As promised, the project proposal was submitted last week. I’ve copied three components here for your reading pleasure! The idea for the avatar-driven-storytelling application was the result of a collaborative brainstorm session and researching the OLPC project. The actual proposal was much longer, however these 3 sections should give you a general idea of what to expect. Feel free to post questions or comments if you want to know anything else. These particular sections were written by Wayne and edited by the team. He and I did collaborate to validate the teams initial assumptions and ideas discussed in these sections.
Problem Background
One of the primary goals of the OLPC project is to give children the ability to express themselves to the world. [1] Through personal expression and communication, children are able to enhance their learning skills and reinforce the knowledge that they are communicating. The sharing of knowledge allows for the development of a large knowledge base that is built out of the individual contributions of the participants. This is one aspect that this proposal wishes to take advantage of in order to address the problem of preserving cultural, tribal and familial information.
Traditions differ across regions and communities, and each is tied to the history of the people. Often times these differences in culture can lead to clashes in value and divergent attitudes. [2] Even within a single community, their may be differences in how different families think. One way to circumvent these problems is to develop a greater understanding of other cultures and traditions. Each child has a set of unique experiences and knowledge gained through growing up in such an environment that they could share to other children. The development of the global community and the penetration of the internet and other forms of communication also threaten the distinct cultures found in some regions of the world. To ensure that these traditions live on, they should be documented by the children who are most able to integrate the new world and the old. Through documenting their own experience, the children will be able to provide a fresh take on the community’s culture.
Currently, there is no activity designed for the OLPC project that deals with the issue of preserving cultural information. Such an activity would focus on the culture and needs of the children of the region of use, instead of using activities that are based on Western standards. The idea of cultural heritage is one that transcends boarders, so our intended user group is any child who wishes to express their culture through a digital medium.
Problem Statement
Children growing up within a family or community experience a culture and set of traditions that is distinct. Currently, an engaging and organized method for children to share their unique cultural experiences and learn about the culture of their peers does not exist. A successful solution will allow children to share their unique cultural experiences through the use of a story-telling avatar and the XO laptop’s multimedia capabilities. The children will benefit from a greater understanding of their peer’s traditions as well as gain a more profound understanding of their own.
Problem Solution
The solution proposed is the development of a program that will allow the children to present their personal and cultural histories through the use of an avatar and storytelling techniques. The goal for each child is to create an interactive “story” of their current life and of their past while making use of the XO’s built-in multimedia capabilities. The user will be able to document portions of their life using the on-board camera. They will also be able to record samples of their voice, the voices of family members, or even traditional songs using the microphone. Text and computer graphics will also be used to help express the thoughts of the users. The user will need to interact with other members of their family and community to capture the information they wish to present. This will lead to a greater understanding of their community, as well as family cultures and traditions. It will also promote interaction between different generations, as the children actively seek knowledge for their elders. Once the user has collected the information they wish to express they will then be allowed to present it in the format of a story.
Storytelling has long been used as a natural method of passing information. [3] It is an interactive art-form that plays off of the imagination of both the story-teller and the listeners. [4] This makes it a perfect medium for communicating information amongst children, who will be more likely to be interested in the interactive nature of storytelling. Due to the distributed nature of wireless communication, much care must be put into making the communication as engaging as possible; otherwise the users could become disinterested.
To assist with the story-telling metaphor, each user will create an “avatar” that will represent themselves and act as a virtual story-teller for other children who wish to hear their story. Each avatar will be a 2-dimensional sprite that will allow for customization of personal features. The avatar is, in itself, a method for expression since the user will be able to dress the avatar in traditional clothing, or with objects that relate to activities that they enjoy. The user will take the information (pictures, sound clips, and text) that they wish to communicate, and format it in a story-format through the help of automated wizards. A higher degree of control is also available through the use creatable “scripts” that the avatar will. Once the user has finished creating an avatar and a story, they will be able to share it with other users. The user will be able to develop and refine their presentation skills by thinking of ways to engage their audience through interactive story-telling. Users will be able to see other avatar in a way similar to how they are able to see other connected computers. If a user decides to “listen” to an avatar, they will be presented with an interface that will show the story-tellers avatar and the information that the story-teller is presenting. The listener’s avatar will also appear on the screen in a passive mode, and will be able to interact with the story-telling avatar through predetermined checkpoints created by the story-teller. Through this, users will gain a better understanding of their peers, and the culture and tradition of the community. An added benefit is that this information can be exported to external groups so that they may also learn about the culture of that community.
[1]OLPC Wiki. One Laptop per Child. [Online]. Available: http://wiki.laptop.org/go/One_Laptop_per_Child [Accessed: February 14, 2008].
[2] Johns. G., and Saks. A. (2005). Organizational Behaviour, 6th edition. Toronto: Pearson Prentice Hall.
[3] Sharp. H., Preece, J., and Rogers, Y. (2007). Interaction Design: Beyond human computer interaction, 2nd edition. New York: John Wiley and Sons.
[4] National Storytelling Network 2006. What is Storytelling?. [Online]. Available: http://www.storynet.org/Resources/KnowledgeBank/whatisstorytelling.html [Accessed: February 14, 2008]
