4D Blog

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4D Pop Ups – first look!

4D creative are happy to announce two launch events for our 4D Pop Up.

This is the first opportunity to come and experience our new flexible, portable spaces. You can meet our friendly team and discuss the best use for your setting.

The 4D Pop Up is all about adaptability. From outstanding lessons for pupils of all ages and abilities to a sensory environment to immersive performance pieces, the pre-loaded content and simple to use software gives you a unique and powerful tool to engage and inspire. Quick to set up and easy to store, these are our most flexible immersive environments ever!

The events will be held on the following dates:

19th March – The Landing, MediaCityUK (2pm – 6pm)

20th March – St John Bosco School, Liverpool (1pm – 5pm)

Guests will be able to order a 4D Pop Up at the events. Prices start from £15,000 (+ VAT) and come with a range of options.

To register for either event or for more information please email us via our contact page or fill in the simple form below.

[contact-form-7 id=”3858″ title=”Pop Up Launch Event”]

 

 

 

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Pop Up Immersive Spaces Preview Video

As we announced in December, 4D creative are currently developing mobile immersive spaces. Our new inflatable pods will give you an inspirational immersive environment but without the need for a fixed space. 4D will of course still be installing permanent immersive spaces but we’re also aware that lots of schools need a more flexible solution. 

The new product will have everything you need for an inspirational immersive space. An inflatable pod will give you the foundations whilst projection, light, and sound will be powered from a tablet device running our 4D create software. At the end of the lesson, the pod deflates, the kit is returned to the specially designed flight case and all can be stored away quickly and easily.

We took a prototype version of the pod on the road last year and here’s a video to give you a hint of what is ahead.

[media url=”http://vimeo.com/58363832″ width=”600″ height=”400″]

Whilst the fine details are currently being confirmed, our aim is for the first pods to be delivered to customers in early April and you will be able to place an order very soon. For more information send us an email or fill in the form below.

[contact-form-7 id=”3701″ title=”Pod Tell Me More”]

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4D Exchange – February 2013

After the success of the first event, we are happy to announce our next 4D exchange.

This workshop style session is designed to help our network of schools get the most from their immersive spaces. We know that our immersive environments work best with a passionate and inspired staff and we hope that 4D exchange can help practitioners find new ideas and best practices to take back to their own settings. This is also a great time to ask questions to the 4D staff and other teachers working in an immersive environment. 

To help facilitate this continuous improvement, our second 4D exchange will be based around the following sessions.

1- 2pm – Tech champions session

Our development manager Nick will lead this session to help answer some typical technical questions. Whilst our software is quick and easy to learn, a 4D space has a complex hardware setup working to create the immersive environments. By equipping practitioners with basic information, we hope schools will get the best from their space all year round.

Nick plans to cover the following areas though of course, questions are encouraged!

Turning system on and off properly and diagnosing hardware issues
What happens when lights/sound/video doesn’t turn on or off.
No signal from a projector.
Processes to identify whether kit is faulty or just needs minor tweaks.
The back of the computer rack. It’s not that scary!
No image on touchscreen on startup or BIOS screen.

Controlling sound levels
Fine tuning Advis, 4D create, MP3 player volumes.
Adjusting the amplifier to suit.
Switching between inputs.
Operating extra audio kit such as radio microphones.

Creating new lighting scenes
Custom light scenes and overview of how the lights are programmed.
How some lights often have two functions (ie, both colour wash and house lights)

2 – 2.30pm – Networking, teas, coffees, etc…

2.30 – 4pm – Creative champions session 

Our teaching and learning expert Gav will be leading the session covering content creation techniques outside of 4D create and sharing some top tips on using found materials to make a space within your space.

There will also be lots of opportunity to share ideas and themes. If you or your pupils have made an exciting piece of content, please bring it to the session so it can be shared with other schools.

We are also happy to let attendees steer the session to other areas they may need help with, feel free to send us an email in advance and we can add this to the agenda.

Logistics

Date: February 27th

Location:
Orford Jubilee Neighbourhood Hub
Jubilee Way
Orford
Warrington
WA2 8HE

The centre is just behind the Decathlon off Winwick Road. There is lots of parking available.

To book, please send an email to hello@4dcreative.co.uk or fill out the form below. Attendees are welcome to attend one or both sessions. 

[contact-form-7 id=”3815″ title=”4D exchange “]

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Manchester Communication Academy Content Project

This week sees the start of an exciting new project for 4D creative. We have been commissioned to work with the staff and pupils at Manchester Communication Academy to produce new and exciting content for the school’s immersive space. This content has been requested by teaching staff themselves, so that their Immersive Space can be used to further extend the use of the room and to test a powerful way to create content that benefits the school and the young people involved in this very 21st century skill.

