Tuesday, October 7, 2014

Pop Culture: Food Culture Begins & Design Challenge: Franklin County Eatery Pitch

Today we started our food culture mini-unit and our next design challenge to follow up on our Soundtrack A-Side/B-Side design project.

We started by quickly looking at food advertisements in magazines of yesteryear, particularly National Geographics of the 1940s and LIFE of the early 1970s.  Not the most scientific work, mind you, but I wanted you using physical magazines and not just flipping through the complete run of LIFE on Google Books. (Yet.)





We identified the food we saw advertised, then sorted that information to look for trends.  We discovered a strong presence of alcohol ads in the early 1970s and then I speculated, by playing some connect the dots between cultural experiences, intended targets of the ads, and content of the ads themselves why that might be the case.  (Middle age white male + cultural revolution = self medication?)




After that, we created food maps of RSU 10.  Where can you buy food in our district.  We discovered some interesting trends around local food vs chains, quality vs quantity, and a preponderance of pizza places.  






This lead to our next design challenge: How might we design a successful pitch for a new eatery for Franklin County?

Consider the steps.

DISCOVER. Your challenge.  What are you creating.  What do you need to know in order to develop a successful pitch for an eatery?  Unpack it.  What are the terms in there  you need to know.  What does that make you consider?

EMPATHIZE.  Interview.  Get out there and find out what people what.  What would people flock to and in how many droves? What DON'T they want to see?

EXPERIMENT.  Create some low-rez prototypes of what this place might look like.  At the same time, what might the pitch sound like?  Function like?  What media could you use to support your pitch?  Presentation slides?  Video?  Signage?  Something else?

PRODUCE.  Create the pitch.  Try it out.  Get some feedback before the final version.

You'll be using the DEEP DT process to design and then pitch this idea to your investors i.e. the rest of the class and perhaps even some members of our admin team here.  We'll also deliver these pitches in the Forum.  A proper space for such intensity.

The rubric is not yet ready.  But it will be.  It will be....

HOMEWORK.

Blog: 3+ Posts.  (Tracker is fixed.  Post last week's links please.)
Req'd Post:  For this week's blog post, discuss the food culture in your family.  What does your family typically eat?  What traditions do you maintain?  What, if any, ethnic/regional/heritage foods inform your family's eating?  

Have fun.  Do some exploring.  And if possible, include some pictures.  Maybe even some highlighting those traditions.

Design: How might we design a successful pitch for a new eatery for Franklin County?
Form: Team of 1, 2 or 3 members
Complete: DEEPdt Process Packet.  EVERY MEMBER MUST COMPLETE AN INDIE PACKET.  Combine your data and info for team-based mighty power thinking.
PITCH DUE:  Thursday, Oct 23rd.
Research: How to successfully pitch an idea.  (Got Netflix or cable?  Hunt up The Pitch.  Got HuluPlus?  Hunt up some Shark Tank.  Got an internet?  Look up "elevator pitches," "PIXAR pitch," and "Art of the Pitch."  Here's a slideshow with some good intel as well.)




Humanities: Whole New Mind Portfolio Work & Review & Tips on Better Presentations

Hey folks,

WHOLE NEW MIND.
On Monday, we reviewed the Whole New Mind senses by first putting the definitions in our own words (using the 3 second pause to check for understanding), then putting the senses on notecards to create maps that help us connect the dots between the senses we understand and the ones we don't, and then used doodle to think skills to create doodle representations of each sense on the cards.  We put those decks in our books for easy access and remembering later.  (That was a huge run-on sentence back there.  Sorry for that.)
















Tuesday, we worked.  We also ate sweet blueberry kielbasa from Gavin.

On Tuesday, we forgot to assign Roots List #2.  There will be a quiz next Thursday over both Roots #1 & #2.  Also, a Roots Product #2.  It needs to use at least 5 roots-based words from Roots List #2.

DESIGN.
Here's a GREAT slide deck to help you with your portfolios.  Don't feel like you have to read every slide, especially if you don't understand the wording.  There are tons of great examples and tons of TERRIBLE examples.  Just be sure you know if you are looking at  good examples or bad examples.


Here's another one.  Each slide pairing is a bad one, then a better one.



HOMEWORK

Blog: 3+ Posts
Req'd Blog Post:  #showyourwork. Share some of the images and ideas of your Whole New Mind portfolio as you are working on it.  What are you struggling with?  What are you proud of so far?

Roots: Roots 2
Study: Quiz Over Roots 1 & 2
Create: Roots Product
Due: Thursday, Oct 16th

Complete: Whole New Mind Portfolio
Due: Thursday, Oct 9th