Saturday, October 1, 2011
Wednesday, September 28, 2011
The Lab Holiday Sessions - September 2011
Today we held another holiday session with around 17 particpants(a full house).
A couple of older kids left as one in particular wasn't interested, but everybody else seemed to have a good time. At one stage 11 of the kids were on a shared minecraft server, so that was the hit of the day. It was very interesting meeting some of the young people and talking about their interests.
An overview of the room, with the IP address for the minecraft server as well as a message (NO COMPLAINTS, Expect Destruction) which was prompted by some issues in prior sessions.
An angry bird playing minecraft.
An overview of the room, which is on the 16th floor with great views of Melbourne.
This young man wasn't interested in games, just design, and tried zbrush, coming up with some incredible designs by himself, as our 3d designer wasn't there today. This is perhaps an example of what simply giving kids access can achieve - he taught himself a lot through trial and error, not really wishing to do tutorials.
Some of his creations - he ended up making videos of his creations which I unfortunately left behind but hope to recover shortly;
Tuesday, September 27, 2011
Current activities at The Lab
With everything else happening, it's been a while since I posted an update on what is actually going on in The Lab.
Tomorrow (Wednesday September 28th) we will hold a holiday session with 17 participants at Victoria University on Flinders St. These are more casual sessions intended to reach an audience we can't cater for at the moment.
The weekly sessions continue to run well. A couple of weeks ago we had the judgement of our games competition, there were two winners, and more great entries. I will post them over the coming week or two.
We have now had one young man stop coming, unfortunately I think he was a little more advanced in terms of his skills than most of our group, so he didn't feel he was amongst peers or connect with people. Perhaps this is an issue we can address in the future if we deal with more people or larger groups.
On the positive side, our move means we can now invite back a young man who had a negative experience the first time he visited our previous location and was unable to return. He will be attending the holiday sessions and then most probably some kind of one on one sessions during the week.
Our new home in Maidstone
After Stefan did a mail-out asking for assistance with finding a new venue, we were fortunate enough to be contacted by John Roberts from Just Better Care, a carer agency. He was kind enough to show us through some offices near his own which were formerly occupied by Fletcher Jones, Eastcoast, and Pelaco. He also offered the use of their board room for the parents when they come in.
As well as the agency, the building houses the Vostro Institute, which provides training to industry.
The entry to the space.
The space.
Both of these businesses are very closely aligned with our own. In addition to this, the rent was reasonable, so we spoke with the building manager and organised to rent a space.
For the past week we have been renovating the space and moving our now quite considerable inventory from Footscray. We were fortunate enough to get some incredible next day service from Pierre at ET Telecom - he helped us with a situation our new provider TPG was going to take weeks to resolve.
We will finish cleaning up the new place tomorrow, ready for our first Lab session on Thursday. I will post some photos of what we have done then.
Here are some photos from before we moved in;
The board room which parent can use;
The entry to the space.
The space.
Farewell Footscray
So, we are leaving Footscray.
In a way I am happy, in another I am quite sad.
The picture above is sticker art found outside our office of two(arguably the greatest two) Footscray icons. The guy the left can be found around our former office at any time from 5am-5pm asking for change(any one of our workers would have been asked many times), and the lady at the atms is a regular fixture. It's sad that after the closure of Forges, this is what Footscray(cbd) is identified with - drugs, and the homeless. It's even sadder when you look at some of the historical photos - you can't help but feel like it's gone backwards over the past 80 or so years. The not so glorious office we have been in used to be a beautiful theatre in the 1930s.
It is an amazing place with some incredible people and so much potential, but it all just seems to be going to waste. I am not sure what the approach of the current governments are but it seems like they want to run it so far into the ground that it is buried and can be reborn. In the meantime there is a tragic amount of human waste.
I hope to return one day.
Saturday, September 3, 2011
On the move
Over the past few weeks we have had some issues at our current location, right in the middle of Footscray at the corner of Leeds and Hopkins.
Since we moved in we have watched the local area deteriorate quite a bit - I am not sure if it's a cyclical thing, but the past few weeks have seen police and junkies out in force across Footscray. Combined with several other issues, this has forced us to consider moving before our lease was supposed to be up, at the end of November.
