Special Keynote: Design Innovation with youth in Sierra Leone

IDC 2013 is proud to announce that the keynote speaker for this year’s conference will be David Moinina Sengeh, a doctoral student at the MIT Media Lab, and researcher in the Lab’s Biomechatronics group. David will be joined by three young students from Sierra Leone for a conversation about their experiences with DIY design innovations.

David, who is originally from Sierra Leone, has been working on technology to improve prosthetic limbs for amputees around the world and designing the next generation of wearable mechanical interfaces. Sengeh recently created a youth mentorship program called Innovate Salone to foster innovation among high-school students in Sierra Leone; the youth work in teams to create new ideas for DIY projects related to health, agriculture, crafts and entertainment in their communities. David supported Kelvin Doe, the young teenage student from Sierra Leone, who created a radio transmitter built from salvaged parts and broadcast his own local programming under the name DJ Focus. Sengeh, impressed with Doe’s creativity, arranged a trip for him to the United States in 2012, having him speaking at the World Maker Faire in New York and spending time as a resident practitioner at the MIT Media Lab. Sengeh’s strongest impulse remains the desire to empower youth in developing countries to design their own solutions to everyday problems. MIT Press release: Graduate student David Sengeh gives back to Sierra Leone, Dec 18, 2012

Seymour Papert Tribute Panel from IDC2013 Conference on Vimeo.

Paulo Blikstein from Stanford University hosts a panel on the impact of Seymour Papert’s research on the past, present, and future of child-computer interaction.

The panelists include:

• Allison Druin, University of Maryland
• Edith Ackermann, MIT
• Mike Eisenberg, University of Colorado
• Mitch Resnick, MIT
• Uri Wilensky, Northwestern University

Seymour Papert was one of key pioneers of interaction design for children, merging the constructivist ideas of Jean Piaget and cutting-edge technological advances in computer programming and cybernetics and generating well-known designs such as the Logo programming language and the Lego Mindstorms robotics kits. This work, which in the beginning was done in collaboration with many colleagues at the MIT Artificial Intelligence Lab, Bolt, Beranek and Newman, and Atari Research Labs, has been highly influential for decades. The purpose of this panel is to investigate current trends, designs, and theoretical advances in the IDC community in light of the groundbreaking work of Papert and his close collaborators, recapitulate the history of this early work in IDC, and imagine future scenarios for IDC research.

Read more: Seymour Papert’s Legacy: Thinking About Learning, and Learning About Thinking by Paulo Blikstein More about the Seymour Paper Tribute (video testimonies, transcripts and Storify)

Join us for a Welcome Evening hosted by Sesame Street’s Bert, with talks by Sesame Workshop President and CEO, H. Melvin Ming and SVP of Education and Research, Rosemarie Truglio. It is followed by In C: A live iOS/Acoustic Music Performance, Presented by Carnegie Hall’s Weill Music Institute. Dinner and Drinks will be served after the performance.

In C: A live iOS/Acoustic Music Performance

Presented by Carnegie Hall’s Weill Music Institute. The face of contemporary classical music is changing rapidly, and the recent enormous strides in technology that intersect with music and performance are impossible for musicians and music educators to ignore. New models of interaction between performer and audience, educator and student are constantly emerging, widening the opportunities for musical engagement in meaningful, creative ways. Presented by Carnegie Hall’s Weill Music Institute, this performance (further developed with participants through a hands-on design activity held at IDC on June 23rd) builds on recent work of Decoda, a new cutting-edge chamber music collective focused on creative community engagement, in collaboration with Bad Plug, a group of music technologists whose focus is designing interactive installations and performance work. Together, the two teams have developed a new performing version of Terry Riley’s seminal minimalist classic In C. The project seamlessly integrates iOS devices with a live ensemble of professional musicians from The Declassified, elementary school students, and audience members, enabling the students and audience to put their own unique stamp on the performance and concert experience.

Acknowledgements: Christopher Amos, Director, Educational Media and Technology, Carnegie Hall’s Weill Music Institute Paul Murphy, project leader, Decoda Enrico De Trizio, project leader, Bad Plug Purchase Tickets On-site ($50 including dinner) from June 23-25. Event included as part of the full conference registration.

Join us — and Cookie Monster! — at the New York Hall of Science for a mini-golf party and dinner reception. The festivities will take place in the museum halls, and catering will be provided by smogasbord of NYC food trucks, including Rouge Tomate, Gorilla Cheese, Rickshaw Dumplings, and Sweetery Dessert. Party-goers will be able to play mini-golf, explore the museum, engage with interactive design work developed at IDC’s Sunday’s Hands on Design Activities, and meet and take photos with a walkaround Cookie Monster. Children welcome. Food, mini-golf, and museum entrance are included in the event ticket.