Our teaching and learning associate, Gav will be working alongside staff and a group of Year 8 pupils to create new immersive themes and teaching resources for the school. Pupils will be taking and sourcing images, capturing and making sounds and recording videos which can then be tweaked, manipulated and polished into finished content.

We are very excited by this commission because the project will further strengthen how we can help our network of schools get the best from their immersive spaces. We are passionate that each of our education sited installs is firstly a teaching and learning environment that can have a huge impact on pupils. We can see that the learning experience and benefits can stretch out to subjects and lessons outside of the immersive space, and content creation, we hope, will be of great benefit to the young creators and the school itself.

Putting the pupils in control, they have firstly been given an area of curriculum to work with. Their brief is to create content related to ‘Inspiration’ specifically linked to the ‘Health and Wellbeing’ section of their syllabus. However, being immersive learning, the scope for the project goes way beyond this. Pupils will be involved and supported by MCA staff and our input at every stage of the process, writing briefs, creating content, editing their work and producing a final experience that is delivered in their immersive space.

The students will also be tracking their progress with regular blogs and video updates. We will be sharing these over the course of the eight week project with a final case study being produced later in the term. Check back for the latest news or follow our twitter feed.

 

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Cathy at the Westminster Education Forum

Last week, Cathy, our creative director was invited to speak at the Westminster Education Forum. The day was based around the future of school buildings – new designs, improving teaching spaces and utilising new technologies. Cathy presented on some of 4D’s solutions for immersive learning and also discussed her work as a den maker and trainer.

A lively discussion was enjoyed by all but the lasting memory for Cathy was the ironically poor use of space for the event. How can we discuss using space well for young people when we are so restrained in our own output?

Cathy explains:

“An interesting day, spent in a lovely building in Whitehall unfortunately also a perfect example of not using a great space well! The shape of the room, based on a shield, has great potential but why do we always do things the same way? 

We all sat in rows looking at a large AV screen with the panel sat behind the table on a mini stage. What would happen if we all sat in two huge circles with the panelists in the centre and the projected Powerpoint presentations on the ceiling?

Why not? We ask our teachers and learners to think differently about improving space yet are often stuck in our own ways.Would we have had a different experience? Would we have been more or less engaged? Could we have used our personal devices to vote or comment on a live, streamed output?…

Hopefully I got the delegates to consider thinking differently about using space, use what you have but differently and most importantly be led by teaching and learning when thinking about space and utilising technology”

You can read Cathy’s full transcript of her talk here.  Full details on the Westminster Education Forum can be found here. 

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A new year and a new office!


We are very happy to announce that 4D creative are now based at MediaCityUK. We have moved into new offices at the Landing which is at the heart of Media City next door to the BBC’s new studios.

The new office opens up a lot of new opportunities including more room to run training events and exciting new networking and collaboration possibilities.

Our new address is as follows:

The Landing
Blue Tower
3rd Floor
MediaCityUK
M50 2ST

Our phone number and email details are unchanged.

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Pop Up Immersive Experiences

This week we have been on tour to trial our brand new pop up immersive space. Our design team have been working on a flexible, portable immersive solution for a number of months and the time was right to test a couple of these designs with a storytelling day.

Our new portable pod will enable anyone to create an immersive space anywhere they want in just a few minutes. In the new portable structure, light, sound and projection can all be triggered from a tablet device running our bespoke software, 4D create. 4D creative will still be installing permanent immersive experiences but a new portable solution is a really exciting development for us as it makes our spaces even more flexible and removes the need for a dedicated room.

As part of our research and development for this new product, we needed to trial what we could do within the new space so we packed our bags and went on tour. Our hosts were Hebden Green School in Cheshire, The TEN Centre in Salford, Manchester Communication Academy and two schools from Liverpool, Bishop Eton and St Ambrose. Big thanks for the warm welcome we received and for letting us pop up, play, learn and experience what mobile immersive learning could be.

In the primary and SEN settings we ran an afternoon of storytelling. The space and technology side of the trial worked as planned which kept our development manager Nick happy! All we needed now was a room full of pupils and a storyteller to see how the space would work.

Fortunately for us, our Teaching Associate Gav had transformed into Professor Flummox for the day! Prof Flummox is the most intelligent man you will ever meet but also one of the most forgetful. He loves stories and can tell you hundreds of them, he also has a special magic book that helps to transform the space you are in. There will definitely be more outings for Professor Flummox in 2013. If you’d like a storytelling day at your school then just let us know via our contact page.

