Past and future things: future first. I’m coming to the UK again in April, presenting a paper at CAL 2011 on a framework for analysing mobile learning activities: snappy title is “Topological, Semiotic and Rhetorical Scapes: A Framework for Analysing Mobile Learning Experiences”. Looking forward to seeing Manchester again, it’s been years, and I’ll be stopping off in Bristol and London either side.

And last month I spoke at a couple of events in Beijing, with X|Media|Lab, at the China Science and Technology Museum, where I talked about using narrative and our hardwired cognitive habits to create immersion (with examples from Slingshot and Theatre Sandbox), and at the Beijing Association for Science and Technology, on mobile science games. Beijing is huge, China is exciting, and I’m really interested in seeing what people do with games and learning there.

Exploring links between music and mathematics in a networked mobile system

This project would develop software capable of analysing the positions of a group of learners relative to each other and streaming music generated computationally using the qualities of the group’s shape back to each learner, allowing members of the group to receive auditory feedback on the shape of the group, and to manipulate the audio stream through positioning their bodies differently in space.

For example, five learners, each with a mobile device capable of broadcasting its location (through GPS, network triangulation or similar), might be the vertices of a five-sided polygon, as imagined from above. Qualities of this shape – the interior angles, the length of the sides, the regularity of the shape, the surface area it covers, the length of time the shape has persisted – could map to musical features – dynamics, frequency range, degree of polyphony, range of instruments, different thematic material, degree of harmony – that could be used by software in generating a musical response.

The software would be designed to enable the precise nature of the correspondence between geometric quality and musical feature to be set by users themselves, allowing learners and teachers to explore the connections between the shapes made in space and the ways they can be analysed to an appropriate degree of complexity, and to represent the relationships between shape and harmony in the way they feel is most appropriate. Regular shapes might lead to more harmonious music; shapes sustained for a longer period might be louder than those that persist only briefly; serendipitous figures might be rewarded with specially-chosen vocal samples; learners might be guided towards target shapes through more attractive or moving musical forms; basic musical rules might be used to chart the stochastic movements of students travelling home, producing auditory geographies of familiar territories: a school song might be written by the movements of a victorious sports team during their final match.

The pedagogic value of this system might lie primarily in the capacity for supporting cross-curricular exploration, the participatory design of learning activities by learners themselves and the opportunities it presents for learning across age groups, with more able or older students preparing geo-acoustic systems for younger students to experience, or technologically more fluent students realising other students’ ideas about the relationships between shape and music.

Additionally, from a research perspective, the embodied nature of learners’ interactions within the geo-acoustic system is modally distinct from more usual forms of interaction with these subjects and presents an interesting and novel set of questions around the ways in which intellectual understanding relates to physical bodies, as well as being an opportunity to foreground current issues in education debates, not least perhaps the opportunity to explore more rigorously popular notions of “kinaesthetic intelligence” and to promote physical activity within an educational context. The nature of the activities designed by teachers and learners might well resonate with current interest in the potential educational value of pervasive and augmented reality gaming.

Despite this interdisciplinary focus, there are a number of traditional subject areas addressed in the development and use of such software. The following list is indicative rather than comprehensive.

• Geometry — understanding the ways in which practical geometry abstracts shape from the physical world and the language mathematicians use to describe geometric shapes and relationships
• Acoustic theory — models of synthesis, tone and timbre
• Music — composition, generative approaches to music creation, music theory
• Computer science — understanding networks, representing and manipulating variables using programming languages
• Psychology of perception — making sense of the world through auditory cues, proprioception and mental schemata
• History of science — Pythogarean notions of order and harmony, and how far these relate to current ideas about the way we understand the natural world to be ordered

Additionally, exploring the possible activities that this software might support could lead to explorations of the ways in which information can be presented through sound (sonification) and the various groups in society who might find this approach to sharing information about their environment beneficial, as well as supporting conversations about sound design in media, noise pollution, the ethics of location-aware software and the ways in which people’s individual actions contribute to larger effects.

Right now I’ve just booked a place in the airport car park (am off to the coast near Málaga for a few days) and I’m transferring Tito Paris to my phone for the flight. One bid for something interesting to get off in the morning, and I’m done for this week. And when I get back I should talk about some of these things in a bit more detail.

I’ll probably start with the Ghosts of Birthdays Present, though. If you’re in Bristol over the next couple of weeks and fancy helping out some of those marooned in the hereafter, let me know in the comments.