Round trip bus included in online event registration only ($75), excluded for all on-site conference/ event registrations ($60). Tickets for anyone under 18 are available on-site ($15). NYSCI is also accessible via NYC Subway. See directions here. Purchase Tickets On-site from June 23-26. Event included as part of the full conference registration.

Google User Experience Researchers working on various products share their published research and discuss their experience working with youth populations. The panel aimed to kick off a research community discussion and will be moderated by J.P. Hourcade, IDC Chair and Associate Professor at the University of Iowa’s Department of Computer Science and a member of the Delta Center.

Panelists from Google include:

• Hilary Hutchinson (Google Search)
• Larkin Brown (Google+)
• Jeannie Foulsham (Google+)
• John Douglass (Google+)
• Shoshana Holtzblatt (Google Drive)
• Melanie Fitzgerald (YouTube)

In order to generate conversation at the panel, please submit your questions for the Google panels at this Google Moderator page.

Film screening and conversation with filmmakers Nitin Sawhney (Director) and Rafael Parra (Editor) Edith Ackermann (MIT), Paulo Blikstein (Stanford), moderated by Melissa Friedling (The New School)

Flying Paper tells the uplifting story of resilient Palestinian youth in the Gaza Strip on a quest to shatter the Guinness World Record for the most kites ever flown. This feature-length documentary film (71 mins in duration) is directed by Nitin Sawhney and Roger Hill and co-produced with a team of young filmmakers in Gaza. Since summer 2010, the filmmakers have been working with a team of Palestinian youth whom they trained through the Voices Beyond Walls youth media program to cinematically capture the culture of kite making and flying among children and their spectacular record-breaking event, despite the ongoing blockade in Gaza. Film Website: https://www.FlyingPaper.org

This screening is a sneak preview of the film for limited audiences at the IDC conference, guests and supporters of the film. The screening is free for IDC conference participants. A reception will be held prior to the event at the Vera List Courtyard, The New School, 66 West 12th Street. RSVP at the Flying Paper Facebook event page. Purchase Tickets On-site ($10 including reception) from June 23-27. Event included as part of the full conference registration.

Hosted by Alexandra Kelly with Jovon, Imani and Joshua Moderated by Peter Lucas (The New School)

A showcase and panel discussion of creative media work produced by high-school students involved with innovative youth media programs in New York City, including the Center for Urban Pedagogy, Engage Media Lab, Global Action Project, Reel Lives, Radio Rookies, and The LAMP. The event is being hosted in partnership with the Mozilla Hive NYC Learning Network.

Prior to the screening, a reception was hosted in the Vera List Courtyard at 66 West 12th Street, as an opportunity for media makers, educators and program coordinators to meet each other and swap stories, best practices, and visions for the future over refreshments. The event was free for anyone under 18. Celebrating Courage, Perseverance and Passion in Young Media Makers & Educators, article by The LAMP, June 25, 2013.

Participating Organizations

Center for Urban Pedagogy

The Center for Urban Pedagogy (CUP) is a nonprofit organization that uses the power of design and art to increase meaningful civic engagement. CUP collaborates with designers, educators, advocates, students, and communities to make educational tools that demystify complex policy and planning issues. We believe that increasing understanding of how these systems work is the first step to better, more equitable, and more diverse community participation. Learn more: welcometocup.org

Panelists: Douglas Paulson and Zoya Seaforth

Engage Media Lab

The Engage Media Lab is committed to fostering civic engagement through media that empowers the voices of youth, citizens and marginalized communities. The lab is designed to train students to become media educators, youth skills, and communities to engage in media through hands-on programs and collaborative projects. It aspires to become a hub at The New School and in New York City for design, research and civic action through participatory media innovations. Learn more: engagemedialab.org

Panelists: Olubusola (Shola) Ajayi and Imani Joshua

Global Action Project

Founded in 1991, Global Action Project (G.A.P.) has provided media-arts and leadership education for thousands of youth living in underserved communities across New York City and the country. G.A.P.’s core program is called Urban Voices. It consists of several distinctive after-school projects that combine best practices in youth development with media-arts training and social justice values. Urban Voices offers youth trainings in media analysis and production, leadership and self-expression, as well as access to public forums and venues, and meaningful connections to communities working for change. Learn more: global-action.org

