Temple Grandin - A gifted visual thinker, who also has autism, featured in HBO movie starring Claire Danes. UPDATE: Video of Claire Danes' acceptance of a Golden Globe for her performance!

UPDATE:
Claire Danes won a Golden Globe award for her performance as Temple Grandin in the HBO movie. Here is the video from HuLu of her acceptance speech. Temple Grandin was in the audience.



Original Post

I've worked with young people with autism spectrum disorders for many years as a school psychologist, and the knowledge and experience that Temple has shared through her writings and presentations has enlightened me a great deal.


On February 6th (2010), HBO will present a movie featuring Claire Danes as Temple Grandin, a gifted visual thinker who also has autism. Here is the trailer:

Trailer

SYNOPSIS from the HBO Movies website:
"Starring Claire Danes, Julia Ormond, Catherine O'Hara and David Strathairn. Temple Grandin paints a picture of a young woman's perseverance and determination while struggling with the isolating challenges of autism at a time when it was still quite unknown. The film chronicles Temple's early diagnosis; her turbulent growth and development during her school years; the enduring support she received from her mother (Ormond), aunt (O'Hara) and her science teacher (Strathairn); and her emergence as a woman with an innate sensitivity and understanding of animal behavior."


"Undaunted by education, social and professional roadblocks, Grandin turned her unique talent into a behavioral tool taht revolutionized the cattle industry and laid the groundwork for her successful career as an author, lecturer and pioneering advocate for autism and autism spectrum disorder education."


"This visually inventive film offers insights into Grandin's world, taking the audience inside her mind with a series of snapshot image that trace her self-perceptions and journey from childhood through young adulthood to the beginning of her career, and beyond."


"Directed by Mick Jackson, with a screenplay by Christopher Monder and William Merritt Johnson, Temple Grandin is based on the books "Emergence" by Temble Grandin and Margaret Scariano and "Thinking in Pictures", by Temple Grandin. The HBO Films presentation is executive produced by Emily Gerson Sains, Gil Bellows, Anthony Edwards and Dante Di Loreto, Paul Lister, Alison Owen; Scott Ferguson produces."


Clare Danes (l); Temple Grandin (r)

Books
2010 Edition of Thinking in Pictures - My Life with Autism (Temple Grandin)
Emergence: Labeled Autistic (Temple Grandin, Margaret M. Scariano)
Download:
My Life in Pictures: A coloring book for children about autism


My Temple Grandin Story:
I met Temple Grandin once. She was a speaker at a conference about Autism Spectrum Disorders that was held in Charlotte, N.C.  There was a mix-up, and her transportation to the airport did not arrive. I was standing nearby and offered to drive her to the airport.  What an amazing woman!


During the drive to the airport, Temple noticed that I was wearing a lanyard with my flash drive attached.  She commented that what I had on my flash drive must have been very dear to my heart.  It was almost as if she could read my mind.


She was right.  On that flash drive was a paper I was writing entitled,"Thinking, Learning, and Communicating with Multimedia: Views from a School Psychologist" for a conference I presented that year (2004).    In my paper, I discussed the importance of visual thinking and referenced Temple Grandin's book, Thinking in Pictures. 


Note:  Original cross-posted on the Tech Psych blog.

TEI '10 Info and Links: Fourth Annual International Conference on Tangible, Embedded, and Embodied Interaction

In my dreams, I am a full-time tech student. Fortunately, I can follow my inner geek and share what I find on this blog. The information below was inspired by links from a Facebook status update by Laurence Muller, author of the Multi-Gesture blog. 

The video below is a montage of TEI'10 hands-on studio:

TEI Studios from jay silver on Vimeo.

"From TEI 2010. These are the hands-on studios (like workshops) where 200 people participated in building and making all day long elbow to elbow, getting into the details and taking perspectives."

About TEI:

TEI '10:  Fourth International Conference on Tangible, Embedded, and Embodied Interaction, January 25-27, Cambridge, MA.
"TEI, the conference on tangible, embedded, and embodied interaction, is about HCI, design, interactive art, user experience, tools and technologies, with a strong focus on how computing can bridge atoms and bits into cohesive interactive systems."



Here is a link to the keynote:
http://www.vikmuniz.net/

Here is a link to one of the papers presented at TEI:
Electronic Popables:  Exploring Paper-Based Computing through an Interactive Pop-Up Book (pdf)- Jie Qi and Leah Buechley, MIT Media Lab, High-Low Tech Group

More about Laurence Muller:
Laurence Muller (M.Sc.) , is a Fellow at the Harvard University (USA) at the School of Engineering and Applied Science (SEAS) / The Initiative in Innovative Computing (IIC) in the Scientists' Discovery Room Lab (SDR Lab). Currently he is working on innovative scientific software for multi-touch devices and display wall systems. (I took Laurence's information from his blog.)

