{"id":359,"date":"2018-07-17T22:01:33","date_gmt":"2018-07-17T22:01:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/larajensen\/?p=359"},"modified":"2018-07-17T23:37:41","modified_gmt":"2018-07-17T23:37:41","slug":"using-passion-and-whimsy-to-get-past-the-scary-parts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/larajensen\/2018\/07\/17\/using-passion-and-whimsy-to-get-past-the-scary-parts\/","title":{"rendered":"Using Passion and Whimsy to Get Past the &#8220;Scary&#8221; Parts"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"p1\">As part of the <a href=\"http:\/\/constructingmodernknowledge.com\/?page_id=212\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Constructing Modern Knowledge Summer Institute<\/a>, we ventured from Manchester, NH to the city of Boston.<\/p>\n<p><a data-flickr-embed=\"true\"  href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/learningissocial\/43453012741\/in\/dateposted-public\/\" title=\"Rowing Memories\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/farm2.staticflickr.com\/1767\/43453012741_1625d06322_z.jpg\" width=\"640\" height=\"480\" alt=\"Rowing Memories\"\/><\/a><script async src=\"\/\/embedr.flickr.com\/assets\/client-code.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p><a data-flickr-embed=\"true\"  href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/learningissocial\/43452988641\/in\/dateposted-public\/\" title=\"Boating in Bston\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/farm2.staticflickr.com\/1788\/43452988641_f5268e4ff9_z.jpg\" width=\"640\" height=\"480\" alt=\"Boating in Bston\"\/><\/a><script async src=\"\/\/embedr.flickr.com\/assets\/client-code.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h4 class=\"p1\"><b>Eric Rosenbaum &#8211; Explorations in Musical Tinkering<\/b><\/h4>\n<p class=\"p1\">At the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.media.mit.edu\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">MIT Media Lab<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ericrosenbaum.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Eric Rosenbaum<\/a> shared his passion for creating music. He not only enjoys this in his personal life, but he has incorporated it into his programming work in as playful a way as possible.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">According to <a href=\"http:\/\/emeshing.blogspot.com\/2017\/04\/steam-conf-barcelona-2017-5.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">emeshing.com<\/a>, in 2001 he and Diane Willow exhibited <a href=\"https:\/\/static1.squarespace.com\/static\/58fa260a725e25c4f30020f3\/t\/5949824e6a4963370e789c20\/1497989759599\/EXH_spg08_Exhibitions+as+a+Context+for+Engaging+Young+Children+and+Families+with+the+Ideas+that+Technology+Can+Reveal_Willow.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Music Digits<\/a> that mirrored the movements of users and provided accompanying sounds.<\/p>\n<p><a data-flickr-embed=\"true\"  href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/learningissocial\/42737468844\/in\/dateposted-public\/\" title=\"Musical Digits\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/farm1.staticflickr.com\/923\/42737468844_05c389b22b_z.jpg\" width=\"461\" height=\"640\" alt=\"Musical Digits\"\/><\/a><script async src=\"\/\/embedr.flickr.com\/assets\/client-code.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">More recently, he helped to create an app called <a href=\"http:\/\/singingfingers.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Singing Fingers<\/a> that allows users to sample their own voice or recorded sounds by finger painting. Kids can easily record, play back and remix sounds &#8211; skills that not so long ago could only be done by sound engineers in a recording studio.<\/p>\n<p><iframe title=\"Singing Fingers - Finger Paint with Sound\" width=\"635\" height=\"476\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/iCYA7N-vdZA?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">By way of example, to demonstrate some work in Scratch he shared Jinho&#8217;s Story about a teenager who worked online with other &#8220;Scratchers&#8221; to create a collaborative music video in response to a mass shooting at a Florida nightclub.<\/p>\n<p><iframe title=\"Scratch Story: Jinho\" width=\"635\" height=\"357\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/TDzeGXatsk8?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Without his interest in music and tinkering with how music could be incorporated into his other programming work, none of these would have existed.<\/p>\n<p>His enthusiasm and playful approach to incorporating music were not only infectious but inspirational. He clearly wondered often about how sound could be easily used by others as a tool for creation and used his programming skills to make this a possibility.<\/p>\n<h4 class=\"p1\">Gary Stager &#8211; Aesthetics, Beauty and Whimsy<\/h4>\n<p>In one of his closing presentations, Gary mentioned how &#8220;feathers give us courage&#8221;. Adding whimsy to learning about math, science, engineering, design, etc. makes it more relatable and allows people to get past the \u201cscary\u201d parts.<\/p>\n<p>The notion of having a low floor, high ceiling and wide walls <a href=\"https:\/\/design.blog\/2016\/08\/25\/mitchel-resnick-designing-for-wide-walls\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">described by Mitchel Resnick<\/a> is important in edtech and embedded in all that Eric has developed:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Low floors = easy for novices to get started<\/p>\n<p>High ceiling = ability to work on increasingly complex projects<\/p>\n<p>Wide walls = supports a variety of pathways to achieve a user-generated goal<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><a data-flickr-embed=\"true\"  href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/learningissocial\/41645746250\/in\/dateposted-public\/\" title=\"The Armory\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/farm2.staticflickr.com\/1830\/41645746250_28372aa14c_z.jpg\" width=\"640\" height=\"263\" alt=\"The Armory\"\/><\/a><script async src=\"\/\/embedr.flickr.com\/assets\/client-code.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As part of the Constructing Modern Knowledge Summer Institute, we ventured from Manchester, NH to the city of Boston. Eric Rosenbaum &#8211; Explorations in Musical Tinkering At the MIT Media Lab, Eric Rosenbaum shared his passion for creating music. He not only enjoys this in his personal life, but he has incorporated it into his [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":168,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wds_primary_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[17,19,22],"class_list":["post-359","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-pd","tag-cmk18","tag-electronics","tag-play"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/larajensen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/359","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/larajensen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/larajensen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/larajensen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/168"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/larajensen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=359"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/larajensen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/359\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":392,"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/larajensen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/359\/revisions\/392"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/larajensen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=359"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/larajensen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=359"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/larajensen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=359"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}