Here are some pictures of EDGE Lab at Digifest featuring Vlad Cazan, Richard Lachman, Melanie Mcbride and Jason Nolan. 

Tom Igoe from NYU, and core developer of the Arduino open hardware project blogged about his visit to the EDGE Lab this week. He loved vlad’s work, and our adaptive design work. It was great to meet him and we want to go down to NYC for a future visit.

Click on the photo to go to the blog.

Edgelabers Noah and Alison featured in an article on Career Mash recently. Here’s a youtube video of it as well.

Jaime Woo is a writer, game designer, and co-founder of Gamercamp, Toronto’s festival celebrating the art, creativity, and fun in games. Gamercamp is now in its third year and has recently spun off Gamercamp Jr, an experimental project to help guide the next generation of game designers and developers. Jaime’s first game Gargoyles premiered at Toronto’s Recess.TO meet-up and was featured in the magazine Grid. Jaime has spoken about his love of video games on television programs Electric Program and interSPACE and on the CBC radio program Metro Morning. In addition to a passion for video games, Jaime has a deep interest in how technology affects culture and his work has been published in Financial Post, Vancouver Sun, Now Magazine, Torontoist, and Xtra. He has been a speaker on technology and social media at the prestigious SXSW Interactive and NXNE Interactive conferences, and for the Rotman School of Business.

Danny Bakan‘s research is focused on music education, song, social networking and technology. He has an interest in arts-based research and a/r/tographical methodologies. Danny holds an MA in Curriculum, Teaching and Learning from OISE/UT, has taught music and creative arts pedagogy at Ryerson University’s School of Early Childhood Education, been a lecturer at the Royal Conservatory of Music, and has taught music, theatre and creative arts to children and adults in school and non-school settings for over 20 years. Danny is holds a SSHRC Doctoral Fellowship and is working towards his Ph.D. in Curriculum and Pedaogy at the Faculty of Education at the University of British Columba in Vancouver. Danny is also a songwriter, banjoist and performer. His artistic portfolio includes two albums of original songs, performances across North America, and appearances on CBC and NPR. (htp://www.dannybakan.com)

‘Out from Under’ to move into virtual learning environment

‘Out from Under,’ the acclaimed exhibit produced by Ryerson’s School of Disability Studies, is moving into a virtual learning environment thanks in part to a grant from the Learning and Teaching Office (LTO).

The exhibit which illuminates the hidden history of disabled people’s struggle for equal rights in Canada was prominently displayed at the Royal Ontario Museum in 2008 and at the Cultural Olympiad during the 2010 Vancouver Paralympic Games. The exhibit, which consists of 13 diverse objects that reveal a significant aspect of Canadian disability history, was created by Ryerson students, faculty and collaborators. The exhibit includes a number of accessibility features including American Sign Language podcasts, a plain language audio tour and print materials that are available in a variety of formats including braille.

“This is a truly ‘Made-at-Ryerson’ project that continues to evolve,” said Melanie Panitch, former director, School of Disability Studies, and one of the exhibit curators. “Transforming the exhibit into a digital, interactive form will advance research into virtual learning environments and provide students with training in the use of virtual reality tools.”

Creating the exhibit in a virtual learning environment will be a collaborative effort. Panitch, and her colleagues and co-curators from the school, Kathryn Church and Catherine Frazee, are working with Early Childhood Education Professor, and Experiential Design and Gaming Environments (EDGE) Lab Director Jason Nolan to bring the exhibit into the virtual world known as ‘Second Life.’ Nolan and his team, whose EDGE Lab is based in Ryerson’s Digital Media Zone (DMZ), will recreate the exhibit in a three-dimensional, interactive form and will integrate much of the digital archival footage of the exhibit – such as short interviews and time lapsed recordings – that was amassed over the last few years by Image Arts Professor Garrick Filewod. Alexandra Bal, an Image Arts professor and associate director, EDGE Lab, will assist the team with contextualizing the pedagogical opportunities of the virtual environment for learners.

Ryerson Today: The Honourable David C. Onley, Lieutenant Governor of Ontario (left) shakes hands with Ryerson University EDGE Lab Director Jason Nolan at the official opening of the university’s new Adaptive Design Studio, while researcher Alison Gaston and her “research partner” three-year-old Zoe look on. His Honour was on-hand to cut the ribbon opening the production space where researchers will create customized, affordable adaptations and communication tools for children with disabilities. In his address preceding the ribbon cutting, the Lieutenant Governor spoke of Ryerson’s leadership in the innovation space and commended the University for demonstrating and actively working on how technology can make lives easier instead of more complicated. He spoke at length of the appreciation he has for the Digital Media Zone and the contributions the incubator is making to Canada, including advancements in the area of accessibility.

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Recess.to April Playdate was run at the EDGE Lab by Atmosphere Industries

Recess.to is a new forum for experimental games in Toronto. We’re a small band of designers interested in seeing what happens when you take games off of screens, and plant them in the everyday world. This is just as much about exploring the possibilities of interconnected mobile & ubiquitous devices, as it is a reinvention of playground games and make-believe. We run a series of sandbox events, with the aim of getting people to play, create, and discuss games.

Attendees came from the following orgs: The Labs, Ryerson University, Forest Games, Gamercamp, and Effects-Based Analytics

We’re looking to see more events in collaboration with the Atmosphere Industries crew in the future.

Sockmonkey Server, a photo by jasonnolan on Flickr.

The front and back views of the lab’s new 9 server, 60 terabyte cluser that will be used for virtual reality research. Note it is cabled in Edge Lab orange.

It has been great to work with everyone at the ADA and to talk with Alex about policy, Lille about procedures for working with parents and families. Antoinette and Kenia have been teaching me techniques. I was able to show them some techniques for doing some custom freehand cutting with a dremel tool, though I couldn’t find the perfect attachment at the two home depot stores in manhattan, even though the web site says they’re in stock. (fail)

They made up a little blog post on the visit.
Which links to this video on flickr of me describing the chair prototype that I’m building for a child in Ryerson’s Early Learning Centre.

Kono-san, an instructor at Miyagi Gakuin Women’s University is running a continuing education course “step up with cardboard: volunteer action class” starting May for 12 sessions every thursday for $150 for 15 people.

Kono-san visited us at the EDGE lab last summer to learn about adaptive design, and she was very excited to learn about what can be done with cardboard, and she is now hoping to bring what she learned to japan.

After the earthquake, we’ve not heard from Kono-san. She lives in the Japanese earthquake zone, and we’re hoping that she’s safe, and look forward to hearing from her soon.

Update. Konno-san is fine. The tsunami got within 1km from her house, but the house survived.