Pinwheel

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Reflection

I hated this project sooooooo much.

now that i have vented those emotions let me tell you why, if you talk to me i am a very out of the box thinker, i have said multiple times that i hate being boxed into one way of think. i found this project kinda easy in the way that if i was researching something and i thought about it in an emotional way, i just cut that out of my head, any time i saw numbers i looked at them. this project was just really really boring, i know that the most fun i had during this project was when we had a team meeting to suss our final idea, this was great because, i had a few drinks and stepped out of my character and we all threw ideas around the room and came up with our final deliverable.

after this meeting i went back to being emotionless and just started loosing motivation again, i also think i got really jealous of the other memebers of our group because while i was looking at the statistics and numbers of how to advertise to children, kylie was playing lego games off the app store and erfan was looking into the ideas of what childhood actually was. 

so all in all i think that if i was assigned a different hat then i would have enjoyed this topic more but we cant always get what we want and sometimes just have to roll with the punches. but in the end i am very happy with the final project and would be very happy to work with my team again

P.S. these are all my references for the numbers 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Childhood

http://www.lifehack.org/articles/lifestyle/12-things-that-happened-the-kids-growing-the-digital-age.html

http://www.aboutkidshealth.ca/en/news/newsandfeatures/pages/target-market-children-as-consumers.aspx

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lego

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brand_Finance

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Slides from our in class presentation of the Lemon Phone S

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Trak | Analytical Final Reflective Statement

What I did:

Published our team roles.

Developed these further into a first manifesto, which was then edited and added to by the team.

Researched transdisciplinary practices.

Discovered techniques to help me work transdisciplinarily.

Identified and looked at examples of transdisciplinary work.

Suggested the outcome to the group.

Made the outcome.

Presented our work to the class.

Reflections on our team:

I really like the other members of my team and, when we were together, we developed some really great insights with everyone contributing. Communication between us was difficult when we weren’t together in person and I was definitely the one pushing the group to get through the project. I ended up doing most of the work to generate the outcome and this was actually a big benefit to me, because it meant that I really had to understand where each of my other teammates were coming from in order to have an outcome that stayed true to their approaches, as well as my own. This also meant that I could then present our team’s work concisely, as I understood where everything fitted. This is not to belittle the other team members efforts, as they all did really great work, but often it was too slow to arrive, particularly at critical times, which is something they can reflect on. I have certainly learnt a lot about working so rapidly through a project. For future projects in the same vein, I would plan a timeline out from the get go, use Google Drive to collect resources rather than just our blog, and have shorter, but more frequent, catch-ups.

Reflections on learning about transdisciplinary practice:

I was really happy to get the analytical role, though, as I began researching, the challenges of transdisciplinary practice soon became apparent. Reading Juergen Mittelstrass’ ON TRANSDISCIPLINARITY, among other papers, was a helpful way to understand the value of looking at systems and processes, and it made me aware of the danger of achieving interdisciplinarity in the place of transdisciplinarity. I found that chanting “holism” in my head as I worked was a useful tool to keep me looking for all the spaces that needed to be filled; of course this also brought to light the fact that true transdisciplinarity requires very applied thinking and a lot of time to iron out the bumps!

The case examples of branding and marketing, such as of Apple’s, which later inspired our outcome, were really fun to look at. I think it’s useful to look at the identity of something as a transdisciplinary outcome: an identity is intrinsically holistic and is comprised of a multitude of parts and influences that combine to be a single, unique entity. When I work transdisciplinarily in the future I’ll look at identity as a way to help me reframe things and check I’m not deviating in my approach.

Reflections on other disciplinary approaches:

The experience of generating and speaking to an outcome that had to stand true to five different disciplinary approaches was something I learnt a lot from. I spent some time understanding each role early on to see where I fitted in and this helped later when I was switching hats to make sure the outcome stood true to all its influences. As James brought to light at the end of our presentations, it was difficult to remain in just one role, and, furthermore, all the roles had overlapping elements. I found myself doing things like using typically crossdisciplinary approaches to get a transdisciplinary outcome, or working to an interdisciplinary outcome and then having to push it to be further integrated, many times.

