squared for example).

Mindmap

I've just started a Mindmeister collaborative mindmap for the Food for Thought project based on recent discussions. Hopefully, this can help us move the project on. The Mindmeister tool is simple but effective. There are hyperlinks to relevant websites represented by small grey arrows and adding connections and new nodes is really straightforward. There is also a way of tracking various versions of the document which are saved automatically.

The password to edit the mindmap is "creativetallis". I would really appreciate it if as many of you as possible can take a look at what's there and add/edit any further thoughts about the project so that we can begin to draw up a brief for the practitioners we may need to help us.

Twiddla

Twiddla is an online team whiteboarding (is that a real word?) tool that contains some powerful features including live text and audio chat. Here is a demo of how it works. Maybe we should have a go at conducting a meeting with the whole Creative Tallis team online at some point? I can think of lots of uses for this kind of service, especially the possibility of collaborating with students in other countries or working with experts beyond the classroom. It's free and doesn't even require usesr to create an account to join a meeting.

What do you think?

Serious Play

I've just watched a great TED Talk by Stuart Brown on the subject of play and why it's so important for us all to cultivate the art of play throughout our lives. About half way through the talk, he describes his involvement in a project at Stanford University called the d.school. This is a school of design which includes the following in its manifesto:

* Prepare FUTURE INNOVATORS to be breakthrough thinkers & doers
* Use DESIGN THINKING to inspire multidisciplinary teams
* Foster RADICAL COLLABORATION between students, faculty & industry
* Tackle BIG PROJECTS and use prototyping to discover new solutions

It occurred to me that this would make an excellent mission statement for Thomas Tallis School. He then shows a student film based on a design project exploring reasons why meetings are often so boring and suggesting a possible solution. In the spirit of collaboration I have ripped this bit of the talk and re-presented it to you in the above clip. I really like the look of the d.school and wonder if we could borrow any ideas from Stanford in re-thinking our curriculum at Key Stage 3? What if the cross-curricular learning days, for example, were structured around a problem posing and solving task? Students could work in teams, with staff to support them from a range of disciplines, to identify a design challenge and develop creative solutions. What I liked about the most recent day was the spirit of play and discovery that I saw across the school. I think we could all do with a bit more of this.

I know Ms Hawkins is an expert in the creative design process and I wonder if she would be willing to show us a couple of strategies for developing ideas? I may suggest a radical re-think of our Leadership Team meetings based on this film.

iWork and iWork.com

Mr Nicholls, Mr Murray and Myself have been experimenting with iWork as a way of collaborating and developing projects. Basically iWork.com beta allows for you to upload a Pages, Keynote, or Numbers document to a virtual site where people can comment and annotate your ideas. So if you put together a draft Pages document you can get interested parties to leave stickies with comments to help you move your ideas on, or you can leave a "note' on the idea and this feedback is collated so you have a history of responses and comments.

Could this be an effective way for us to collaborate on our summer project? Could staff share an outline of their teaching plans and invite students to have some input on how a topic might be taught, or the different options for students to share their learning? Could it be an effective way for the school council to share their plans and get feedback?