Humanities: Learning to Love You More & Wicked Focus

Today we took a brief pause in Out of Nowhere to introduce Learning to Love You More, our ongoing design challenge for the month of May that will incorporate our work with Out of Nowhere and human rights, reinventing our blogging, and outsider art -- all ideas we intended to tackle anyway.

LEARNING TO LOVE YOU MORE.

Learning to Love You More started as an ambitious art project by Miranda July and Harrell Fletcher.  During the mid-2000s it took off as something of a social art movement in days before Instagram and Snapchat and when Tumblr and Twitter were just getting started.

Mr. Brackett and I still need to decide exactly which assignments we'll be using as part of the study of Out of Nowhere and which will be part of your personal portfolio, but you can expect to complete at least three a week.  For this first one, pick any of the 70 assignments and complete it for your blog post for Thursday.

Yes, some of these are incredibly easy and simple to "complete."  But remember, we've spent a tremendous amount of working on being intentional, making things that matter, challenging ourselves to make new iterations and revisions of our work.  If your goal is to take the easiest route, you will find this a fairly worthless endeavor -- it will feel like you wasted your time, it will make you ask what's the point, you will want to hide your work and share it with no one, you will likely be annoyed daily for the next month.

Or . . . you can do as Mr. Muise suggests we all do and refuse to be afraid to be awesome.  Be awesome.  Make something awesome.

VOCAB.

Roots 12.  Quiz next Thursday, May 5.  CRUSH it. Hard.

WICKED FOCUS a.k.a. FIDGET PROJECT

Today we made some huge strides in turning our fidget project into a classroom based business, a true example of social entrepreneurship and starting something that matters.

We have a lot of work to do between now and Friday, and especially between now and Friday, May 6, my imposed deadline to have the website up and ready for business.  We can do this.  Especially with a team like this:
Tyler: Marketing Director
Leahannah: Business Manager
Amelia: Human Resources Manager
Zach: Production Manager

Plus the rest of Wicked Focus which is currently the two Lilly's,  Dawson B. and Mo, but is open to anyone who would like to be involved.  These are your designs going to market.  I encourage you all to be part of this.

SHOW YOUR THINKING.

Blog.  Choose any LTLYM assignment.  Post it on  your blog.  Put a link to it on Google Classroom in the appropriate assignment.  There will be a new blog tracker soon.

Due.  Thursday.  April 28.

Vocab. Roots 12.

Quiz.  Thursday.  May 5.

Wicked Focus.

Logo.

Due. Thursday.  May 5.

Pricing.

Due. Thursday. May 5.

Production Workflow.

Due.  Thursday. May 5.

Google+ and Communication Plan.

Due. Friday.  April 29.

Story of Us.

Due. Friday. April 29.

We'll be meeting daily for the next two weeks to get us to launch.

Humanities: Fidget Design Challenge: This Week at a Glance

Hi folks,

Here you will find the game plan for Monday through Friday, including the blog prompts for each of the days.

Monday.

Station 1. Blake Videos.  Watch the videos.  As a group, affinity map them with Post-Its. What are the common denominators across the videos?  What are the outliers?

Station 2.  Low-Rez Tinkering.  Use the materials from the maker cart to experiment with designs for fidgets.  Our finished designs will be produced on the printer.  This is a chance to experiment in a quick way.  

Station 3.  Empathy Interview & Poll Design.  Work in a group to determine Qs to ask possible users as we try to create a design that meets their needs.  Determine poll items that we might be able to email/distribute through social media.

Station 4. Tinkercad Experimenting.  Play around with Tinkercad as you explore shapes, patterns and possibilities.  Try to create different textures w the tools available to you.

Station 5. Crazy Eights.  Use the Crazy Eights method to come up with 8 ideas for fidgets in only 5 minutes.  Then take one of those ideas and expand it into a 3-stage storyboard.  

Blog Prompt:  Adventure Grid Story.  Tell the story of your Discovery process.  What did you watch, read, listen and/or do and what did you learn along the way?   Use your storytelling skills to share your journey of learning about stress, anxiety, fidgets and design.   You should have an experience from at least three quadrants of the adventure grid.  DUE TUESDAY, 3/1.

Tuesday.

Station 1. Blake Videos.  Watch the videos.  As a group, affinity map them with Post-Its. What are the common denominators across the videos?  What are the outliers?  FINISH the videos?  Move on to the blog prompt.