Reflections on our outcome:

I loved taking a satirical approach and I was so surprised at the really great ideas that flowed forth. A scratch’n sniff screen may not be particularly useful, but some of the security, safety and education ideas we had would actually lead to a great, real world product. We had a fantastic team meeting when we decided on the outcome, and it was in this period of active, engaged communication that we really made some breakthroughs. Having each of us in an assigned role granted us permission to create conflict and disagree with one another, and these challenges were very beneficial. I could see the hats we were all wearing and this is really useful to be aware of as a creative practitioner: it gives me a way to create conflict in my own thinking and develop my ideas.

Our “Lemon Phone S” stands true to all five disciplinary approaches we took, and I learned a heck of a lot putting it all together.

References:

Mittelstrass, J. (2011). ON TRANSDISCIPLINARITY. Trames : A Journal of the Humanities and Social Sciences, 15(4), 329-338. Retrieved from http://ezproxy.aut.ac.nz/login?url=http://search.proquest.com/docview/912867736?accountid=8440

Hadorn, G. H., Pohl, C., & Scheringer, M. (2003). Methodology of transdisciplinary research. Unity of Knowledge in Transdisciplinary Research for Sustainability, in Encyclopedia of Life Support Systems (EOLSS), developed under the auspices of the UNESCO, Eolss Publishers, Oxford, UK.

Hesse, M. (2015). Transdisciplinarity or “engaged pluralism?”, disP, 51/3, 4-5. doi:10.1080/02513625.2015.1093338

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Kylie | Practical Reflective Statement:

My job in this project was to look at the practical methodology and research our chosen unknown topic, childhood using a cross-disciplinary approach. Initially I thought I understood the practical process used when researching as I consider myself quite a hands on person, though I found as we developed our ideas, I struggled to keep up the active physical research, especially considering our outcome was a digital prototype for a child’s phone brand. 

Using a cross-disciplinary approach I placed myself in a child's shoes in order to look at and test the relationship between children's imagination and the way they choose to use technology. I did this by playing LEGO related game applications, then comparing it to the feeling of playing with real LEGO. Using a device to play something artificially on was a strange feeling because in my own childhood I was taught to explore and play outside, which I believe is the reason for my creativity as an adult. I developed my real life experiences at a younger age which also results in being a stronger individual now. In saying that, some of these apps that I tried were above and beyond what any child could make with a basic set of LEGO. Buying an application is also much cheaper than buying a large LEGO set. 

Our phone brand ‘Lemon Phone S’ was designed as a play on apple and their advertising. Targeting children using colours and apples smooth advertising, in a way that would be targeted to adults, was a symbol of the growing technology age and how children use these devices to develop their imagination. 

One thing I have learnt from doing this activity is to look at situations and ideas at different perspectives. When I do this, I have an open mind and I am more likely to come up with creative and new outlooks. 

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Reflective look into Integrative Practice.

After today's presentations I was very happy to see all sorts of crazy idea to be presented with a sense of uncertainty. This sense of uncertainty proved to me that this project was a success in trying to make us explore endless possibilities to find a form of answer. It was good to see how each person carried out their persona and what type of results came to be from combining the uncertainties of everyone in the group. In the last few week I didn't understand why a persona was necessary but after seeing how it limited the input of each member, I could really see where the creativity came from each mind set.

I really enjoyed this paper because it really opened my mind to keep questioning my questions. From this I learnt that you don't WANT a utopia or a distopia to exist, otherwise questions are stopped being asked, and that’s when people stop evolving as a species. This paper has helped me think about life on a new level. In this last semester Clint and James really proved to me how small the world is, yet how primitive we still are because people hit a point then stop asking questions. I am very satisfied to say I will now forever continue looking for new answers from the answers I’ve already solved. I can look at answers I got  from all these different points of views, and learning disciplines to constantly expand knowledge about anything. I guess its safe to say ill never get to the bottom of the iceberg, but drowning in knowledge is what the life journey is all about.

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Final product webpage image. We’ve taken Apple’s 5C mobile phone and turned it into the Lemon Phone S, the world’s first “Smellphone” with its scratch’n sniff screen and bank of other features specifically for kids starting out at primary school.

