It Just Got Cooler in Australia!

I don't mean the temperature! Today's JamSkolan was filled with an exciting agenda! We started the day out with a Skype communication with Professor Bert Bongers who is setting up a new lab for research and design of interactived environments at the Faculty of Design, Architecture, and Building, University of Technology, Sydney. Professor Bongers showed us his current research using gestural wireless devices that pick up on body movements and thus control the Jam2Jam program without using a mouse and keyboard. A music therapists that was with us at the Symposium noted how this is a particularly impressive idea for those who are disabled and can only make little movements with the hands and arms.

Later in the day we tested out the latest Jam2Jam controllers. You can watch the video below which shows myself and other conference members testing out the controls!

After this we had a frank discussion about the user interface for Jam2Jam. It seems as though most of the teachers and even the Australian Sibelius representative all agreed on some issues which will be worked out. Part of the beta testing is understanding everyones views and making decisions that are balanced and work best for the program and its usage. It is really exciting to hear us teachers make comments and for the developers of the software to say that they are listening and going to make some changes based off of our feedback. This is a true collaboration which I think is reflective of business in the real world. Real life lessons here!

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