iPad-ifying my classroom...

I had an opportunity to conduct some experiments with some iPad apps this year, but I guess due to the exigencies of time, space, and resources, have only managed to do so intermittently and superficially. But on hindsight, there were several apps that I do find promising, especially in my areas of Art, Design and Media.

I don't claim to have used all the following tools ubiquitously, but I can assure you that I have thought through about its possibilities of usage in the classroom, especially in a classroom of the future. Here are perhaps, my top 20 (or so) tools, that I would continue to try, and would like to explore a little deeper in the coming academic year.

A) Sketching & Visual Graphics:

1) Sketchbook: Sketching ideas (USED)

2) Sketch Rolls: Horizontally-long digital paper, allows for storyboarding and could be a replacement for the whiteboards

B) Online Sync:

3) DropBox; Box.net: use for digital/cloud storage (USED)

4) Evernote: Use for notes sync

C) Comments, Feedback & Peer collaboration:

5a) Twitter: use for collation of ideas and feedback

5b) TweetDeck: use for collation of ideas and feedback; good for collation-type of modus operandi

D) Video & Multimedia:

6) iMovie: editing video clips

7) Photos: consolidating photos

E) Photos, Storyboarding, Ideation:

8) Comic Life & ComicBook:: Creation of storyboards from photos (USED)

F) Portfolio, Visual Graphics:

9) Corkulous: used for consolidation of photographs, ideas, clips, sketches

G) General Works:

10) iWorks suite (Pages, Numbers and Keynote): Keynote specifically useful for delivery of lesson materials

H) Note-taking:

11) Storyist: Creation of storybooks by chapters

12) Penultimate: As an alternative to sketching papers, have a sketchbook instead; able to use for text too

13) MaxJournal: use for journaling and note taking (my mainstay notebook for meetings)

I) Ideation & Visual Presentations:

14) Popplet & (15) iThoughtsHD: Used for mindmapping; Popplet more visually appealing but iThoughts have slightly more functionality (USED)

16) 123D Sculpt: Useful for 3D idea generation; digital clay

J) Blogging, Collaboration:

17) BlogPress: Used for on-the-go blogging

K) Geography:

18) Google Earth: Used for Geographical-based lessons, specifically for Basic Architecture lessons

L) Mechanisms:

19) TinkerBox: Useful for Ruth Goldberg type of mechanisms

20) Cogs HD: Useful for mechanical-type of lessons that leverages on the use of gears

(RE)Thinking Design education....

I have the honour of working with my esteemed colleagues on something exciting....but new. And as in all things new, there would always be hiccups and professional disagreements in certain aspects of how things are done. But after looking at the results of the students' works, I must say that we have come a long way to making that ideas work...and then harvested into fruition. 

I would like to present the digital showcase of the students' works that I have just mentioned, 'Architectural Design: Spaces & Layouts 2011'. The link to the showcase is HERE.

I would like to blog about their works a little deeper and longer in my future blog posts. But until then, please do enjoy their efforts. Comments and critiques are most certainly welcome.

Standardising Multi-touches & gesturing...

It's been a while....and I've been busy. But I do hope that I can start to actively blog, well at least for the next few weeks, when things at work start to wind down.

My inspiration for today's blog comes from watching this video from Microsoft:

Although I'm a Mac user, I thought it is a nice video to showcase the possibilities that the future can hold for the masses. But looking at the clip, I was just wondering whether there would be a need for some form of a international standardisation of sorts in terms of how multi-touches and gesturing on a touchscreen would be done. Especially so when there exists a greater variety of platforms currently available on the smart phones and tablets. And more so when there is that remote possibility of moving touchscreen gesturing into the third dimension, when graphics processing power and the likes would be able to be handled by processors with smaller footprints.

And why should gesturing just be confined to the fingers, or the fingertips too. How about incorporating and integrating finger-like gestures with other input elements, such as audio (voice-recognition perhaps), retinal-movement, full-hand swiping (such as those found in current generation of game consoles)...and even full-body gesturing. You just never know the possibilities.

But of course the problem would be how can these (gesturing) be standardised across the various platforms. Could there be different standards for different devices? Or perhaps just one standard across all these devices? You could just never imagine what can transpire, can we?