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Julius - Emotional Appeal

So firstly outlining what my priorities are:

Intradisciplinary -  “being or occurring within the scope of a scholarly or academic discipline or between the people active in such a discipline” (summary of Google searches)

Qualitative -  Focusing on the ideas and opinions based around a particular field of work (My understanding).  

With this in mind I had to ensure that everything I worked towards was relative to this requirement in the team however not to say that I am limited to this alone It helps to focus my attention mainly on this.

Brief: Create a brand appealing to children

Goal: Make money?? Innovative success?? Fame??

For some time now we’ve been focused on creating a brand that appeals to children but before any individual study could have been carried we needed to understand fully why we made the decisions we did and our goals for this approach. The brief has been clear from the start that we are to look into something unfamiliar to our group and after multiple discussions we had decided to work around childhood since there is an abstract understanding between what we know and what we don’t about it. Now that we know what our focus was on, we had to create some sort of artefact that our group can all collectively and individually develop in order to create our final outcome. Our decisions to create a brand wasn’t a ‘lightbulb’ idea for us and it was more like our requirements and goals had led us to creating a brand and since our ideal focus was children, creating a brand for children was our final decision.

Why a Brand?

We looked beyond the focus on branding and marketing for our decision to create a brand and rationalized the workload as well as the work requirements with our final outcome. Branding gave us the necessary variety of workload according to our groups different disciplinary study ranging from Intra to Inter as well as our given field of study (e.g. Qualitative, Quantitative..).

I personally am focused on Qualitative Study around Intradisciplinary Methods meaning that when it comes to creating our brand I looked into what makes a brand communicate with an individual on an emotional level and how utilizing one strategy to it’s full advantage aids to develop that aim. Firstly I looked into basic marketing to gain an understanding of what goes into creating a brand. Most of the information I gathered was basic common sense almost reiteration however there was something that caught my attention which went along the lines of marketing to Individuals being far more successful than marketing to audiences. This is relative in the sense that as the qualitative foundation I really had to understand how to fully communicate with our target audience and knowing that our success will come from 1 to 1 communication with an individual we can incorporate that into our game plan.

Another vital aspect that comes into play (if I haven’t mentioned already) is emotional appeal and this is truly what my focus is around, utilizing emotion within an individual for marketable profit. As rationalWiki.org would describe it

 “An emotional appeal is a logical fallacy that occurs when a debater attempts to win an argument by trying to get an emotional reaction from the opponent(s) and/or audience, e.g. eliciting fear or outrage.”

by using emotional appeal as a strategy I’ll be able to really communicate with the target audience and if very successful I won’t need to do anything extraordinary for them to come to us. There are many examples of this effect being used to successfully promote someone or something. Let’s have a look at this domestic violence ad.

already without prior information about this company we can observe immediately a bruised woman being physically told to remain silent by a male hand over her mouth. The reason why this is so successful is because it uses the emotion sympathy and potentially even empathy to draw the target audience and there is minimal text or writing however it is unnecessary as the use of imagery is strong enough alone. Although this ad campaign is on a subject matter far from anything our group is working towards, the using of emotional marketing remains the same and this is the approach I wanted to take.

Children

How do we use emotional marketing towards children? quite easily actually. The one thing about children is their minds (although vast and imaginative) are also linear in their approach of desire. Children are a huge influencing factor to parents and so if we can create a strong emotional attachment to the children we have a higher chance of profit from their parents. So what emotions are there to take into consideration?

- Happiness - Parents want to make their children happy (regardless of their inability to understand what makes them truly happy) but otherwise if we can make the children happy  with our brand then parents will be more willing to accept us.

- Joy - We want to satisfy our target audience continuously as be able to provide joy for as long as they own a product of our brand. 

- Excitement - Excitement often is the bridge between happiness and success meaning that if a child is first of all happy about our brand and secondly is within a store where our marketing and branding is so evident to them and they are aware of our presence then the excitement will begin to grow eventually leading to begging their parents.