More to come!

iTablet, iSlate? No! It's called the iPad. (Updated)

Update:  Wired's coverage of the iPad event.

I would have to take a week off from my regular day job to follow up on the iPad chatter, which is not possible. In the meantime, here are a few links for those of you who want to be on top of the iPad brouhaha:

Editorial:  Engadget on the Apple iPad -Nilay Patel
Would You Buy and iPad?  Wired Readers Weigh In -Priya Ganapati, Wired Gadget Lab
The iPad and publishers: a survey of early reaction -Mat Slocum, O'Reilly Radar
iPad Technical Specifications -Apple
iPad Design -Apple (you can access the iPad video from the iPad Design page)
The iPad and publishers: a survey of early reaction -Mat Slocum, O'Reilly Radar
15 reasons why the iPad is no game-changer -Davey Winder, DaniWeb
Apple iPad First Hands On -Gizmodo
Update 1/28/10 5:50 PM:
Checkmate: Apple's iPad and Google's Next Move -Mark Sigal, O'Reilly Radar

Apple Info
iPad Technical Specifications -Apple
iPad Design -Apple (you can access the iPad video from the iPad Design page)
iPad Features -Apple
Steve Wonsiak Talks iPad (Video) via TechCrunch
"I don't see it having a role in video editing or music production"- Steve Wonsiak

Hopefully the iPad would support basic video editing and music production, since I use digital video storytelling/social stories and music in my work with students who have autism or other complex special needs. Some of my students help to create content, and despite their limitations, can understand and use storyboarding in this process.

Comment:  There are quite a few jokes circulating around the web about the name of this new product.  For the males (I'm assuming) who named the iPad, I'll give you a hint.  Half of the population knows that "pad" is what we call an important feminine hygiene product.

How a multi-touch table is made: NUI Group members Aaron Bitler and Brady Simpson on HAK.5

If you want to know more about the inner workings of DYI multi-touch, you'll be interested in the video below.

Aaron Bitler and Brady Simpson learned how to build a multi-touch table through their participation in the NUI Group, and recently formed a company, 3M8 to distribute multi-touch solutions.  The 1/2 hour video provides an in-depth tour of multi-touch technology, in an an on-line broadcast on the HAK.5 website.


"Brady Simpson explains the different multi-touch methods. Aaron Bitler gives us a tour of the x19 multitouch tables construction. Brady explains the software used to power the x19 lcdmultitouch table, including the nuigroup CCV application. Aaron wraps up by explaining to us how he got involved in multitouch. He shares with us some sites where others can get started in their own homebrew projects, as well as his own multitouch company 3M8s at LCDMultiTouch.com."

UPDATE:  New website for Brady Simpson's company: http://www.lcdmt.com/

There is a need for multi-touch/gesture designers/developers!

If you are a talented interactive web designer/developer, game designer/developer, traditional programmer with a creative bent, or someone who who is thinking about working with technology in the future as a programmer or designer,  I urge you to consider thinking about designing/developing multi-touch applications in the near future.

In my opinion, there will be a need for multi-touch web applications as well as for multi-touch education and collaboration applications for the SMART Table, Microsoft's Surface,  multi-touch tablets like the rumored iTablet from Apple, and the multi-touch laptops and all-in-ones (Dell, HP, etc.).

Below are direct links to some of my blog posts related to multi-touch applications and screens. If you are fairly new to multi-touch, I'm sure that looking through some of my blog posts will be helpful.  All of the posts have links to resources, and most have photos and video clips of multi-touch in action.

If you are new to this blog, I have a great deal of information, links, photos, and video clips of various multi-touch screens and applications. The best way to find the stuff is to enter in a keyword in the search box for this blog:  multitouch, touch screen, gesture, multi-touch, etc. on  this blog.

