The idea of faces on objects

Photo by: irfandarian, idphotography 2013

In recent months, I've started to notice faces in some of the objects that I used or passed by daily. No, it is not because I have gone nutty up there, but it seems strange to me that sometimes we can see things that we want to see in all these lifeless things around us.

Or perhaps this is just one of those skeuomorphic tendencies that I have as I delve a little deeper into the subject matter of design. Perhaps replicating a face-like design in some objects would lead to a greater acceptance by its users of the intended objects. Or perhaps, it is part of that grand plan, at the psychological or neural level, to make people happy about using the intended products! Or perhaps, it is just my mind playing face-recognising games on me, on those bored mornings/afternoons/evenings...the reasons I might never clearly know or find out, but one thing I do know is that not all things lends itself well to have a face implanted or imagined on it!

But then again...that's just my opinion.

The chance favours the connected mind...

When half a hunch is better than none...an enlightening clip.

Ideation: the cartographic potential

Taken from: http://bit.ly/sbMOCk

One of the main challenges that I have as an educator in the creative fields is the challenge of following and 'seeing' how my charges swim through their mish-mash of ideas, and counter-ideas. Mind-maps, concept-maps, sketches and words might help, but I thought there ought to be an effective way of putting all of these together in an 'orderly-yet-choatic' manner, akin to how the human mind perceives things.

I chance upon the idea of cartographing these mish mash, perhaps in the form of a map of sorts, that would enable the human subject to capture and enunciate his or her thoughts and ideas in a more visual, and perhaps be better understood by those around.

Wikipedia defines cartography as "...the study and practice of making maps. Combining science, aesthetics, and technique, cartography builds on the premise that reality can be modeled in ways that communicate spatial information effectively."

I would like to proposed the idea of mapping these thoughts and ideas much like how a map would show the terrains and geographical information on a piece of real estate. And more than just about representing such information on a 2-D flat form, I would like to see such a visualisation being done in more than just the 3D that one can leverage on. A timeline, incorporated into such a visualisation scheme of things would definitely help to put some things in context. Having such a chronological perspective adds up to the richness of the information. In fact, having such details being mapped out in a terrain-like manner, akin to those found representing the different elevation levels, would be one way of looking at it.

And how do one make connections from one piece of the jigsaw to another. Tributaries, and other means of links could be introduced. Perhaps pathways, water tributaries, and maybe even the use of similar representations of elevation could be one suggested way.

I personally and professionally think that this means of information visualisation could be thought through a little deeper, and perhaps worked on by my charges. Let me see how I can crystalise such a scheme a little more clearly over the coming weeks and months.

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

'Uncovering' critical thinking through play

This is part 2 of my article on ideation using Playdoh, and I thought it was apt for me to highlight some key findings and observations.

In my first article written a few days ago, I mentioned briefly about how the use of Playdoh could overcome the brain block that most of our students would have when they were told to be creative and ideate. In this article, I would try to elucidate this further by touching on 2 examples that I have deemed to be creative, and that allowed me to make 'critical thinking' more tangible.

One good example is the idea of the door stopper done by one of the students as shown below. Moving away from the idea that a door stopper is always either located underneath or at the sides of doorways, this student decided to test out an idea on placing a door stopper on top of the door instead:

Design by Chin Wai Kit (Class of 1-07, 2011, SST)

What I really love about this idea was the fact that the student had considered firstly, the shape of his door stopper during the critical ideation and design phase. I thought that the shape and theme of his design was rather appropriate for the target audience of pre-primary school students (ages 6 and below). The fact that this was located at the top of the door, and not the bottom or the sides, also fulfilled the other requirement of the design challenge, i.e. the stopper must be able to be removed only with adult supervision.

The other critical thought that was apparent was when he was asked to pose for a picture. He realizes that the weight of the protruding section of his design was rather heavy when using the same material; it made him realize about the importance of detailing even further. Changing or using lesser materials, or redesigning that section, were some considerations that were uncovered when the student was asked about possible improvements. I thought this was a good and realistic example of how a teacher could leverage on an appropriate teachable moment, seize it, and have the students aware and reflect about it, more critically!

