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Scratchkids

Jun. 2010, May 2011, Jul 2011

A workshop held for the Surrey Children's Festival and Burnaby Discovery Day to introduce kids to Scratch, a simple programming language for children. Kids between the ages of 8 to 13 took part in a half-hour digital media workshop to create interactive stories using the program, offering them another creative outlet when at the computer.

This workshop has been run with the assistance of Allen Bevans, Wendy Foster, Katie Seaborn, Anna Macaranas and Ying Deng. Financial and equipment support has been provided by the School of Interactive Arts & Technology at Simon Fraser University.

Dance + Technology + Isadora

Feb. 2010; Lecture Series, University of Hilo

This is a short lecture series done in collaboration with Laura Lee Coles for a number of the University of Hilo's performing arts dance classes and the Kea'au Youth Business Centre (KYBC).

The lecture for the dance classes was designed to give students a brief introduction to technology in performance, and a series of contexts in which integrating technology in performance would be of benefit. Emphasis was placed in the lecture on ensuring students used technology in meaningful performance contexts rather then just for 'flair'. Isadora was used as an example of how technology could be used in combination with dance, and some basic effects and what they might communicate about dance and movement were used to give further context for the lecture.

For the KYBC, a much more hands-on approach was taken and students were taught the basics of Isadora in the context of live video processing. This introduced another possible level of creativity available to the students in the development of their digital media portfolios.