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| Pop Up Thinglab 12 Childrens DIY VR Workshop |
“Technology is anything invented after you were born.” ~ Alan Kay
“Technology is everything that doesn’t work yet." ~ Danny Hillis
Although virtual reality has been around for a long time (even before I was born) it is only now starting to enter the mainstream. Most people would consider virtual reality as technology - it's new new and doesn't work that well.
NASA is an organisation tightly connected with technology and they have been using virtual reality for a long time - here is how they explain it:
"Virtual reality is the use of computer technology to create the effect of an interactive three-dimensional world in which the objects have a sense of spatial presence.”
Did you understand that?
This is what Albert Einstein has to say about explanations
"If you can't explain it to a six year old, you don't understand it yourself"
"if you want to understand it yourself have a six year old explain it to you"
This is how Croydon Library code club children explained virtual reality to me
"In virtual reality you can look around as if you are there"
I know which explanation I prefer.
Children carry less baggage than adults - things are simpler, and more exciting all at the same time. Children rather than adults are better suited to accommodate new technology.
In How to Stop Worrying and Learn to Love the Internet’ Douglas Adams wrote ...
"you would think we would learn the way these things work, which is this:
1) everything that’s already in the world when you’re born is just normal
2) anything that gets invented between then and before you turn thirty is incredibly exciting and creative and with any luck you can make a career out of it
3) anything that gets invented after you’re thirty is against the natural order of things and the beginning of the end of civilisation as we know it until it’s been around for about ten years when it gradually turns out to be alright really."
As young people we are amazing - curiosity bootstraps our learning through play, exploration and experimentation. We learn how to walk and talk before we can read an instruction manual - babies learn to walk through curiosity and trial and error exploration and experimentation.
One of our greatest ever scientists knew all about the power of curiosity, play and experimentation.
“I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious” ~ Albert Einstein
“Play is the highest form of research” ~ Albert Einstein
The marine biologist and explorer Sylvia Earle once said
"The best scientists and explorers have the attributes of kids! They ask question and have a sense of wonder. They have curiosity."
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| I'm Rowing a boat .... inside the Google HQ |
"Any sufficiently advanced work is indistinguishable from play" ~ Seb Paquet
We hear the stories about the workplaces and cultures of those creative and innovative companies with their beanbags, toys colourful surroundings and "move fast and break things" cultures. The relationship between playfulness and innovation is no co-incidence - try your own experiment - have a meeting in the standard corporate boardroom and then in a nursery. The corporate boardroom is designed for authority and formality ... the environment suppresses imagination .. the nursery is designed for play - it stimulates the imagination.
When people ask me about ways to promote creativity and innovation ... I always say "start with a nursery" and its no coincidence that innovative companies have workplaces that resemble nurseries.
In "Profiles of the Future" Arthur C. Clarke warned about the the failure of imagination and set out his three Laws of prediction:
1. When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.
2. The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.
3. Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
The only thing we can't predict is the future - its unwritten ... its uncertain.
"Play is about exploring the possible. In times of rapid change, exploring the possible becomes an essential skill. We don’t have maps for the territory of tomorrow. As a result, all citizens must become explorers of this emerging world. The best way to prepare for the emergence of the future is to learn how to be comfortable with uncertainty. To be comfortable with uncertainty, one must remain fluid, receptive and creative — in a word: playful." ~ Tina Barseghian (The Power of Play in Learning)
A Curious Mind Knows No Limits - to learn just start playing .. its only natural - we just have to create the conditions.
“Our greatest national resource is the minds of our children.” ~ Walt Disney
The best way to learn is to teach.
Children are our future - let them teach us
Remember ...
“We don’t stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing” ~ George Bernard Shaw
inspireNshare are passionate about peer learning and specialise in facilitating mutual co-created peer learning projects through sharing. Our projects focus on "Citizen Tech" using cost effective, free, open, easy technologies and social media. With our projects everyone is both a learner and a teacher.
inspireNshare are in the Youth Zone at Mozfest
Mozfest
Sunday October 30th - Ravensbourne College, London
MAKE:VR ... Libraries: 21st century literacies and citizen tech
See yourself in virtual reality, learn how to make your own virtual reality viewer and to make and share your own virtual reality content.
To find out more about inspireNshare visit http://inspirenshare.com
To find out more about inspireNshare projects in education visit http://inspirenshare.com/projects-in-education
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