Doodling 101

I caught this video only recently and love the idea by Sunni Brown on how doodling is seemingly that key that can unlock that inner intelligence, that some of us are so seemingly not aware of. Take a listen and enjoy...

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When will 'crowdsourcing' NOT work?

This idea of seeking and collaborating with the community to seek solutions to issues and problems are back in vogue, what with the availability of web tools and ubiquitous digital connectivity that makes such an endeavour no longer the sole domain of the experts, or those presumed to be experts.

Wikipedia defines crowdsourcing as 'the act of sourcing tasks traditionally performed by specific individuals to an undefined large group of people or community (crowd) through an open call.'

Picture taken from: http://bit.ly/pGzjO0 

But with all the hoopla about the effectiveness of crowdsourcing, I do think that just like in most tools, there are reasonable limitations to leveraging on it as a hammer to nail in your problems. Perhaps these 5 are good key points of consideration for a start:

1. Size of crowd: Statistical textbooks dictates that there is a minimum amount of size that a sample should be taken from in order to validate any data obtained. Similarly, there ought to be a minimum sample size of sorts for a crowdsourcing endeavour to be deemed effective in its execution, notwithstanding its results, which I will point out a little later. And with the ease of digital connectivity, this might be one of the least hurdles that a crowdsourcer (versus the crowdsourcee) has to worry about, unless the specification calls for a certain degree of confidentiality, and the likes.
2. Levels of expertise: Perhaps one main motivation for a crowdsourcer to seek ideas from the public is the trust that he has with regards to the quality of the ideas and proposals that he would get. Although debatable, I do think that there ought to be some minimum level of cognitive familiarity with the issues or problems that are being crowdsourced. Though there is no necessity for all members participating in the crowdsourcing activity to be experts in that specific given field, there is perhaps a need for one to be at least intellectually aware of the issues at hand, and perhaps be able to give alternative ideas/proposals, bearing in mind the main objectives of the exercise. Within the community of crowdsourcees, there should also be that level of respect for alternative viewpoints, if well-justified and logical in its arguments. And in fact having multiple experts should be the order of the day, due to perhaps the ability for such a community to be able to enrich the crowdsourcing activity, much like how perhaps, the design firm IDEO, equips her design team for any design projects that she embarks on.
3. Motivation to contribute: At a personal level, although much have talked about crowdsourcing, but the motivation for one to participate in such an activity must also be something that a crowdsourcer be mindful of. Motivation, though not necessarily in the forms of something tangible, is a necessary part of the human natural psyche to act or do something, and likewise, there should be some carrot dangled for participation. A few models and sites are already available that leverages on some points/rewards system for contributors, but perhaps more could be done to attract participants to assist in contributing issues, especially of the social kind. Altruistic reasons aside, sometimes the economics of ideas and expert groups do not necessarily come in cheaply either.
4. Independence of contributors: Perhaps this is one of the primary hurdle that a crowdsourcer should look at in greater details. No doubt one couldn't really be placing in specifications to dictate the level of independence of the crowdsourcee in the whole scheme of things, but having respondents that do have a direct bearing on the outcome of the exercise is not necessarily a bad thing either. But of course certain guidelines and some degree of awareness should be put in place to create that level of 'independence of ideas' regardless of your dependency of the outcome of such an exercise.
5. Follow-Ups: Lastly, and perhaps more importantly, is the follow-up activities that such an exercise would entail after the dust has settled. Who would do the following-up? What is the timeline for such follow-up activities? What ideas or proposals would be followed-through, and which ones would be shelved or KIV'ed until further notice? Transparency, to a certain degree, is indeed the order of the day, especially to crowdsourcees, to give that level of affirmation that something is being done about their proposals. And this is especially important if the issues at hand are something that the respondents are directly being impacted upon, or if the crowdsourcer is looking at more of such activities in the future.

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?