September 15, 2006

mediascapes: create-a-scape launches

scape1.gif scape2.gif scape3.gif

Create-A-Scape is a project to bring mediascape creation into schools in the UK. It is a project of Bristol-based Futurelab, along with contributions from HP Labs and support from the UK DfES. There is extensive documentation on the site, and you can download the HP Labs authoring tools for non-commercial use in schools ("This is a starter version of a broader toolkit to be released later in the year").

I used a prototype version of the authoring tools for some projects during my summer sabbatical, and I recommend them highly as a useful and intuitive package. You still need to futz with PDAs, GPS and maps, but overall the HP team did a nice job of balancing the capabilities, making simple things easy (visual, drag & drop authoring) and difficult things possible (C#-based scripting model). Although I did manage to break things by trying to run 20 audio streams simultaneously ;-)

Posted by Gene at September 15, 2006 1:13 PM | TrackBack