- Envy - The envy of other children owning our products may also drive children to wanting our product. Often when companies are successful in marketing a product is become a social trend within schools are rapidly begins to grow in popularity meaning more and more children are wanting our product

- Anger - This has a slight connection with happiness where if a parent rejects a child’s desire for the product then that child may become angry and throw tantrum. Hopefully if they become intolerable parent’s will become susceptible  to purchasing that product for their child

- Sadness - Another potential outcome children may accept the inability to receive the product and rather than throw a violent tantrum they become sad and may be more prone to avoiding their parents. This may become heartbreaking to parents and to subconsciously regain their children validation they give in to their temptation.

Although there are many emotions behind appealing to children it’s quite easy due to their lack of common sense or real-world understanding and so with that in mind the main way to appeal to children which is quite evident and has been successful years is the use of bright vibrant colors and using cartoons to catch their attention. Once that is achieved our brand will be the next thing they see.

Qualitative Intradiscipline 

The basic concept behind my approach appealing to children will be somewhat along the lines of creating an account. Ideally this account will act like an apple ID however because our product is the lemon phone it will be scaled down for children. Using this method we will be able to gain a better understanding of what the child likes and dislikes and on a more serious note parents will usually be the ones setting up their accounts therefore this gives us the opportunity to show them that we are a trusted brand. Here is a brief of what this approach will look like

As you can see the use of cartoon characters will create the initial attraction of the children’s attention however given that this stage is usually after the product is purchased this acts as an advertising aid which is basically reiterating our use of cartoon characters to create a strong understanding of what our brand is and what we aim to.

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Erfan - A theory to truth.

We all went our separate ways again, only so we could continue thinking in our correct personas and disciplinary thinking strategies. This way we couldn't collide in the way we think and get distracted from the main goal of staying in character. I was dealt the task of thinking of way to give our brand theoretical meaning with truth behind it. My answer was a motto to go with the brand, and a way get the theoretical purpose to stick.

To give something an unspoken purpose requires a strong presence in that industry scene. The goal with our motto is to make a scene to aware children from a young age about the effects of cyber bullying. Using Trak’s idea of a “Lemon” Phone to reflect this brand as a whole, I have come up with design idea that would help spread awareness, while interacting the same way the parents do. My idea was to put a bunch of special contacts within the phone for the child to call. The voice would answer and tell of a cyber bullying event that affected them somehow, and how the contact felt afterwards. In theory, if children get the chance to talk things out, they’re less likely to repeat a scenario if they know they’ll be frowned upon. They just need to know what those scenarios are like to begin with.

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Erfan - A reason for the brand

The group got together after a week of independent blind research, and we got the surprising outcome of making a brand. This brand would also need a motto to catch peoples attention, and also has to be true. Continuing my kick starter theory that “your child is you”, our group came up with an awesome idea of designing a legit knock phone for 5 year olds. We will then present the benefits it would have for a 5 year old to own one to the class on Monday. Which comes back to the motto factor, before we make the motto we have to know what the main point of having something made by this brand. After a sudden burst on inspiration I looked into theories others have predicted in how phones will effect the generations to come. One of which was that stood out suggested “Cyber bullying poses a threat to adolescents’ health and well-being”(1). Even tho it says adolescents, its the actions taken in childhood stages that will either teach, or leave absent the consideration of others on the online world. I believe having a motto which is associated with the teaching of online awareness to young will be a great asset to the brand itself, It could even branch off into many different sectors of the online world. The Brand would be known to create children’s toys of the 21st century, to effect new issues arising in the 21st century with technology. This will also follow the theory rule that “your child is you” because the kids would be exactly what the adults are doing, but hopefully by the time they're in their teens, they don't abuse the powers technology has given us.

references:

1 -  Current perspectives:the impact of cyberbullying on adolescent health. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4126576/

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Getting a start on the Lemon Phone S marketing campaign...

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Julius - Nostalgia

Disclaimer: A majority of my discussion is based on social observation and basic ethical psychology however where factual resources are recognized within my discussion I will reference the source.

This week our group has really narrowed down our focus surrounding the subject of creativity in relation to children/childhood and the main focal point which we will be implementing our “()” disciplinary action is the true essence of childhood as pertaining to the brief by recognizing an unknown topic to the group. We liked using the approach of childhood as it is something we have all experienced in a unique and all different manner however it is still vastly unexplored that it allow us to tap into our explorative methodology influenced ironically by our childhood to result in a wide variety of discovery. On top of that we all have our own queries with the topic of childhood, a majority of which relates to the influence technology has had on modern day children and their creativity and potentially finding the bridging inter-disciplinary understanding between the generation gap of 90′s children - Children to date.