Panelists: Aleksei Cohen Wagner and Adriel Grant

The LAMP

The Prevention PSA program is a partnership between The LAMP (Learning About Multimedia Project) and Immigrant Social Services, Inc (ISS). The LAMP is a nonprofit organization bringing 21st-century learning skills to youth, parents and educators throughout New York City, and ISS is a nonprofit dedicated to improving the lives of youth and families in the Greater Chinatown and Lower East Side communities. Learn more: thelampnyc.org

Panelists: Jennifer Liu and Lai Wa

Radio Rookies

Radio Rookies is a WNYC initiative that provides teenagers with the tools and training to create radio stories about themselves, their communities and their world. Since 1999, Radio Rookies has been conducting workshops across New York City, in predominantly under-resourced neighborhoods, training young people to use words and sounds to tell true stories. The Rookies’ documentaries air during Morning Edition on WNYC (93.9FM/ AM820 and WNYC.org) and online at wnyc.org. Learn more: wnyc.org/shows/rookies/

Panelists: Sanda Htyte and Danielle Motindabeka

Reel Lives

Reel Lives uses media to support education, empowerment and social change. Our approach consists of an integrated set of programming that achieves both depth and breadth of service. Each participant in the Core Program shoots and edits an individual, non-fiction film related to a personal human rights issue. Through the process of making these films, our youth are supported in engaging with their own lives in a unique way, and in experiencing the catharsis of an informal, but powerful, art therapy structure. Learn more: reel-lives.org

Panelists: Bridget Jordan, Abigail

EVENT SPONSORS

Mozilla Hive NYC Learning Network

Mozilla Hive NYC is a New York-based learning lab that engages youth around innovation, digital media and web-making. Hive NYC is composed of fifty-six non-profit organizations—museums, libraries, after-school clubs and informal learning spaces—that collaborate to create Connected Learning opportunities for youth. Learn more: explorecreateshare.org Special thanks to the Education and Learning Initiative and the School of Media Studies at the New School for Public Engagement for supporting this event.

MOUSE Corps

Presented by Marc Lesser and Meredith Summs (MOUSE)
The New School, 2 West 13th Street

MOUSE Corps is an elite team of tinkerers and innovators, working together after school to learn, make and dream with technology. Each year, youth learn human-centered design processes that help them build technology projects that address a social need. This year, we are designing adaptive and assistive technologies with volunteers at United Cerebral Palsy. As part of this showcase, MOUSE corps teens from across NYC will engage participants in mini-lessons that represent aspects of our own program year and design activities. Participants will:

• Experience some of the ways that we learn the importance of Prototyping through a short hands-on rapid prototyping challenge
• Learn about human-centered research activities that we’ve conducted to build empathy for the users that we design alongside
• Learn the basics of adapting the circuits and switches of low-cost toys as an introduction to basic circuits and adaptive design
• Experience working prototypes from four MOUSE Corps project teams

This activity is an open participatory forum and offered free of charge to all participants attending IDC.

Electronics Playground

Presented by Josh Chan and Tarun Pondicherry (Stanford)
The New School, 2 West 13th Street

Learn about how things around you work with students from Stanford’s Transformative Learning Technologies Lab. No experience required! You’ll use LightUp, a brand new learning platform for electronics, to make cool projects that interact with the world around you. Click together a few LightUp blocks into a circuit, and then program it to do what you want with Arduino, a popular programming environment designed for beginners.

Papertronics

Presented by Ariel Churi and Amy Parness (Sparkle Lab)
The New School, 2 West 13th Street

Arts and crafts with LEDs. We will create a LED circuit and design our own light up robots. The robots are little lights that can be turned off and on. Learn to use LEDs and conductive materials. Become familiar with electronic components by creating a simple electronic paper toy to take home. Materials: Markers, glue, glitter, conductive tape, pom poms, and exacto knifes for older kids.

An iOS/Acoustic Music Design Lab

Facilitated by Carnegie Hall’s Weill Music Institute
The New School’s Tishman Auditorium, 66 West 12 Street
Organizer: Christopher Amos (Carnegie Hall)

This workshop will explore the intersections between musical concepts addressed in elementary music learning, the development of musical interfaces, and applications in performance and educational contexts. The workshop will include a rehearsal and performance of In C (see performance description for Tuesday evening IDC reception) using iOS mobile devices and acoustic instruments, a hands-on exploration of the musical interface, and a design feedback session and discussion that explores possibilities for future development of the project. Workshop participants are invited to participate in a public performance of the work at the conference welcome reception. No prior technical or musical experience is required to participate in the workshop and performance.