The guy in charge of the building has been very understanding and has said it's okay if we move out by the end of this month, August, so we are now hunting for locations.
On the one hand it's sad it's come to this, but on the other hand we are looking forward to a new start in a fresh environment. This may also allow us to try again with one student who had a particularly troublesome time where we are and has been unable to return.
We appear to have at least one good option lined up which I will investigate early this week, but would be very interested in hearing from anybody else in the west who might have 80+ sq m of office space we can rent cheaply.
Since we moved in we have watched the local area deteriorate quite a bit - I am not sure if it's a cyclical thing, but the past few weeks have seen police and junkies out in force across Footscray. Combined with several other issues, this has forced us to consider moving before our lease was supposed to be up, at the end of November.
The guy in charge of the building has been very understanding and has said it's okay if we move out by the end of this month, August, so we are now hunting for locations.
On the one hand it's sad it's come to this, but on the other hand we are looking forward to a new start in a fresh environment. This may also allow us to try again with one student who had a particularly troublesome time where we are and has been unable to return.
We appear to have at least one good option lined up which I will investigate early this week, but would be very interested in hearing from anybody else in the west who might have 80+ sq m of office space we can rent cheaply.
Friday, September 2, 2011
Some thoughts on technologists and teachers
One thing I have been thinking about a lot lately is the phrase;
'Give a man a fish, and he'll eat for a day, teach him how to fish and he'll eat forever.'
This is a philosophy I think most good teachers follow, and I have also followed this in the past when working as a technologist implementing new programs in schools. Part of the implementation is always trying to get the staff up to speed so they can sustain whatever program we are putting in place.
In all of our experiences I can only really think of one case where this has occurred - and in that case it was for ulterior motives. To turn back to the phrase, in that case the guy in question wanted to become a fisherman himself.
In other settings despite massive expenditure and a lot of effort, educators have failed to really engage with these technologies.
As ideal as everybody catching their own fish sounds, it's not sustainable - most of us work long, hard days, and we want to simply turn up at the fishmongers and order what we like. There are so many issues I would have to overcome to go out and catch enough fish to feed my family. It is similar for teachers with technology.
There will always be those who live on the fringes of technological change, or by the sea, who will be happy to do their own development or fishing, but these people are the exception, not the norm.
I believe in future for education and technology to work, there needs to be a clear division of responsibilities. Teachers cannot be expected to learn new technologies on top of their already heavy teaching loads. Likewise technologists cannot be expected to become educational experts overnight. Working out how these two areas can work together is crucial.
For us at The Lab this has some important implications as it leads to the question of how this model, if proven successful by rigorous research, can be expanded to other settings.
One of our original plans was to embed what we have learnt into existing teaching practices, potentially through student teacher placements or talks to groups of student teachers.
In our case with young people with Asperger's, I think perhaps we can assist the teachers in identifying such students, but I am then not so sure about their capacity to deal with them. This requires a very different mindset to traditional education, and even if we do train up student teachers, what is relevant today probably wont be by next year. Engaging these young people takes constant devotion to technology.
What I do think we could help the teachers with, is how they should deal with technology and technologists to achieve their pedagogical objectives. I don't know much at all about teacher courses, but I suspect this is an area which has not been properly explored.
'Give a man a fish, and he'll eat for a day, teach him how to fish and he'll eat forever.'
This is a philosophy I think most good teachers follow, and I have also followed this in the past when working as a technologist implementing new programs in schools. Part of the implementation is always trying to get the staff up to speed so they can sustain whatever program we are putting in place.
In all of our experiences I can only really think of one case where this has occurred - and in that case it was for ulterior motives. To turn back to the phrase, in that case the guy in question wanted to become a fisherman himself.
In other settings despite massive expenditure and a lot of effort, educators have failed to really engage with these technologies.
As ideal as everybody catching their own fish sounds, it's not sustainable - most of us work long, hard days, and we want to simply turn up at the fishmongers and order what we like. There are so many issues I would have to overcome to go out and catch enough fish to feed my family. It is similar for teachers with technology.
There will always be those who live on the fringes of technological change, or by the sea, who will be happy to do their own development or fishing, but these people are the exception, not the norm.