Firstly, What is the issue at hand? Is there One.

It’s an evident observation that technology has rapidly evolved and slowly integrated as part of our consumer lives beyond the extent of satisfaction or functional limitation and we as human beings have allowed this to control us beyond the point where technology merely ‘supported’ our lives and I doubt we are anywhere near realizing the danger of this topic. For the requirement of this assignment I’ll be specifically focused on the uneducated innocent minds of children as experienced adults should be aware of this growing effect and those who fail to realize the effect this is having on future generations should open their eyes to the obvious. How do I begin discussing the qualitative methods of understanding the mind of a child? well to begin let us determine what differentiates a child from an adult. One thing I noticed is that children often associate ‘what brings them joy’ according to some artificial understanding of hierarchy. What I mean by this is children often prioritize what brings them imminent joy as top priority which is why they have such a big attachment to particular toys and other items and usually disregard (however short term) other things. Although an attachment to something that gives us joy is found among all age groups, adults are wiser and prioritize things that keeps him/herself alive/safe/employed/ etc regardless of their personal opinions and this is why it is so significant to children as it makes prominent the innocence in children where due to the acceptance of their ideas and opinions, their mind and imagination begins to flourish with every experience. The minds of children and adults are very similar however as adults we begin to recognize real world issues and our prioritize change according to personal development and maintaining  a sustainable life structure which often correlates to the saying ‘I lost my imagination I had as a child’ although to some regard it may hold true, a majority of it is due the change of our thinking system where we no longer give our creativity the attention it deserves.

Technology

Technology has come a long way since I remember being a child. IPod’s, IPhones, Wi-Fi, 3D cinemas... I think I speak for a majority of us when I say we all enjoyed the technology we had in our childhood prime but we didn’t obsess over it allowing it to take control of our lives. So why is this happening now? Technology’s most basic function is to make our lives easier by systematically making tasks easier for us to carry out with examples such as knives, scissors, cars, computers etc however In recent years with advancing technology it has slowly begun to start controlling us and yes we as adults fully benefit from this is it makes jobs easier as well as open up further work and study opportunities however how does this affect the growing children of our generation during the most vital stage of their lives, are we realizing this as an issue?

A good article that goes into detail discussing this issue is Gareth B. Matthew’s “A Philosophy of Childhood” from the study of Ethics and American Institution. Although heavily focused on the philosophy

Integrative Practice

“We began with an effort to think about childhood experience and to consider differences between a child’s and an adult’s experience of the world. We thus asked whether it should be seen as a condition of innocence or diabolical adventure, and how we might consider questions of dependence and independence of children as they grow.”

Opinions on childhood change as we begin to gain a further understanding however this is yet highly influenced by technology. We say technology is detrimental to the creativity of children however that is the technology they are growing with and will learn to develop our world through their imaginative innovation. One thing to note also is this is a reiteration of our own generation where the past generation’s fear and anxiety relating to technology proved to be in vain as technology helped to be beneficial towards society and perhaps we are overlooking this positivity due to all the negative connotations that come with ‘our generation’s’ leading technology

Poynter brings up a good point relating to children having rights, in particular the entitlement to an ‘open future’ however does this in fact compliment or contradict a parents’ desire for ‘the best for their children’ and how do we perceive priority in a situation like this; Children being future leaders or adults being current leaders?

“How does the quest for ‘better children’ stack up to the affirmation of a right to an open future? Are there limits to demands that many parents pursue in the training and medical treatment of their children? Is the pursuit of better children aiming to help them exercise that right, or does it suggest narrowing the options for a child? We thus asked how ‘open’ an ‘open future’ can be. On the legal side, we examined the extent to which such a right empowers the state to intrude into family matters, and whether such intrusions constitute an unusual sort of infringement.”

