Jay Silver
ABSTRACT
Can we design tools and toys that encourage interaction with and intimate knowledge of the every day world? Inspired by Froebel's Gifts, we created a set of meta-manipulatives or "Modern Nature Gifts,"to help people explore their own local environments. Each gift comes out of the box "incomplete" and must be combined with some element of the environment to become meaningful. Like a magnifying glass, they are only interesting when applied to our world. However, the Modern Nature Gifts go one step beyond a magnifying glass because they directly suggest that you build and express yourself using your local landscape. You might see people engaged in activities like jumping up and down to draw a picture, hula-hooping to create music, or exploring a park to find unique sounds for a musical composition. We briefly cover fourrecent works and show how they exemplify Modern Nature Gifts: GlowDoodle, Drawdio, MmmTsss, and Twinkle.
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Index Terms
- Gifts for intertwining with modern nature
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Reviews
Barrett Hazeltine
As presented in this paper, gifts are learning tools and modern nature is the world around us, with the recognition that people live in different microclimates. Gifts allow us to actively engage modern nature, to be intertwined with it. The terms "explore," "build," and "express" are used to describe intertwining. Four gifts are described that make the following possible: painting a picture with either a flower, hands, or a Lego block; composing a song by drawing a score using markers on papers and playing it back by scanning; inventing musical instruments by using any sounds available and then combining these sounds; and creating music by moving your fingers over common devices-for example, a kitchen sink, a drawing, or a bicycle. Three of these gifts have been installed in museums and children have interacted with them. Descriptive Web sites show two of the gifts in action. The approach is imaginative, and using the gifts should be fun. Unfortunately, no analysis of what they actually accomplish is given. In summary, while this enjoyable read presents an intriguing idea, the significance is questionable. Online Computing Reviews Service
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