I believe in future for education and technology to work, there needs to be a clear division of responsibilities. Teachers cannot be expected to learn new technologies on top of their already heavy teaching loads. Likewise technologists cannot be expected to become educational experts overnight. Working out how these two areas can work together is crucial.
For us at The Lab this has some important implications as it leads to the question of how this model, if proven successful by rigorous research, can be expanded to other settings.
One of our original plans was to embed what we have learnt into existing teaching practices, potentially through student teacher placements or talks to groups of student teachers.
In our case with young people with Asperger's, I think perhaps we can assist the teachers in identifying such students, but I am then not so sure about their capacity to deal with them. This requires a very different mindset to traditional education, and even if we do train up student teachers, what is relevant today probably wont be by next year. Engaging these young people takes constant devotion to technology.
What I do think we could help the teachers with, is how they should deal with technology and technologists to achieve their pedagogical objectives. I don't know much at all about teacher courses, but I suspect this is an area which has not been properly explored.
Monday, August 29, 2011
September 28 holiday workshop: full house and details
We now have a full house for our holiday introductory workshop on September 28.
Details are as follows:
1.00pm - 4.00pm
Room 16:14 (the games lab), Level 16, Victoria University, 300 Flinders Street, Melbourne.
The campus is opposite Flinders Street train station, near the corner of Flinders Street and Elizabeth Street.
We will have desktop computers on hand, or participants can bring their own laptops - this might be useful if you'd like us to load any software.
The session will see our techie tutors introducing some fun software to participants, based on their interests, plus maybe some joint activities in environments like Minecraft.
Parents/carers can either drop off their child and do shopping/coffees etc (plenty of both in the vicinity!) or stick around, chat to us and other parents/carers plus checks emails etc on the lab's computers. We'll bring some snacks too.
Stefan's mobile number is 0410387622 for any further queries, directions etc.
Look forward to seeing people there!
Details are as follows:
1.00pm - 4.00pm
Room 16:14 (the games lab), Level 16, Victoria University, 300 Flinders Street, Melbourne.
The campus is opposite Flinders Street train station, near the corner of Flinders Street and Elizabeth Street.
We will have desktop computers on hand, or participants can bring their own laptops - this might be useful if you'd like us to load any software.
The session will see our techie tutors introducing some fun software to participants, based on their interests, plus maybe some joint activities in environments like Minecraft.
Parents/carers can either drop off their child and do shopping/coffees etc (plenty of both in the vicinity!) or stick around, chat to us and other parents/carers plus checks emails etc on the lab's computers. We'll bring some snacks too.
Stefan's mobile number is 0410387622 for any further queries, directions etc.
Look forward to seeing people there!
Tuesday, August 16, 2011
How things are travelling
Yesterday we got an email from one of the parents which helped remind me how different things have turned out than what we originally imagined, possibly for the better.
The initial vision was that the young people would come in and would be keen to learn technical skills, as has generally been my experience when working with small numbers at limited-time workshops in the past.
At The Lab we have found the students are often more interested in socialising - which is normal for most kids, but unusual for some of these, and it's having positive results.
Despite being slightly unexpected, it gets back to a couple of things we have witnessed in the past;
- These young people know when they are surrounded by like minds, and feel very comfortable.
- The technology acts as an 'object of affinity' - allowing the young people to communicate through devices they are familiar with.
In terms of inspiring the kids to learn, we haven't wanted to force anybody so we started a gamemaking competition, which is completely voluntary, although we offered a prize as an incentive(a logitech gaming keyboard attachment). After one week one young man was already making quite a bit of progress, and this has caught the eyes of others, who are now learning by themselves to use software we have had difficulty interrupting their Lab gaming session to teach them.
I think one lesson in this is that we cannot force the kids to do anything(which was never our intention) - but we can motivate them by providing opportunities, as we have done with the competition.
The second lesson is perhaps that we cannot motivate the young people with our words - it must come from within. This is perhaps more likely to be inspired by other young people. If we can do something amazing, they don't care, we are old and they can't relate, but if the guy like them sitting next to them can, it's a different case. This would suggest that we should look at offering more open opportunities for the group at large - more activities they can choose to be a part of and work together on.
This is not to say the mentors aren't important - they are vital, giving the young people something to aspire to, and also being able to get the young people over those inevitable technical walls they come up against.
