Over the last couple of months I’ve been acquainting myself with Unity, the games development platform and a visual scripting tool for it called Playmaker. Playmaker is very nice for visualising early concepts and creating little games and apps. I’ve found it could also very handy for understanding coding concepts. So I set myself a task to get to grips with the software by building something. The folks who know me, might know i’ve been interested in how young kids / toddlers use everyday tech and how we, as parents respond. I began to explore the possibilities of a very early introduction to digital literacy using coding concepts, Tiny Logics. More on that in a bit. So,as a parent of young children myself, It felt like a bit of a no-brainer to have a bash at some kind of app for toddlers.

So, Outside My Window is, in essence, for toddlers who are curious with tech. The content, as the name suggests, includes simple everyday images and sounds that might be seen or heard outside the house. I hope the content makes sense. By that, I mean I hope parents will relate to the familiar sights and sounds while their kids bash away at the keys. For example when bringing their children downstairs in the morning, opening the curtains and seeing the sun rise… That sort of thing. We didn’t spend ages on the content, it would be easy to create any number of scenarios but the focus of this exercise was for me to get to grips with a piece of software, more than anything.

Younger toddlers will need some initial support, depending on how tech savvy your kids are, just to get the ball rolling – which isn’t a bad thing as it encourages the whole parent – child interaction thang. It’s available as a download for mac and PC. To play on the web you will need to install the unity player which is not unlike having to install the flash player to play those Flash games. I do hope you give it a go. There is an iPad version planned which is where I really intended this to be published but thought i’d pilot it on the web first. To get news on this and leave any comments maybe you wouldn’t mind filling in the little web form? and i’ll let you know when it’s ready to go.

Next steps? well, I briefly mentioned Tiny Logics, coding concepts for kids. The plan (at this stage) is to step things up and create a toddler friendly app that introduces the concepts of coding using simple touch activities. Something you might be interested in? I’m wondering whether this could potentially be a Kickstarter project and so I’ve included that in the web form too.

via Dropbox

via Dropbox

New Flying Lotus album fast approaching! http://t.co/dRulWwA5 #me

There comes a point where banging on about something specific becomes futile or in my case, the thing simply embeds itself into my processes. The point in question is the rate of tech evolution / mutation… call it what you like, and how we as humans, collectively keep track. The mantra still seems to be ‘it’s about the people, not the technology‘ and yes, it (still) is, but I want to hang some bumph off that.

Could our advances in technology give us a glimpse into how we could be? Is it down to us collectively to instigate positive change?. And maybe there’s the thing. With everything web wise going social crazy, to me, this consumer driven world we live in, just isn’t on the same plane as what the tech is showing us. Too much social content seems to be about self promotion. It’s weird in a way that it’s like the machines are trying to tell us something and we’re generally ignoring it.

To what cost? For how long? We applaud achievements during a sporting ceremony while at the same time, countless numbers are killed through preventable causes. True madness right there. But I can’t dwell on that (maybe I should).

So maybe we can learn from technology but it’s got to a point where it feels like things are going beyond comprehension. How long ago would a statement like ‘Nexus Prime running Android ice cream sandwich‘ actually mean anything? How many people would understand it today? Are we living in the unknown? Generally we fear the unknown. We seek safety zones, comfort in stuff we’re confident with. But how relevant are old systems, policies, models etc in the face of things? the (overused) Anthony Robbins quote “If you do what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you’ve always gotten.” seems so appropriate right now.

So when I ask the question ‘How do you teach the future?‘ it’s more about me not knowing what these new approaches are, but understanding in creative processes and I recognise that now is the time to be creative in how we deal with the future-now. Maybe it’s going to take an awful lot more folk to get their creativity flowing if we stand any chance of saving Sarah Conner come to think of it.

…And it seems like there’s hardly time to breathe.

The AlphaPad project was set up to train young people in digital skills. Around 60 young apprentices are slowly learning what it means to have a ‘job’ and for some, it seems to be a difficult thing to get to grips with. Myself and colleague, Andy Ray have had a brief chat about this and for us, we kind of knew what ‘work’ meant. We knew that there would be rules to abide by, we’d need to do the things that were asked of us and we that we needed to start taking on responsibilities and become adults, quickly. We were told these things by family members, friends and teachers.