One key element to recognize hear is that as the ‘leaders’ of the world we are quick to blame technology as a detrimental cause for the reformation of the way children express their creativity however if this is such a great concern why are we not taking action to combat this sub epidemic and merely allowing technology to affect our children and blame the company developers and innovators. As much as this relates to supposedly degrading children’s creativity, the influence technology has had on us as a society is on a far larger scale and looking to children as the solution is the right step however the problem does not lie in them and we must look to ourselves and consider not what technology has done to the creativity of children but what we have done to the creativity of children.

Back To Reality

So this is all informative and factual but how does this relate back to our groups ambition for the resulting deliverable? How is this necessary for my ‘Qualitative’ role and perhaps disciplinary study entirely?. Well fortunately enough we were all able to meet up at Trak’s place to further discuss what approach we wanted to take for our final deliverable. Firstly we had to look into what we can work with regarding children but also in relation to technology and the week prior to this we all reached a mutual understanding that technology has definitely played if not ‘is still playing’ a role in influencing children’s imagination and creativity. Initially we we’re heading along the lines of trying to create some sort of ‘toy’ or ‘app’ that encourages children creativity and imagination and although this has been quite successful in recent technology e.g. The Lego App, we wanted to bring up the significance of physical interaction as well as limitation as this is something - we have all learned from experience - that will most often force children to think creatively e.g. Limited supplies, Damaged pieces, external factors (especially with toys). This approach took us quite in-depth as there was a lot to work around however trying to combat technology seemed like a suicide mission so to turn things around we went the entirely different direction and are now decided to use technology in a beneficial way through interaction with children. After discussing and sharing our ideas over freshly baked cookies and alcohol we all came together to form a strong approach which can provide deliverables as well as have the potential for a 2.0 update. So for our artefact we decided to create a Brand, A brand that is marketed towards parents but are for children. For our brand we aim towards utilizing technology for the benefit of children (quite similar to apple but for children) and help to promote creativity within young minds. Overall we found that this approach was the most suitable for us since it seemed the most sensible due to the integration of creativity and technology however this was also very similar to a business approach which most of us I feel aren’t too familiar with working around so it was a new experience for us. Trak has provided details on our approach towards this brand marketing.

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Deciding on an outcome

Our team has decided to create a children’s brand for our outcome. Our brand markets mobile phones for children aged 5 who are starting school. The brand name is ‘Lemon’ and it is a satire of Apple and its iPhones.

Our contributions to the outcome will remain relevant to our assigned roles:

Julius: Qualitative, Intradisciplinary, Website (brand to person 1 on 1 focus)

Louis: Quantitative, Multidisciplinary, Mass media (big brand, big spaces, big impressions), specific marketing techniques for children, including channels

Kylie: Practical, Crossdisciplinary, Physical print media (focus on tactility)

Erfan: Theoretical, Interdisciplinary, Social media (relationship with audience, sense of humor, voice), colour theory

Trak: Analytical, Transdisciplinary, Overall pitch (the product itself)

Features of the device:

Scratch and sniff screen - it’s a “Cmellphone”

Lick to log on

Smell marker built in to stake your claim

Anti bullying feature where you can call characters in your phonebook (ie Snoopy) to let them know how you feel, this then goes through to mum and dad so they can help you.

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Understanding transdisciplinarity

Being tasked with an analytical and transdisciplinary approach for this assignment is quite daunting. As a first port of call I looked at transdisciplinarity and its associated research methodologies to get a better sense of what I need to achieve and how to go about it.

Transdisciplinarity:

In Juergen Mittelstrass’ ON TRANSDISCIPLINARITY it is explained that in transdisciplinarity, “...the individual disciplines do not remain what they were, they at least change their methodical and theoretical perspectives. Not just the theories in the narrow sense, also the disciplines themselves get pulled into the process of research and science - in a systematic manner” (Mittelstrass, J., 2011). Mittelstrass also highlights the challenges associated with transdisciplinarity and states that true transdisciplinarity rarely occurs. From this I think it is going to be very important for me to have a good grasp of interdisciplinarity as well as transdisciplinarity. I can see myself achieving interdisciplinarity relatively easily, and to push that further will be very difficult. I think looking at systems and methodologies will be key here.

