ALA Museum Day Wednesday October 27, 2004

Today the ALA design it students came to the museum and we had a wrap up information session for mindfest. We also got them all signed up for cycle work. The Kids had some great suggestions for next year's mindfest, and i'll try to get some of them up on this site in the next two days. The students had the choice of signing up for 5 different cycles of material, from tomorrow till the end of the school year. THe very next cycle consists of the art of storytelling - learning how to develop ideas so that people will actually want to watch your film or play your game because they can become involved in a narrative of some kind, whether printed or digital. After that comes the MUSIC MIDI MADNESS cycle, where we wil l explore the realm of music making with cricket and MIDI technology, with a culmination of their work becoming sound machines to display at this year's Mad Scientist's Ball in February. THe third cycle available is the REALWORLDS, MICROWORLDS cycle, consisting of working with cricket technology to create digital worlds and scenes that interact with our own physical reality through the use of sensors and the Microworlds animation. After that, we offer THE ART OF DESIGN IT, where we will offer the students a chance to totally explore their artistic side, bringing in artists to help them create stunning visuals that could be used in their programming, or a film, or anything they choose. Finally, the last cycle is CHOOSE YOUR OWN ADVENTURE. We want to put every tool available into the brains of these students so that if they want to make a film, they are not inhibited in any way. If they want to work on a video game, they will have the skill to do so - we want to give them a chance to be free to work on what they choose, and create something magical. Using the previous cycles' materials, the students will be able to do just that! We start with the art of storytelling tomorrow.
Jonathon