So why are we initially finding it difficult to convey to these young people that they are now at work and unless they do their ‘job’ there’s a good chance they won’t be in such a privileged position? (there’s quite a waiting list for this apprenticeship programme).

Obviously there are many reasons and each case brings it’s own story but it did catch us out a little. Looking at where we have got to after two weeks though I think we’re pretty confident on the direction of the programme. We’re finding out more and more about these young people, where their interests lie, their hopes and fears for the future through informal chats, observation and their ongoing exploration of social media. This is the key to how we support them. Step by step and as much one to one time as possible.

The whole project is taking shape and we’ll get into a pattern of updating the progress pretty soon. At the moment we’re still having a look at all the little pieces of the puzzle and deciding what works well and what doesn’t.

Today I had the pleasure of meeting a number of staff who work across the 3D Native / LearnPlay landscape. This was in conjunction with attending the induction day of around 30 new apprentices about to start 3D Native’s Digital Media Apprenticeship project which is running at The Public, West Bromwich.

It’s never easy wondering where to put yourself where things like induction processes go. A lot of paperwork, no familiar faces, wondering about what they’re letting themselves into. The majority of the (overwhelmingly male) apprentices pretty much sat there and said very little while main man, Steve Hands gave them an overview of what’s expected of them. Hopefully a lot of them will look back at this day with a wry grin. We have big plans for these young people but we’re realistic. There’s enough experience in the team to help make things happen, i’m certain of that.

I spoke with a couple of the apprentices, one of whom told me about his phobia of social networks. Yes, not what I expected but it led into an interesting chat about online bullying and the SOPA & PIPA acts. Can’t wait until we start the sessions in a few weeks time.

For various reasons the break is over. Over the next 12 months or so I’ll be working for 3D Native who do cool digital media stuff over at The Public in West Bromwich.

The project i’ll be involved in is all about digital media apprenticeships in a development & mentoring role. I’m more than grateful to Sir Steve Hands (take a look at what else he gets up to) for this opportunity and i’ll post more about it all pretty soon.

Now whether it’s a sign of the times or more than likely, just my paranoia but I want to try and do something, it’s not happening and it’s getting me down. See, for the majority of my adult life, i’ve been tinkering with sound, be that playing in bands, composing, experimenting etc. I’ve been able to put more effort into it at some times more than others, depending on the obvious responsibilities that come and go in life. When i’ve had time to concentrate on it it’s usually been pretty productive and successful and a real pleasure to do (music is ‘the’ obsession). I’ve got off on the solitary stuff as much as the collaborative efforts. Well, since my two children have pretty much taken over my life, familywise, we’ve had to do a bit of shuffling about and right now, some of the work stuff i’ve been doing has been put on hold. Now, I was channeling a lot of my creative outpourings through work (a challenge but it kinda worked) but now I need to dedicate a bit of time to the music. What I really want to do though, is get back into a band thing again, work with others, collaborate etc but this seems to be more tricky than I thought it would be. I’ve joined a few of those musician websites but they’re all a load of bollocks and really don’t work (Anyone want to create a useful / musician orientated social site for musicians?). Maybe it’s an age thing… where do 40 year old blokes go to find like minded souls to start a band? Refining it a little, where are all the players from the late 80s onwards who were thrashing about to the likes of Sonic Youth and Dinosaur Jr? Those that got the techno bug and then found their tastes mutate into a genre mish mash(up). Surely there must be some folks out there with the itch who are not doing any music, but want to do some?????

So to put it out plainly, 40 year old into way too much music than is necessary (see my last.fm profile) loves creative sampling / loops, guitars, noise, pop, etc etc. Wants to start a new project, Birmingham way, looking at around 2 hours a week for getting together somewhere to jam and who knows what. So whether you’re into post rock, techno, chill-wave… whatever, give us a spin if you like the idea of exploring some sonic tomfoolery.

You can hear a load of the stuff i’ve been doing over the past decade or so here in case you wondered what kind of crap i’ve been doing.

http://harribionic.com/pages/danulo-archive

If you’re interested then please, please get in touch (reply on this post). Or if you know somebody who may be interested, again – pass on this message. I don’t want to be stuck in a room on my own with a bunch of gagdets, guitars and wires for too much longer.