Good morning co_LAB!

Hope you’re all feeling bright & breezy after last night’s nacho/Mario Kart/drink-fest?

It was great to see so many faces at the gathering and social. We’ll run another at some point next week… right after I’ve got some practice in on Mario Kart. For those who couldn’t make it, this post will summarise what we talked about (before the pub), and for everyone; the essential pre-workshop tasks will be set.

Summary

If you attended the gathering, you can skip to the next section. If not, here is a brief summary of what was discussed so that you don’t feel left out…

This presentation was used to reinforce to the following points:

1) Collaborative tools and methods of working were considered. We demonstrated Google Drive, Docs, and Hangout – with Graham linking up with us LIVE from Finland.

More about Google Drive’s latest features: http://googledrive.blogspot.co.uk/ and an old, but still relevant video describing how Google Drive & Docs work: http://learn.googleapps.com/training-videos/docs_overview_vid

2) We set the theme of the workshop. You will be focusing your attention around: Drones. That’s all interpretations, notions and contexts.

Martyn shared some of his starting points for researching this subject area. You can find that in the ‘Resources’ folder or by clicking the following link: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1wLuQO5HyhQs6aJFFUeq0slxiXww9bl-MjOjUczzq_CQ/edit?usp=sharing

Remember, these examples are just scratching the surface of this highly political, ethical and commercial topic. There’s so much more to add and this is what you’ll be doing (see the ‘Main Task’ a little further down).

3) Finally, the outputs for this project were briefly treated. The main consideration here is that the output can be anything you like. We want you to use your skills (or combination of skills from the members in your group). The only mandatory output is an A1 poster that demonstrates/visualises your project’s concept. This will be printed on the Friday and hopefully exhibited at the ‘As Above, So Below’ academic conference on May 24th.

Pre-workshop Main Task

We’ve been setting you little social tasks since this phase of the project started last week. Most of you have responded and we’ve managed to make the co_LAB ‘Coffee Room’ (Facebook group page) a nice, vibrant place to be with a growing community feel.

We want this to continue so if you haven’t got involved yet, please try and make an effort to contribute to the community!

However this task is essential so it’s important that each group member contributes something. As a group, you are going to present the findings of this task on Monday afternoon so the more prepared you are, the better (and less scary) your presentation will be. You will be given some time on the Monday to finalise your presentations. So, here’s the task…

In your groups you are to:

1) Create a Google Document in your group folder entitled ‘Research for Brief’ and populate it with the following:

• Collectively archive any research related to the brief (any interesting links to videos, art work, exhibitions, articles, news stories, scholarly work, critical essays, blog posts, blog posts, etc.)
• Must come up with 3 ideas (or one idea with three different outputs) that could potentially be developed throughout the workshop

2) Create a Google Document in your group folder entitled ‘Team Bio’ and populate it with the following:

• Each team member to contribute to this by writing a ‘mini CV – a few lines about themselves (key skills/specialisms/expertise/software and equipment you have a good working knowledge of)
• You can also use this space to promote any work / projects you have been a part of
• This could also take the form of more creative responses (video CV, web content, etc)

Hope that’s clear and straightforward. If there are any questions, ask them in the Facebook group under the post where this blog post was mentioned.

We look forward to hearing/seeing what you guys some up with!

p.s. if any of you want to use the branding of co_LAB for your work etc., I have shared with you a folder called ‘Branding’ inside the ‘Resources’ folder (which you should all be able to see). Feel free to use it where appropriate.