Narrative Contexts as a Design Element

Facilitated by Sesame Workshop & The New York Hall of Science.
The New York Hall of Science, 47-01 111th St, Queens, NY (718) 699-0005, nysci.org
Organizers: Peggy Monahan (NYSCI), Jessie Hopkins (Sesame Workshop), David Glauber (Sesame Workshop)

*Please note this activity is from 10am-3pm. This day long, hands-on design activity held at the New York Hall of Science, New York’s hands-on science and technology center, will explore story, character, and humor as a strategies designers may use to increase engagement and understanding. Hosted by interactive writers from Sesame Workshop and exhibit designers from the New York Hall of Science, this design lab is appropriate for all who are interested in exploring narrative within interactives. Special attention will be paid to informal educational technologies and STEM topics. Workshop participants will design and build iterative prototypes that will be tested with child and family visitors in the exhibit halls. The work and discussion stemming from this event will also be featured in the IDC conference’s Wednesday evening reception, held at the New York Hall of Science.

Play Forum / Play City

GREENSPACENYC presented by Jeff Kasper (CUNY) and Laura Scherling (The New School)
The New School, 2 W 13th Street

Building a future populated by vibrant and sustainable cities rests on the growth and support of creative communities — communities and cultures that value innovation, that are characterized by a DIY spirit, and that are willing to remix the old and experiment with the present. Our lifestyles today too often increase reliance, closing our minds to possibility, and entangling us in cycles of consumption. But, through education, knowledge-sharing and the promotion of a participatory culture we might begin to disrupt this pattern and re-empower and re-ignite dormant creativity. GREENSPACENYC is pleased to introduce the Play Forum — a collaborative project created to explore how we can better integrate play into the everyday. The goal of the project is to begin conversations around how the city is experienced and how it could be. At Interactive Design and Children 2013, project organizers will lead a participatory mapping workshop and conclude with a short presentation and Q&A. The hands-on workshop portion of the event will invite participants to co-create impromptu public art – a colorful map illustrating how New York could be re-imagined to include more artistic interventions and inventive play spaces. The activity is guided by these questions: What are current examples of play within urban space? What are strategies for incorporating play into our cities through top-down and bottom-up interventions? Why is play an integral element in the development of more sustainable communities and neighborhoods? The afternoon will conclude with a conversation about the intersection of play, sustainability, and the urban environment with LEED certified architect Andrew Haner (NYU), moderated by Laura Scherling (The New School) and Jeff Kasper (CUNY).

Move to time marker: 1 hour 55 mins in the video

From the winner Aaron: “When it came to choosing my caption for what I’d print with the 3D printer, it was a no-brainer. After spending nearly a week with a bunch of people passionate about providing kids with the tools to build their own learning experiences, the easy answer was that we needed to find a cheaper/quicker way to get tools like 3D printers in the hands of as many kids as possible! I’m planning on using the 3D printers with my colleagues at PBS KIDS. I think I absolutely need to hold true to my promise to attempt to build at least the infrastructure for a smaller 3D printers, but am definitely going to need some help! Other than that, at PBS KIDS we’re super interested right now in connecting the digital and tangible worlds, and the 3D printer might prove to be a super valuable tool to help accomplish that goal. I will keep everyone updated! I’d really like to thank the planners, organizers, and participants at the conference. It was so exciting and valuable to find myself surrounded by people just as passionate and excited about creating learning opportunities for kids. The insight, knowledge, and expertise I experienced over the course of the conference was overwhelming and wonderful! Also, huge thanks to Susan, Mohamed, and Hamidu for coming to talk with us and for picking my entry!”  
]]> https://www.idc2013.org/3d-printing-challenge-winner/feed/ 0 https://www.idc2013.org/youth-media-showcase-submission-april-20th/ https://www.idc2013.org/youth-media-showcase-submission-april-20th/#comments Mon, 08 Apr 2013 00:24:38 +0000 https://www.idc2013.org/?p=730

The NYC Youth Media Showcase will be held on Monday, June 24^th, from 7:30PM – 9:30PM, at The New School’s Kellen Auditorium (2 West 13th Street). The Showcase will consist of screenings and discussion of short films created by high-school students involved with innovative youth media programs in New York City, led by the Engage Media Lab initiative in the School of Media Studies at The New School. This is an opportunity for youth to present their work in a relaxed and informal environment, in front of a friendly audience.

KEY CRITERIA The proposed showcase should be resonant with the conference themes. The Showcase will be part ‘show & tell’ and part Q&A.

SUBMISSION CRITERIA Please submit no more than a one-page application including the following information:

• Title of project
• Description of project
• Nomination names for 1-2 youth and/or organizers to present
• Link to project

Please submit proposal to info AT www.idc2013.org