By: Marieke de Paauw
Keywords: Education, down sydrome, inclusive education, emphasizing equality.
Tutors: Margreet Beets & Kees Nauta
Design Goal and Interaction vision
The design goal; To improve the interaction between a child with Down Syndrome and the other children within the class while playing. The effect will be a feeling of interdependence between all children and a feeling of equality in the class.
The interaction vision; Having a picknick on a sunny day in the local park with all your friends, each friend bringing a small dish and together providing an overwhelming lunch.
Blend
The project – This project is focused on improving the interaction between children at a school with inclusive education. In the past children with Down Syndrome used to go to a school for children with special needs. However, inclusive education where children with Down Syndrome are included in a regular class offers a lot of advantages for the development of both regular children as well as children with Down Syndrome. From research I concluded that it can be hard for children to interact with a child with Down Syndrome in the same way as they do with other children. Blend is an interactive game to stimulate the interaction between a child with down syndrome and the other children within inclusive education. Instead of emphasizing the disability, it emphasizes the equality.
How it works – The product can be used on the current digital boards in the class with four children. Each child will get a coloured digital pen with a light showing this colour. When the children connect the back of the pen to eachother they can blend colours. If one child has a blue pen and the other child has a red pen, they can combine the colours by connecting the pens. So in order to create a nice piece of art, children will feel the urge to change their colour. The children will only get one colour. All children are treated the same. When they want another colour they can decide to interchange the pens, or they can connect the back of the pens to eachother.
Poster
Poster