There was a real buzz around the sessions as we transported the class from their usual classroom to anywhere imaginable. As we were running a storytelling session in the space, the lesson was used for the pupils to practice their “WOW words” – by immersing the young people in the sights and sounds of the session, they were able to express themselves in more detail and with a wider vocabulary.

At Manchester Communication Academy we met a group of secondary pupils who were involved in a research project. We let them explore the new pod and encouraged them to ask questions to find out how the pod would work. They came up with some great ideas which have really helped our thinking for the next steps.

Our mobile immersive spaces are being launched early next year. If you’d like to be one of the first to see a pod then just send us a quick email and we’ll make sure you are kept informed or fill in this quick form below.

[contact-form-7 id=”3701″ title=”Pod Tell Me More”]

 

 

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Den making and storytelling at Orford Park

We went over to Orford Park in Warrington last week for an afternoon of den making and storytelling. The pupils from Bewsey Lodge School made the short trip to the fantastic new community centre to learn about Greek myths in a 4D Immersive Space.

Our teaching associate Gav took a room of pupils and teachers on an adventure that included den making, Theseus, a minotaur and being lost in a labyrinth. Afterwards pupils had to feedback on what they had seen, heard and imagined and then took this back to school to start a writing assignment on their experiences.

Before leaving we had a quick chat with a couple of the young people to see what they thought of the immersive space.

Leah, a year 5 pupil, told us that “Usually I can’t picture things when I’m writing stores but now I can really imagine it as I have the sights and sounds around me. It was really inspiring”

We made a stop motion video of the day which you can view here:
[media url=”http://vimeo.com/55107197″ width=”600″ height=”400″]

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4D Exchange

Last week teachers from across our network of schools visited our office for the first 4D Exchange. These termly events are designed so those working in our immersive spaces can share teaching ideas and best practices with each other. It’s also a chance to share exciting bits of content or themes practitioners may have developed.

Our teaching and learning associate, Gav, lead the event but once our guests got talking, everybody wanted to share ideas and suggest clever ways of using the immersive space.

One great idea that came from Hebden Green School was to turn their interactive floor into a giant board game by taking their own photo of the game and quickly uploading to their 4D create software. For a game of Cluedo they then projected a spooky mansion onto the back wall – this has been used for a variety of lessons including Maths and English.

Crescent Primary also shared with us how they were using the interactive floor theme of the human heart. A dance teacher had been using the theme to teach science by getting young people to take the roles of parts of the heart and white or red blood cells. The pupils then moved around the image of the heart reacting to different stimulus’s on the body. An ingenious and memorable way to teach science to primary school pupils!

Once all the sharing had taken place, Gav then took the practitioners through some top tips on sourcing and developing content.  Any attendees should keep an eye out for the accompanying handouts and videos which we are sending out to you very soon with all the tips from the event. Following our ‘Creative Champions’ session, our development manager Nick ran a ‘Tech Champions’ workshop. This is to give more technically minded staff members additional knowledge on how their immersive space works. The aim being that our tech champs can then suggest best practice in their school and also troubleshoot any issues alongside our maintenance engineers.

We’ve already heard from one attendee at the tech champion session who quickly solved a basic problem with renewed confidence and understanding.

Our next 4D Exchange is taking place on 27th February 2013 at Orford Park in Warrington. This event is a must for all teachers working in one of our immersive spaces. Some topics for this event will be decided by issues brought up in the last 4D exchange. There will also be lots of opportunity to share and learn with fellow practitioners. We are also looking into live streaming the event so those unable to attend can still get involved. To register interest in future events please send us an email to hello@4dcreative.co.uk.

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Upcoming events

We will be at the Kidz Up North exhibition and Westminster Education Forum in the coming weeks.

Kidz Up North is one of the largest free exhibitions dedicated to children with special needs, their families and the professionals working with them. We have seen the impact our spaces are having on SEN schools across the UK so this will be a great chance to explain to more people about what we do at 4D creative and the success stories from our current spaces.

When: 29/11/12
Where: Reebok Stadium, Bolton, BL6 6JW
Stand number: M54
To register: Click here

Cathy has also been invited back to speak at the Westminster Education Forum in January. The topic of discussion at the event is “The future of school buildings – new designs, improving teaching space and utilising new technologies”; an area Cathy is hugely passionate about. With the coalition’s Priority Schools Build Programme moving forward at the moment, it’s a key time to discuss how the next wave of new schools in the UK will look and feel. This should be a fascinating and informative discussion with a range of speakers including the Department For Education, head teachers and local authority officials.

When: 16/01/13
Where: Central London
To register: Click here

If you’re coming to either event, let us know and we will see you there!

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