As parents, it’s as critical to keep our eye on the creative and beautiful as it is to identify the worrisome and harmful. It’s easy to loose sight of the positive potential of technology amidst a dialogue that focuses a lot (validly) on the addictive pulls of tech in our lives and our children’s lives today. We’re wired to scan for threats—we’re naturals at finding the worrisome. I’m sure you’ve noticed. We need to make a conscious effort to identify the amazing, beautiful, and awesome. This week I noticed something creative and beautiful—an Augmented Reality app called Music Everywhere, designed at Carnegie Mellon University’s Entertainment Technology Center. The creators describe it as an Augmented Reality Piano Improvisation system. I’m not the only one who recognized this app as creative and beautiful. It was awarded Grand Prize in the 2017 Unity/Microsoft Hololens developer contest out of 1000 applicants.
We each have our own unique criteria for “creative and beautiful,” influenced by varying combinations of personal aesthetics, family influences, random encounters, inspiring teachers, etc. As a child, I wanted more than anything to study piano. It didn’t happen…for various reasons. Fortunately I found my way to an awesome school choir with a remarkable director in 7th grade through 12th who nurtured my love of music. But I’ve always had a special affection for piano. All my favorite musicians are pianists.
Watching the video on the Music Everywhere website got that seven-year-old inside me excited about playing piano again. That doesn’t happen often. And my education futurist self caught a glimpse of new directions in music education.
To break it down for you if you’re new to AR: Unity is a developer platform for creating 2D/3D games and simulations. Hololens is Microsoft’s very pricey and extremely geeky-looking augmented reality headset, and it’s not commercially available yet. Unlike Virtual Reality headsets which immerse the user completely in the created content, an AR headset displays a new layer of reality over the world—in the Music Everywhere app it adds a visual layer over an actual piano keyboard the user is playing. I don’t have an AR headset yet but I have my eye on the more affordable Mira Prism headset. And I won’t be using Music Everywhere anytime soon—it’s for PC and I am all Apple right now. Alas. So this is a preview of things to come…which brings me to this…
Engage now with what’s coming. Start by watching the Music Everywhere video(it’s only 1 minute and 49 seconds long. You have time for it.) I’m aware that you may not have the same level of excitement about Music Everywhere that I do. That gets back to our unique experiences of what we each find creative and beautiful. I’m encouraging you to watch it because I think it’s an example of a very creative and playful use of augmented reality for kids. It’s important to notice what’s coming along. I’ll try to help point you in directions worth exploring in the posts ahead.
Places to seek out the creative and beautiful in tech: A favorite source of mine is the Scout Report—I’ve mentioned it before. Poking around in the January 12, 2018 report (it’s a weekly publication), I found The Journey of a Semipalmated Sandpiper. The Scout Report describes this story map created by The Western Hemisphere Shorebird Reserve Network and the non-profit organization Manomet as stunning. Those of you who have been reading Mindful Digital Life for a while now know that I’m into birds. Naturally, I picked this one out of the offerings in the Scout Report.
Find the creative and beautiful uses of technology and share it with your family and friends. If you have a weekly technology conversation in your home, challenge each other to curate the awesome and share what you find with each other. As you advance your curation skills, you’re modeling how to find and engage with the amazing content people are creating today.
I’d love to hear what you’re finding. Here’s an invitation…Write me (use the Contact form in the About section) to let me know what creative and beautiful uses of technology you and your kids are finding.
What I’m (still) reading: Altered Traits: Science Reveals How Meditation Changes Your Mind, Brain, and Body by Daniel Goleman and Richard J. Davidson, and Social Media Wellness: Helping Tweens and Teens Thrive in an Unbalanced Digital Worldby Ana Homayoun. Stay tuned for reviews one of these days.