I’ve got longer notes from the day that I need to digest before I put up here: broad themes that seem to stand out right now are a faith in the power of making the invisible visible (so a lot of talk about data visualisation and open data), the importance of community in effecting social change and a refreshing lack of faith in technological fixes that are unsupported by changes in behaviour. Two things that seemed to arise from a lot of people’s talks that I need to think more about: all the failures that people described (in regulating emissions, or in delivering aid or technology) seemed to be more about management and process than technology or access to data, despite this last point being a central article of faith for the conference, and I wonder if that might be a more productive (though more boring, perhaps) thing to think about. And the second was this idea of “community” – it seems to come loaded with a set of ideas about the sort of people in the community, that they’re nice people like us, whereas of course plenty of revolting people form communities as well. Minor point, really.

Anyway. My bit didn’t make anyone leave, which is my usual measure of success, but I think there were a few points that I might have offered people in a more structured and articulate way. It was a good experience to speak to a different audience, though, having spent the last couple of years talking mainly to education conferences and policy types, and I’ve got a few points to consider for the next time I talk in front of people. Learning, learning, always learning. For what it’s worth, I’ve put my slides up here if you’re interested. And I was really pleased to discover, during a vanity google, a twitter survey on a question that Ben posed afterwards, from Jemimah Knight: really interesting responses, will have to give them a bit of a mull.

So. Notes to come on speakers and ideas but short version: it’s brilliant, go to the next one.

I’m in another hotel, one that looks a lot like the other ones I’ve been in recently, where I had a drink in the bar downstairs, and listened to someone sing My Funny Valentine while I thought about someone a long way away, and I will be very disappointed if tomorrow I don’t have to film a Suntory commercial.

The drive from the airport was incredible, everything very brand new indeed, apart from the taxi touts whose only concession to their new environment seems to be a suit. The airport follows the kind of grey-steel-and-curved-glass-with-blue-highlights template that makes me think of Canary Wharf, although the curves follow a Thai line rather than a Waterloo-style bulge, making it quite distinctive. That, and the fifteen-foot high multicolored statues of figures from Thai myth that gaze down unsmilingly upon you before Immigration.

Between the city centre and the airport they’re building a “skytrain” extension, I think: they’ve got what looks like part of a trainline on a series of concrete pillars that follow the motorway, on the other side of the latticework advertising hoardings, rising high above the bungalow shops and bars that make infrequent splashes of light in the shadowy palms. At first, I thought the tiny, one-floor buildings were vestiges of the recent past managing somehow to continue in the shadow of the future, but then I realised, passing the grey concrete pillars that still lacked a trainline, that they’d decided to skip the future and go straight to building the past: in the ghostly light of the giant advertising hoardings, the pillars looked like ruins from a post-oil age; Roman witnesses to the Saxons busy beneath them, relics of an age where ambitious new transport links were necessary and laudable, instead of hubristic and doomed.

This trip also made me realise how much I love 3G: I had a moment of worry when I realised I hadn’t even thought about a visa: google in the departure lounge told me not to worry. And despite doing no research at all on any aspect of being in Thailand, by the time I stepped out of the car at the hotel I knew what the exchange rate was and which banks I could use. The best thing is, it didn’t occur to me that anything was unusual about this until a minute ago, when I imagined telling myself 5 years ago that not only would I own a phone, using it to access the internet thousands of miles from home wouldn’t even give me pause for thought. I love living in the future, even if some of it looks like relics already.

It’ll be interesting to see how it feels when you’re one voice among many. For one thing, I have to think about what goes either side of my posts now. My first contribution, an intemperate and overlong rant about “digital natives”, comes just after Martin’s restrained condemnation of the decision to scale back Ultralab, and the two together do a good job of making us look a bit miserable. Will try and find some more positive things to put up there. And make my posts shorter.

I’d meant to write everything up here as soon as it happened, but to be honest, my brain’s full. It’s been overstimulating. Which is always better than boring.

But there’s a fundamental difference. “ICT” is concerned with the exchange of information, with communication, with activity that at root is something to with people and what makes them human. “IDM” describes the way information might be presented to someone. It describes the qualities of the thing being presented, not the reason for presenting it: the recipient or the producer of the information don’t seem to be part of what’s being described. I suppose some might claim that for something to be “interactive” there must be a person around to interact with it, and fair enough, but the word “interactive” describes potential while “communication” describes action: what bothers me about “IDM” is the passive nature of the description, that there doesn’t necessarily have to be a person involved with the media. “IDM” talks about the thing as an end in itself.