All of this has got me thinking about my own youth and where I got this kind of support. My parents sent me to Scouts, in the hope I would become a more social and well rounded person.
I think that's what we are doing at The Lab. We are using technology to do it - but if we can take care of the self esteem and sense of social inclusion of the young people I think they will be motivated to generally teach themselves the technical skills, and come to us for help when required.
1. Socialising through gaming
2. An increasing sense of social inclusion
3. Desire to learn technical skills
4. Increased social capital
Now back to providing opportunities....
One thing the Scouts did for me was provide a whole bunch of opportunities. I don't want to copy their military stylings, or christian rituals, but they do have some good ideas.
One of these is the badges. They have several similarities to achievements used in online gaming.
Scouts progress through three levels(Pioneer/red, Explorer/blue, Adventurer/green) depending on how many achievements they have. There are achievements involving community engagement and group work.
They provided a good framework for a lot of social activities, and they also allowed for a lot of us to achieve at least something in an area of our interest. Many of the skills were pretty obscure, but at the time they seemed quite important.
With all of this in mind I got thinking about having some online assessments for The Lab for a range of topics the kids would be interested in learning. Instead of badges, we could have online 'achievements' like many online games. These would be visible by peers, which is what would make them important.
It is also possible that this could be tied into existing courses either online, at high school or TAFE.
Achievements could include something like;
Beginner X
Advanced X
Master X
X=
Programmer(Basic, VB, C++ ??)
Web Programmer(html5, php)
Web Designer(html, css, graphic design, copywriting)
Graphic Designer(photoshop, illustrator, fireworks etc)
3d Designer(3ds max, blender, sketchup etc)
Filmmaker(vegas etc)
Music maker
Gamemaker(gamemaker, unity etc)
Arduino Programmer
System Administrator?
Teamwork(achieving something with another person)
Charity(helping others- eg http://www.spectrumvic.org.au/)
Master(teaching others)
Special interest???
Programming languages?
Specific Software?
Group activity badges?
Overall levels
Some vague ideas....
Beginner - Teamwork and 3X Beginner
Advanced - 3X Advanced and Charity or Master
Master - 3X Master and Charity or Master
The initial vision was that the young people would come in and would be keen to learn technical skills, as has generally been my experience when working with small numbers at limited-time workshops in the past.
At The Lab we have found the students are often more interested in socialising - which is normal for most kids, but unusual for some of these, and it's having positive results.
Despite being slightly unexpected, it gets back to a couple of things we have witnessed in the past;
- These young people know when they are surrounded by like minds, and feel very comfortable.
- The technology acts as an 'object of affinity' - allowing the young people to communicate through devices they are familiar with.
In terms of inspiring the kids to learn, we haven't wanted to force anybody so we started a gamemaking competition, which is completely voluntary, although we offered a prize as an incentive(a logitech gaming keyboard attachment). After one week one young man was already making quite a bit of progress, and this has caught the eyes of others, who are now learning by themselves to use software we have had difficulty interrupting their Lab gaming session to teach them.
I think one lesson in this is that we cannot force the kids to do anything(which was never our intention) - but we can motivate them by providing opportunities, as we have done with the competition.
The second lesson is perhaps that we cannot motivate the young people with our words - it must come from within. This is perhaps more likely to be inspired by other young people. If we can do something amazing, they don't care, we are old and they can't relate, but if the guy like them sitting next to them can, it's a different case. This would suggest that we should look at offering more open opportunities for the group at large - more activities they can choose to be a part of and work together on.
This is not to say the mentors aren't important - they are vital, giving the young people something to aspire to, and also being able to get the young people over those inevitable technical walls they come up against.
All of this has got me thinking about my own youth and where I got this kind of support. My parents sent me to Scouts, in the hope I would become a more social and well rounded person.
I think that's what we are doing at The Lab. We are using technology to do it - but if we can take care of the self esteem and sense of social inclusion of the young people I think they will be motivated to generally teach themselves the technical skills, and come to us for help when required.
1. Socialising through gaming
2. An increasing sense of social inclusion
3. Desire to learn technical skills
4. Increased social capital
Now back to providing opportunities....