Holism:

As defined by Google, holism is “...the theory that parts of a whole are in intimate interconnection, such that they cannot exist independently of the whole, or cannot be understood without reference to the whole, which is thus regarded as greater than the sum of its parts” (Google, n.d.). This theory is core to transdisciplinarity, in which the aim is to integrate multiple disciplines completely, so as to be able to recognise a point of inquiry in its totality, or holistically, rather than as an approximate overlapping of separate disciplines. I personally love this approach and am a big fan of holism, as challenging as it can be, particularly when you have to narrow the scope of your investigation to get a task completed in time.

Systems and processes:

Transdisciplinarity is often concerned with systems, wherein there is the potential to utilise methods and processes adapted and merged from a range of disciplines (Hadorn, Pohl & Scheringer, 2003). The strength of this focus is in its potential for innovation as new approaches to problems are discovered. There is scope for a lot of fun here, so I’m excited to see how I can play with the processes my team members have used and rework them for our outcome.

Working towards an outcome:

My approach moving forward will be to facilitate the combining of my team member’s research into a transdisciplinary outcome. In seeing how this has been done in other areas, one of my favourite references is cloud-based technology. I really like that services such as Google Drive or Apple’s iCloud allow media to be accessed seamlessly across a multitude of devices and locations. I also have a strong personal interest in marketing and think that transdisciplinary principles can be found in the most successful brands, where the use of different channels represents the brand approprately, but is also relevant for each channel through which it is communicated, rather than simply duplicating content in as many spaces as possible. The use of Snapchat by brands like McDonalds and the NBA is good example of this.

References

Hadorn, G. H., Pohl, C., & Scheringer, M. (2003). Methodology of transdisciplinary research. Unity of Knowledge in Transdisciplinary Research for Sustainability, in Encyclopedia of Life Support Systems (EOLSS), developed under the auspices of the UNESCO, Eolss Publishers, Oxford, UK.

Mittelstrass, J. (2011). ON TRANSDISCIPLINARITY. Trames : A Journal of the Humanities and Social Sciences, 15(4), 329-338. Retrieved from http://ezproxy.aut.ac.nz/login?url=http://search.proquest.com/docview/912867736?accountid=8440

Hesse, M. (2015). Transdisciplinarity or "engaged pluralism?", disP, 51/3, 4-5. doi:10.1080/02513625.2015.1093338

Google. (n.d.). Search: Define holism. Retrieved October 9, 2015 from https://www.google.co.nz/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=define%20holism

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Kylie - Practical Investigation on Lego Applications and an Introduction to Real Lego:

Monday morning gave us the opportunity to meet with our group and establish where we were at with our investigation. We came to the conclusion that we wanted to investigate the relationship between a child's imagination and creativity compared to today’s technology. How are the minds of children different to our how minds were with less accessible technology? Are they coming up with brand new ideas using inspiration they have seen online, or imagination? What are the significant advantages and disadvantages of playing lego on an app and in real life?

As the practical investigator I jumped straight on to my phone to download one lego app that Louis suggested. ‘LEGO Juniors’ was a tedious lengthy game, aimed at a much younger generation hence finishing the game rather fast. A few clicks here and there, and I had built about 15 different obstacles that I was required to navigate. Along the way I was to pick up building pieces in order to proceed in the game. All of this was easy and straight forward, though to a younger user, the achievement of picking up pieces and proceeding to the next obstacle would be satisfying and addictive, a feeling you wouldn’t get when playing with lego in real life.

Proceeding from finishing that particular game in about 20 min, I downloaded another six ‘lego-like’ applications that may have been useful. All these applications ranged from lego building, to comic book stories, to proper navigation/goal oriented game play. 

Lego itself has evolved over the years. As a child there were not numerous amounts of sets to buy that related to famous movies. The ‘LEGO Star Wars Saga’ is a perfect example of this. The game caught my eye in the app store because of the name and what it was related to. I would have bought the game if I were to see it in the store as well, though I know both versions would be entirely different. the box would have been building pieces, and the app felt like a game that could have been played on playstation. (In app purchases were required to keep playing beyond level 1). I thoroughly enjoyed playing this one, not only because I could build objects to open doors, but I could also knock them down using my light saver! That is one advantage of an app - unrealistic ideas are easier to portray in an artificial environment. The disadvantage is the fact that children playing these games will start to believe that it is somehow connected to the real world, when in fact, holding a piece of lego and ‘manually’ clicking it into a slot, is harder, yet more satisfactory than dragging a piece along a screen and ‘watching’ it click in place. 