I suppose another aspect of this is the assumptions about the political and social structures behind using either phrase: at minimum, there seem to be assumptions about the kind of manufacturing capacity available in a particular society being made by people using either one. But it seems to me that “ICT” could describes bonfire beacons as well as VoIP, flag signalling between ships as well as Morse Code, knotted Aztec string and smoke signals and talking drums as well as anything that needs a cable to work. “IDM” seems to bring with it an idea that printed circuit boards and display monitors are easy to come by and produce.

This train of thought’s obviously come from Singapore Central, a station where “IDM” is used a lot and “ICT” seems very rare. Although I think it’s a useful thing, to remind yourself about the root of bits of jargon you use a lot, making this distinction between the phrases might be revealing some prejudice about an environment I’ve only just arrived in: I suppose if anyone disagrees, they can send me a picture of them sticking two fingers up at me, an interaction which is definitely digital.

Most of my time has been spent in taxis, offices and shopping malls so so far. So it made a nice change to find the road outside the flat closed on Saturday for the Deepavali celebrations. Here’s three videos for a flavour of the night:

The video above was on Race Course Road, where the procession made its way before the stage on Farrer Fields fired up.

The banner on the drums said that this was the Dance Troupe of Sri Lanka. There’s only a little bit of video here, partly because there weren’t really any natural breaks in the performances and also partly because I felt like a tourist waving my camera around. If it had been my mobile (handphone) I would have fitted right in, but that would have been a waste of time as the camera’s no good for night-time.

This was closer to music I’d heard before, although I’ve never seen a crowd so up for it before: the video doesn’t really show the energy that was flying around the stage. Most of the jokes went over my head, though.

More photos in the strip above.

I went home thinking about authenticity. As a European relative of the colonials that originally established a racecourse here, watching people dance in pointy hats made me feel that I was at some kind of “cultural event”, one that only exists for the benefit of tourists like me. The event was sponsored by local government cultural agencies, which only reinforced this idea, reminding me of the kind of self-consciously inclusive London events that Ken Livingston sponsors. And yet the crowd weren’t tourists and were shouting in a way that suggested a proper connection with what was going on on stage: the dancing wasn’t polished, either. More than anything, it made me think of ceilidhs and barn dances in England: the performers and audience/participants are genuine members of the community whose art it is, but the art can only exist in a space generated especially for it: its connection with everyone’s daily life doesn’t exist without effort and the support of larger institutions. The sowing gestures of the women dancing aren’t ones I’ve seen anywhere else round here: hard to grow crops on tarmac.

I’m sorry, that should have said “taxis”. Anyway, since I rode in from Changi I’ve managed to find a flat to live in and met everyone I’m going to be working with. It’s been quite a good introduction to Singapore, as it happens, having a reason to drive from east (where the venue that hosted ICET is) to west (where affordable condos and LSL are) every day, although it would have been nice maybe to do it without having to man our stand at the same time.

The expo/conference was good, though. I met a whole bunch of people there: some exhibitors who are doing really interesting technological things (lagless video over IP! serious!) and attendees, who were remarkable to someone from the UK for being almost entirely teaching professionals, with hard questions about the value of what we do and how our partnership with IDA would benefit them. It was refeshing, after BETT, to be spending time talking with people who actually stand in front of students, rather than people who just buy the kit, or pay for it.

And of course it was an honour to meet Permanent Secretary for Education LG(NS) Lim Chuan Poh, even if only briefly, and even if it was only to answer some questions about Racing Academy. There was a lot more media attention on the event than I think people expected, and gratifyingly we caught an item on Channel News Asia’s ticker describing the partnership between “IDA and Britain’s Futurelab”, followed later by an interview with the CEO of IDA talking about what we’ll be doing over the next two years (in which he mentioned by name one of my objectives for the next six months, so no pressure). I missed the interview, unfortunately, because I was at the

Changi Village hotel, the venue for the official conference dinner, where I met the rest of my team from the IDA, who taught me as much Singlish as they thought I could handle. For once in my dissolute life I left early, despite the easy availability of booze, recognising that the relationship between me and my new climate is something we both need to work on before it can truly be called postive.

Obviously my talk on Friday was sparsely attended and lacking in questions, it being Friday evening on the last day of the conference, but the workshop on Wednesday was really interesting, to me at least if not the participants. Two things stood out: the emphasis of teachers present on issues around addiction to games and the ethics represented by games, and the consensual, equal and I suppose just plain adult nature of the group discussions. I was expecting some kind of UK-style ego fight, where a dominant figure needs to give the rest some space, or a member who’s too cool to take part needs to be encouraged to take part, but there was nothing. Refreshing.

Obviously, the rest of the week was taken up by me staring open-mouthed at everything and thinking “but…how can everything be exactly like England and yet confuse me utterly?”