The other example was the idea of a mobile-phone charging unit that was able to store the charging equipment, and had a coiler element to prevent wires from getting entangled and becoming a mess. The student's idea is as shown below:

Design by Ragul (Class of 1-08, 2011, SST)

I thought the idea was creatively simple...being inspired by the shape of his hand. What I did like more about his concept was the fact that the student, upon being inquired, was able to articulate how his idea worked, and more importantly, the reasons for some of the product features. The fingers were not merely there to just 'complete' the idea, but acted also as coilers for the wires of the charging cables. The fact that the space allotted for the placement of the phone was rather wide, was also a design consideration, as the student reasoned that it was supposed to be designed for the general phone sizes, instead of just a particular brand or type of phone. I thought his idea of 'inclusive' design is interesting, coming from a situation whereby the focus was only for them to work on the type of mobile phone that they were familiar with, or were using at that point of time.

Of course there were more examples that I had uncovered that really enlightened me on how some of these critical thinking could be 'seen' or demonstrated. I do strongly believe that there were a lot more findings that I would need to uncover further, as I continue to study some of the works done by the students, as well as the sketches that they have followed up with in order to illustrate their ideas even clearer. It was really an interesting and elucidating moment, coming from an educator like myself, to see and visualise critical thinking really happening in front of me. I do hope that I could do and follow up with more articles and thoughts about my classes when time permits. But until then...

Signing off

Irfan Darian

design(ology) on Facebook

Playdoh: Using mathematical concepts for ideation and sketching

(This article was originally taken from the 'Design(ology)' page on Facebook by Irfan Darian)

Mobile phone charging unit-cum-coiler

Door stopper inspired by a swan

My fundamental premise in using Playdoh comes from the basic idea of introductory mathematics, that numbers should be introduced to our early learners through the process of C-P-A, or Concrete, Pictorial,and finally followed by Abstract.

The idea came about as I realise that most students in secondary school do find it hard to firstly, conceptualise an idea, and secondly to sketch them out decently on a piece of paper. This is further compounded by the 'fear' of doing something wrong, or of sketching something ugly, especially in an environment where peer pressure and conformity to an 'acceptable' standards within the classroom is predominant, whether overtly or otherwise.

The use of Playdoh as a malleable, reusable, green and a media that offers 'depth' is something that is not really new, but I do find it refreshing to be using it in a secondary school classroom. I guess the greatest irony is that I am using a toy that is low-tech, and perhaps something that is more of a toy for the younger children, to teach them about higher-level concepts to a more mature group of students!

The use of Playdoh also had its added benefits, such as offering that degree of comfort to its users, especially in the lessons that I am conducting. Ideation in itself is sometimes rather hard to quantify, and even teach, properly. Yes, what a teacher can do is to teach about the tools and methodologies that can be used for ideation, but how then can we leave the students to 'quantify and qualify'...for lack of a better term, their ideas? Isn't this self-guided learning and assessment? This is where Playdoh fulfills that missing 'gap' that I thought is missing in a normal atypical way of applying what have been taught about ideation.

Playdoh also offers that ability to make students see and 'realise' their ideas beyond just the 2 dimensions. That added depth gives students that added need to consider even more when they come out with their designs, and these were very apparent when I conducted such lessons. I do find them working in greater details on their designs, as opposed to lessons in which only pencil and paper were involved. I guess that added depth that Playdoh offers do add that level of criticality in their thinking, which sometimes, is missing from their paper-based sketches, or worse still, missing from their thinking entirely!

I presume there would be more observations and findings that I would need to uncover in my research. But in as much as I am excited about using Playdoh, I also realise some of its limitations too. Needing some degree of scaffolding and logistics, the generation of additional noises, the management of the classroom, especially when you have more mischievious boys...all this are potential and real situations that do and did crop up while I was conducting such a lesson, regardless of whether it was done in a good, or a neighbourhood school. I guess some things just never change! :D

Nonetheless, I do find it refreshing and indeed from the anecdotal feedback, and based on the quality of the works and the reactions elicited from the students, I do think that the students had really a good time during the Playdoh-based lessons. And more importantly, they had managed to apply a certain degree of criticality in their thinking, as well as work a little more towards improving their sketchworks.

Signing off

Irfan Darian

design(ology)