This is my point of view considering I grew up in a childhood where playing outside and exploring was more important than playing games on a computer, though after playing all these apps and then pulling out the hard lego from the depths of my storage, it makes me think about the generation now, would they prefer the application because that is what they are grown up with? 

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Erfan - ATTENTION!

Attention is effected directly by environmental surroundings, that's why its so important to expose your child to the real world. Infant face recognition or even paying attention in class, is all effected by the child’s immediate environment, and this determines the kind of attention habits they develop as they grow.

Past generations directed considerable amounts of their time to reading, an activity that had minimal distractions and required intense and sustained attention, imagination, and memory. “The advent of television altered that attention by offering children visual stimuli, fragmented attention, and little need for imagination”(1). Then the Internet was invented and children were once again forced to adapt to the changed environment in which, “because distraction is the norm, consistent attention is impossible, imagination is unnecessary, and memory is inhibited’(1). In return what we have learnt from these new environmental changes, is that as a result of more frequent technology interactions. The children of the technological era are known to be more aware of visual-spatial capabilities, increase attention focus on demand when required, reaction times increase, and the capacity to identify details among clutter, so children are not become more stupid, just more different. 

references:

(1) How Technology is Changing the Way Children Think and Focus | Psychology Today. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-power-prime/201212/how-technology-is-changing-the-way-children-think-and-focus

(2)  Kids, Tech and Those Shrinking Attention Spans | Diana Graber. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/diana-graber/kids-tech-and-those-shrinking-attention-spans_b_4870655.html

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Erfan - Technology and Childhood

There is little doubt that the technology we have today is shaping the minds of our children, but because technology has been updating so rapidly and aimed for a younger and younger audience, there are no accurate statistics that can prove how much of an effect technology is having on the mind development of our kids.

Going back to my theory I’m using as my guideline that “your child is you”, I have discovered specific ways that parents have been raising their kids in the 21st century. The parents of the newer generation would play with Lego blocks, where as their children would play the Lego app. To the parents its the same concept of creating a Lego world, with the added benefit of not having to keep buying more pieces. Yet the child is missing out on vital mechanical experience of understanding HOW the blocks stick together.

With current technological advances within the last 5 years, infants are becoming more aware of the swiping action rather than the clashing, connecting, or put in mouth actions. Kids are now more technologically involved instead of mechanically coordinated, which in return has its own pros and cons, but it doesn't change the PROVEN fact that the newer generation cant hold a pencil properly by the time the start school. 

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Erfan - A Childhood Theory

To begin my research into childhood I looked into the theory that “your child is you”, and how parents effect their child's personality growing up. The plan was to look at a list of theorists that have some pretty good ideas on what builds on a child’s personality, and relate it to the technological updates that separate the generations. Sigmund Freud 1856 - 1939 Had the theory that a child personality is based on how they are introduced to aggressive and sexual encounters.

Erik Erikson 1902 - 1994 Introduced the theory that the personality is built in stages of conflict, and the success or failure of the conflict will teach the child new values.

Jean Piaget 1896 - 1990 Introduced his theory “no experience = no interpretation”. That experience causes the child to think of another answer the next time they're in the same situation, effecting personality development.

Urie Bronfenbrenner 1917 - 2005 Bought up the theory that environmental influences and first attachments build the child's personality. Teaching them how to handle change.

Lawrence Kohlberg 1927 - 1987 Had the theory that appreciation was key to a lifelong personality change. To understand right from wrong in their own way to build values. Looking at all these points from a interdisciplinary perspective and theoretical point of view, I can say all these theorist have truth in their work. If all these theories are acknowledged by parents while raising their child, children would grow to have better personalities. But the theory still remains that your child is you. If the parents choose to teach their kids different values to that they were raised with, they must undertake the correct changes to acquaint the lifestyle change to aid the child in learning that value.