One thing the Scouts did for me was provide a whole bunch of opportunities. I don't want to copy their military stylings, or christian rituals, but they do have some good ideas.
One of these is the badges. They have several similarities to achievements used in online gaming.
Scouts progress through three levels(Pioneer/red, Explorer/blue, Adventurer/green) depending on how many achievements they have. There are achievements involving community engagement and group work.
They provided a good framework for a lot of social activities, and they also allowed for a lot of us to achieve at least something in an area of our interest. Many of the skills were pretty obscure, but at the time they seemed quite important.
With all of this in mind I got thinking about having some online assessments for The Lab for a range of topics the kids would be interested in learning. Instead of badges, we could have online 'achievements' like many online games. These would be visible by peers, which is what would make them important.
It is also possible that this could be tied into existing courses either online, at high school or TAFE.
Achievements could include something like;
Beginner X
Advanced X
Master X
X=
Programmer(Basic, VB, C++ ??)
Web Programmer(html5, php)
Web Designer(html, css, graphic design, copywriting)
Graphic Designer(photoshop, illustrator, fireworks etc)
3d Designer(3ds max, blender, sketchup etc)
Filmmaker(vegas etc)
Music maker
Gamemaker(gamemaker, unity etc)
Arduino Programmer
System Administrator?
Teamwork(achieving something with another person)
Charity(helping others- eg http://www.spectrumvic.org.au/)
Master(teaching others)
Special interest???
Programming languages?
Specific Software?
Group activity badges?
Overall levels
Some vague ideas....
Beginner - Teamwork and 3X Beginner
Advanced - 3X Advanced and Charity or Master
Master - 3X Master and Charity or Master
Thursday, August 11, 2011
Update: sessions, end of the year plans, and another Lab outcome
A quick update on the Lab.
Sessions have been running smoothly of late - both the parents and kids seem to have developed a comfortable mode of interaction , and sessions are going well. There's been some (but not a lot) of interest in programming activities, but it seems the socialisation aspects of the Lab are just as important. Apparently all the kids are very keen to come, with some pestering their parents in advance. One participant called his dad on his mobile today to remind him (at 2pm) to get a move on - apparently he never does this usually.
Parents are, as usual, discussing lots in their room. Food features strongly - we don't bring food in ourselves anymore as there's usually a selection of goodies brought in.
One interesting outcome we heard about today - two participants (brothers) have started a Minecraft club at their school. There are four kids involved, and they're currently spending their recess and lunch breaks planning their world and to set up a Minecraft server. Apparently this is a big step up from aimlessly walking around during their breaks.
On another topic: Dale and I have been discussing moving from our current Lab location once the lease runs out in December. That central Footscray corner has not been getting any better of late - more people down on their luck, arrests etc - and the space itself is on the grungier side of the tracks, with a lack of decent kitchen and related facilities. Have put out some feelers with VU - will see what comes of it. Wonder too if the council might have something. We're paying around $320 a week currently, so it's not actually that cheap. Another possibility is a house in the area.
Sessions have been running smoothly of late - both the parents and kids seem to have developed a comfortable mode of interaction , and sessions are going well. There's been some (but not a lot) of interest in programming activities, but it seems the socialisation aspects of the Lab are just as important. Apparently all the kids are very keen to come, with some pestering their parents in advance. One participant called his dad on his mobile today to remind him (at 2pm) to get a move on - apparently he never does this usually.
Parents are, as usual, discussing lots in their room. Food features strongly - we don't bring food in ourselves anymore as there's usually a selection of goodies brought in.
One interesting outcome we heard about today - two participants (brothers) have started a Minecraft club at their school. There are four kids involved, and they're currently spending their recess and lunch breaks planning their world and to set up a Minecraft server. Apparently this is a big step up from aimlessly walking around during their breaks.
On another topic: Dale and I have been discussing moving from our current Lab location once the lease runs out in December. That central Footscray corner has not been getting any better of late - more people down on their luck, arrests etc - and the space itself is on the grungier side of the tracks, with a lack of decent kitchen and related facilities. Have put out some feelers with VU - will see what comes of it. Wonder too if the council might have something. We're paying around $320 a week currently, so it's not actually that cheap. Another possibility is a house in the area.
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