didactics

The interactive carpet lends itself to many playful didactic and scenic applications.

1. Project summary

Summary:

The interactive carpet is a project wanted and conceived by the collaboration of Nadia Vittori and Tullia Guerrini Rocco. The technical implementation is by Studio Base 2 of Crema in occasion of the IXth edition of Mediaexpo.
The association “ Popolare Crema per il Territorio” made the project possible by its contribution.

2. Country (City / Region)

State:

Italy

City:

Trescore Cremasco ( CR)

3. Company/organization/institute presenting the project

Organization:

Istituto Comprensivo di Trescore Cremasco

4. Type of organization

Select type:

School

5. Project coordinator

Name and Surname:

Tullia Guerrini Rocco

E-Mail:

dirigente.trescore@libero.it

6. Website

The website of the project:

http://www.ictrescorecr.it http://www.mediaexpo.it

7. Please select the category in which you candidate your project

Youth Education Project. Select Project Users by age:

Up to 18 years

Helping youth step in the job market:

NOT Helping youth step in the job market

Creativity and Social Innovation:

Creativity and Social Innovation

8. How long has your project been running?

From:

01/09/2006

9. Targets and Elements of Innovation

Please explain the targets and the background of your project:

The interactive carpet offers great possibilities: to walk physically along a path drawing itself under the players’ feet is a really involving experience. All the senses come into play and you are captured by the plot.
The carpet enlightens and tells a story through the images, the music, the words.
The children move on the carpet and activate the sensors hidden under its surface, operating the software that activates the multimedia effects, with the help of a projector placed upright to the carpet.
It’s like walking inside a cartoon.

What does it try to achieve and how:

The interactive carpet lends itself to many playful didactic and scenic applications.
It unites the mind dynamism to the body movement , thus overcoming the limit often due to the use of the computer, that is the static position of the user who usually moves almost his/her hands only. The isolation of the user is also surmounted because the carpet is at the same time “ playground” for many subjects, stage and scenery of a dream and an adventure.These are the potentialities.

Which opportunities/problems does it address to:

To face facts, on the contrary, a low budget is always the limit of schools. For this version, we have thus inserted only two sensors under the carpet, organising a story with double choices.
The carpet tells a story that, in the crucial moments, stops and offers the players a double option. The answers are not right or wrong (it’s a game, not a test): answers instead exist which take along a path and answers which get through another way.

Please explain what is unique or special in your project:

The story proposed by the carpet is inspired by the historical short stories by the writer Nadia Vittori and it is located at the times of republican Rome, just before Punic War II.
Amilcare Barca threats Sagunto in Spain, a city allied to Rome, and the Senate must decide: war upon Carthage or peace?
Children are invited to choose but they have to do it according to the role they have chosen to assume.
Indeed , there are the senators, the small landowners – future warriors, the tradesmen and the Etruscan cities.
It is interesting to notice how every category defends its interests with all its might and how the discussion inflames to bring the decisions in favour of one side or the other.
How does the game end? Almost always with Rome’s victory and Carthage’s defeat.( there have also been some more fantastic and alternative conclusions like Rome as a colony of Carthage or an Etruscan empire formed by the cities ).

But the true aim of the game is another: to stimulate children to find values in order to support their cause. In the specific context, the causes of the rise of the latifundium in Rome come out and some causes of the social crisis are identified.

The multimedia support contributes both to aggregate the group playing around the carpet and to raise the attention thanks to the animations.
The carpet suddenly creates a space which catalyzes curiosity and creates collective ties and emotions.

10. Results

Describe the results of your project as per today:

“ During the three days at Mediaexpo 2006 and the thematic week at the “Città Educativa” in Rome, children from 6 to 18 have played with the carpet.
The answers have been different and stimulating.
I realised how little necessary is to know the historical context of the game: some of the hottest games have been played by children of 9 – 10 which hadn’t studied the history of ancient Rome yet.
It was enough to give some basic elements before: the function and the composition of the Senate, the roman law about enrolment, the law about slavery for debts, and the game could start, free from any form of prejudice.
The moment after the game was also stimulating with older children. Some classes have discussed about the choices which brought to the rise of the latifundium and the possibility to avoid this conclusion.
It’s in these moments of reflection that children single out the great forces that move history, the problems which take to the crisis and to the breaking with tradition and continuity.
To discuss, to find alternative ways, to single out possible sceneries, more or less probable, means to express historical judgements, to put oneself into the historian’s point of view, the one who studies the great problems in depth and analyses them while happening.
Playing on the ancestors’ routes, as we did with the interactive carpet, means not only to acquire some notions about our ancestors’ way of living, but also to understand the great dynamics of history.” Nadia Vittori, the writer.

11. Sustainability

What is the full duration of your project:

From 3 to 6 years

What is the approximate total budget for your project (in USD):

Less than 10.000

What is the source of funding for your project:

Sponsorships

Is your project economically self sufficient now:

Yes

Insert date:

09/01/2006

12. Transferability

Has your project been replicated/adapted elsewhere:

Yes

Specify:

Settimane tematiche a Roma e sul territorio nazionale .

What lessons can others learn from your project:

We are available to help others starting or working on similar projects:

We are not available to help others starting or working on similar projects.

13. Background information

Background:

Mediaexpo: an exposition of multimedia products implemented by and for schools of any order and grade (www.mediaexpo.it ) at national level.
It is held every year at the end of October / beginning of November at the computer Studies University of Crema and it is organised by the Istituto Comprensivo di Trescore Cremasco.
Nadia Vittori: she is a writer for young people. She has published her historical and fantasy fiction with Mursia, Elemond and Raffaello. She is author of teaching method texts. She attends to fiction and games for the teaching method of history.
Tullia Guerrini Rocco: headmaster of the Istituto Comprensivo di Trescore Cremasco, coordinator of Mediaexpo and of some important methodological projects: La storia di Amoa (pre-writing), La maga Ea ( welcoming and continuity from nursery to primary school), Metodo Simultaneo
( simultaneous learning of reading and writing in Italian, class I, primary school ).
Istituto Comprensivo di Trescore Cremasco: a whole of 13 schools (nursery, primary, secondary, 3 to 14 years old), located in 8 communes in the north of the province of Cremona, Italy. Teachers have planned and carried out the projects above.
Associazione “ Popolare Crema per il Territorio”: the agency which promotes many social and cultural opportunities, sustaining many activities in the Crema territory thanks to the funds allocated by the Banca Popolare di Crema.
Studio Associato Base 2: multimedia company, 8 via Borletto, 26013 Crema (CR) Italy.

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THE INTERACTIVE CARPET