Station 2.  Low-Rez Tinkering.  Doodle and use the materials from the maker cart to experiment with designs for fidgets.  Our finished designs will be produced on the printer.  This is a chance to experiment in a quick way.  

Station 3.  Empathy Interviews & Polls.  Go and interview.  You have enough time to hunt down at least one person.  We may also have some online opportunities to interview people/students not in our building.

Station 4. Tinkercad Experimenting.  Play around with Tinkercad as you explore shapes, patterns and possibilities.  Try to create different textures w the tools available to you.

Station 5. Crazy Eights.  Use the Crazy Eights method to come up with 8 ideas for fidgets in only 5 minutes.  Then take one of those ideas and expand it into a 3-stage storyboard.  Did it yesterday?  AWESOME.  MORE!  

Blog Prompt:  Blake Mycoskie and Start Something That Matters.  Based on the trends and outliers of what you saw in the Mycoskie videos, what do you believe it means to "Start Something That Matters?"  What are three questions you hope Mycoskie will answer in his book?   What are three OTHER questions you would like to ask him.  DUE WEDNESDAY, 3/2

Wednesday.

Station 1. Start Something That Matters Book Orientation.  Flip through the book.  Get familiar with how it is laid out, how the sections are determined, what sort of features are in there.  Create a sketchnote of how Start Something That Matters is organized and designed.  

Station 2. Empathy Interviews.  Go.  Interview.  Engage.

Station 3. Empathy Interviews.  Go.  Interview.  Engage.  More.  

Station 4. Low-Rez, Doodling and Tinkercad experimenting.

Station 5. Low-Rez, Doodling and Tinkercard experimenting.

Blog:  Empathy Interview and Empathy Map.  Document the results of your empathy interview and a complete an Empathy Map for at least one of your interviewees.  DUE THURSDAY, 3/3

Thursday.

1. Roots Quiz 9.  

2. Empathy Sorts.  What are the trends and outliers we are discovering in our interviews and our polls? 

What do we have to keep in mind with our experiments and our prototypes? Identify 3 big takeaways to inform our work. 

 

3. Tinkercad designing and printing.

Blog:  Connect the Dots.  Explain through sketchnotes, writing, audio and/or video how your current design for a fidget has been informed by your adventure grid work, your empathy interviews, crazy eights and/or any other process this week.  

Friday.

1. Experiment & print. 

2. Complete all blogs. 

3.  Group Share Out.  5 minutes per group.  Design so far.  Four corners critique sessions.

Humanities: Start Something That Matters Portfolio Final

Humanities: Station Day Learning to Love Starting Something That Matters Roots

Stations!

Station 1.  Soundtracking Your Roots.

a. Choose a root from Roots Lists 11- 13

b. Use Beatlab, Garage Band, or another music creation tool to create a song inspired by that root.  Write a brief explanation of your thinking and intention.

OR

b.  Find a song that reminds you of that root.  Write a brief explanation of your thinking and intention.

c.  Post your thinking on your blog.

d. Repeat for at least 3 root words.


Station 2.

Start Something That Matters Visual Self Assessment.

Using our circles, create a visual representation of where you are at in Mycoskie's 6 elements of starting something that matters

Orange: Find Your Story
White: Face Your Fears
Red: Be Resourceful without Resources
Purple: Keep It Simple
Pink: Build Trust
Blue: Giving Is Good Business

Take a picture.  Put it on your blog.  Write a brief explanation of your  thinking.

Station 3.

Learning to Love You More Rationales.

Work on your brief paragraphs explaining your Learning to Love You More assignments.

Station 4.

Learning to Love You More Slide Deck Design Work

More on this when I post the blog post in a minute!

Humanities: Starting Something That Matters

Watch at least three of the following videos featuring Blake Mycoskie as he discusses social entrepreneurship and the idea of starting something that matters.  We'll be affinity mapping this, looking for trends across the videos and determining what his message appears to be.

Want a more detailed and fantastic presentation from Mycoskie?

All of this is leading up to our Humanities final which we will be discussing in class today and for which you will be getting an information handout and rubric next week.

ASSESSMENTS.

Blog. 3+ Posts.
Req'd Post.  Learning to Love You More Progress.  Show Your Work.
Due. Friday.  May 15.

Complete. Learning to Love You More
Design Slide Deck.
Complete Assignments.
Due. Thursday.  May 21.  Installation in the building.
Bring artifacts of your assignments to share.