Also do a search on my other blog: The World Is My Interface http://tshwi.blogspot.com

Here are some links:
Do you have an HP TouchSmart, Dell Studio One or NextWindow touch-screen? NUITech's Snowflake Suite upgrade provides a multi-touch plug-in
http://bit.ly/5tdlhc

The following blog post has a video clip that shows someone from Adobe painting with a multi-touch application in development:
More Multi-Touch!: Rumor of the mobile apple iTablet; AdobeXD & Multitouch; 10-finger Mobile Multitouch: http://bit.ly/4S9Upm

Ideum's GestureWorks: http://bit.ly/4C1p7M

Interactive Walls, Interactive Projection Systems, GestureTek's Motion-Based Games: http://bit.ly/6GRGtW

Intuilab's Interfaces: Multi-touch applications/solutions for presentations, collaboration, GIS, and commerce: http://bit.ly/7RK7qN

For software developers:
How to do Multitouch with WPF 4 in Visual Studio 2010: http://bit.ly/7c4YqC

A Few Interesting Links Related to "21st Century" Thinking, Learning, and Education.

Thomas West is an author of the In the Mind's Eye, Dyslexic Renaissance blog. He is also the author of several books.  One of his recent post highlights a recent roundtable held on 1/16/10 at the International Academy for Research in Learning Disabilities:  Talents Among Dyslexics, Roundtable Discussion 

"Most professionals in the field agree that talents are important, but eventually they almost always come to focus almost exclusively on reading and academic remediation alone. We need to change this, especially as major technological and computer information trends tend to favor the visual strengths that many dyslexics have as their traditional academic weaknesses become less and less important."
Thomas West is a visual thinker who thinks in pictures, and has a deep understanding of what life is like in educational settings that continue to be word-dominant.  Below is a link to an on-line recorded   interview that sheds some light on what the world is like for bright people with dyslexia.  More people are visual thinkers than you might expect. The interview is worth a listen:
http://real.aarp.org/content/radio/2009/mf/mf08152009.mp3

Cathy Davidson
Cathy Davidson is the co-founder of HASTAC, the Humanities, Arts, Science, and Technology Advanced Collaboratory, and also the John Hope Franklin Humanities Institute Professor of Interdisciplinary Studies and Ruth F. Devarney Professor of English at Duke University.  
Cathy blogs on the HASTAC website, and her blogs are worth taking the time to read. I especially liked one of her most recent posts: Why is the Information Age Without the Humanities Like the Industrial Revolution Without the Steam Engine?


The post is a small piece of a book that Cathy is currently writing, "Now You See It: The Science of Attention in the Classroom, at Work, and Everywhere Else."
Cathy's  recently co-authored a book that I plan on reading soon:
CN Davidson and David Theo Goldberg.  The Future of Thinking: Learning Institutions in a Digital Age. (pdf) 2010.
"....What happens to traditional educational institutions when learning also takes place on a vast range of Internet sites, from Pokemon Web pages to Wikipedia? This report investigates how traditional learning institutions can become as innovative, flexible, robust, and collaborative as the best social networking sites. The authors propose an alternative definition of "institution" as a "mobilizing network"—emphasizing its flexibility, the permeability of its boundaries, its interactive productivity, and its potential as a catalyst for change—and explore the implications for higher education."
This book can be downloaded for free from the MIT Press website.


Daniel S. Christian
Daniel S. Christian's blog, Learning Ecosystems, focuses on a variety of topics related to technology and education, with a focus on multimedia, technology integration, and discovering and implementing new and useful technologies:
"The purpose of this blog is to continue the dialog about how we can take advantage of the rapid technological changes that we are experiencing today (and in the future) in order to significantly enhance what we can achieve within our educational systems. It's not just about selecting and using the right CMS or implementing a small handful of tools anymore -- we need a thriving, growing, always-changing learning ecosystem in order to navigate today's various/relevant environments."
EMANTRAS
I came across the Emantras website today and was surprised that I had not previously heard of this company.  I'd like to learn more about them. The company has a variety of presentations and additional information about the company's services on the website. Emantras' most recent press release is an announcement of the launch of Mobl21, a mobile learning platform.

"Emantras was founded in 2000 and our vision since then has been to harness the unmatched power of digital and mobile technology to make education more relevant to changing times.We are a leading global digital education solutions company with its focus firmly fixed on providing top notch services. We train, educate and design work flow solutions for academic institutions, publishers, Fortune 500 companies and everyone in between.

Emantras aspires to be known as the industry gold standard in digital education. Our aim is to be an 'innovation' partner to enterprises and institutions by creating knowledge, enabling delivery, and empowering access and usability with effective technology. Our goal is to champion new advancements and innovations in eLearning and make it accessible to a wider teaching and learning audience."

Emantras is headquartered in Freemont, California, with offices in L.A., Atlanta, Philadelphia, Midland Park, N.J., India, France, and Netherlands. The website is visually appealing- almost cute-and gives the visitor a feeling that learning might even be.. fun!