back to the futurelab _part02

Here are two projects from futurelab (again), that dont have any mobiles or maps,

01_Ecolibrium

ecolibrium_overview.jpg

Ecolibrium is a vast internet-based virtual world containing an ecosystem of thousands of semi intelligent artificial life forms. Children can create their own creatures and release them into the world to observe their creature’s behaviour and success within the ecosystem. The project is aimed at worldwide school and home use, and investigates cross-curricular activity. Children will be able to create their own creatures and let them loose in this world. They can study their creature’s progress in order to learn about ecology, creature behaviour and other biological topics, while at the same time strengthening their ability to reason scientifically and gaining experience in modern ‘systems’ concepts such as Complexity and Chaos. Children will be able to enter the world in school, as part of a lesson facilitated by a teacher, and at home as a location for play and experimentation. more…

02_Adventure Author,

adventure_author_overview.jpg

I was somehow even thinking of this related to a sophie-book map (?) somehow…

Adventure Author has been developed as a means to guide the young people (10-14 year-olds) through a series of steps, via ‘wizards’, which are aimed at supporting thinking about character and storyline development on a scene-by-scene basis. In addition, an overall map easily allows users to arrange and link scenes to support nonlinear storytelling. Having authored their own game, the young people can then play this and share it with others. Through this process of play and critical feedback from peers, young people are offered the opportunity to improve their game design and storytelling techniques.

03_Size Matters– building worlds

size_matters_overview.jpg

The Size Matters prototype was designed to act as an interactive exhibit in science
centres to be used alongside a range of hands-on activities, for children aged 11-
14. The prototype was developed to explore whether an engaging series of simulations, that showed hamsters being enlarged to the size of a moon, and elephants ranging from pocket sized to ‘ginormous’, would trigger children to ask questions about how size affects structure. Rather than ‘telling’ children about how gravity and centrifugal force play a role in these processes, the prototype provides a series of simulations and ‘thought experiments’ intended to trigger discussion amongst users, encouraging further experimentation with other resources along the same themes.

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