The Interface of Technology in Culinary Arts Education

Introduction: A culinary educator must make many decisions that affect the day-to-day activities in both the classroom and the lab. One of the more important decisions is how to select the most appropriate technology to implement for use in teaching and administrative activities. The research presented here is intended to help the educator identify specific needs, decide where the use of technology is desirable, and offer information designed to help the educator make an informed decision about using technology as a teaching tool. Purpose Statement: The purpose of this paper is to inform the culinary educator about the technology available for use in both the classroom and the lab setting. There is an ever-increasing pool of technology, making it more important than ever that the educator choose the appropriate lab/kitchen equipment and software programs for use in a specific culinary program. Making an informed decision ensures maximum usefulness of the technology in the setting

Learning virtually or virtually learning? : a survey to gauge students’ use and perception of Blackboard and VLEs

This report presents the findings of a survey of students’ use and perception of Blackboard and VLEs as part of their learning in art and design higher education. In November 2007 a consultative process began through which the scope and design of the survey were decided. An on-line questionnaire was designed and piloted, and eventually responded to by 256 students across UAL during spring of 2008. This data was supplemented by data from a focus group interview held in June 2008

Foregrounding accessibility for user experience design

textI am interested in creating generative tools and techniques for designing accessible user experiences for end users. As a user experience designer, I am working on embracing the web accessibility standards and guidelines and including them from the beginning of the User Experience (UX) design process. My projects are directed at facilitating design students and professionals to understand two things: that the broad concept of web accessibility is important, and how they can embed web accessibility into the UX design process at a very early stage. To do this, I used different media (website, posters and videos etc.) to create awareness and educate designers in an interesting, simple and engaging way. In this report, I will discuss the definition and role of accessible design, identify limitations in existing tools and methods, and demonstrate how future designers might research, prototype, analyze, and implement their designs for all users.Desig

Inputs and outputs: engagement in digital media from the maker's perspective

In the process of developing a technology assembly that can objectively measure engagement on a moment-by-moment basis, subjective responses to stimuli must be shown to correlate with the component technologies, such as motion capture or psychophysiology. Subjective scales for engagement are not all consistent in segregating the measurement of causes (inputs to the audience) and effects (outputs from the audience); this lack of separation can obscure appropriate inferences in the relationship between cause and effect. Inputs to the audience are scripted, and are controllable by the maker. An output is what the designed experience engenders in the end-user, and outputs can include both mental states (satisfaction) and physical activities (heart rate) during the stimulus and subsequently. Inputs can be maximised by design, whereas to optimise outputs from the end-user, one needs an empirical process because outputs are dependent upon an interpretive process or entry into a biological system. Outputs will be highly dependent on audience and context, and they will often be quite variable, even in individuals from a similar audience profile. It is critical that, in instruments assessing the relationship between inputs and outputs, controllable inputs to the end-user must not be conflated with outputs engendered in the end-user

Sampling the past:a tactile approach to interactive musical instrument exhibits in the heritage sector

In the last decade, the heritage sector has had to adapt to a shifting cultural landscape of public expectations and attitudes towards ownership and intellectual property. One way it has done this is to focus on each visitor’s encounter and provide them with a sense of experiential authenticity.There is a clear desire by the public to engage with music collections in this way, and a sound museological rationale for providing such access, but the approach raises particular curatorial problems, specifically how do we meaningfully balance access with the duty to preserve objects for future generations?This paper charts the development of one such project. Based at Fenton House in Hampstead, and running since 2008, the project seeks to model digitally the keyboard instruments in the Benton Fletcher Collection and provide a dedicated interactive exhibit, which allows visitors to view all of the instruments in situ, and then play them through a custom-built two-manual MIDI controller with touch-screen interface.We discuss the approach to modelling, which uses high-definition sampling, and highlight the strengths and weaknesses of the exhibit as it currently stands, with particular focus on its key shortcoming: at present, there is no way to effectively model the key feel of a historic keyboard instrument.This issue is of profound importance, since the feel of any instrument is fundamental to its character, and shapes the way performers relate to it. The issue is further compounded if we are to consider a single dedicated keyboard as being the primary mode of interface for several instrument models of different classes, each with its own characteristic feel.We conclude by proposing an outline solution to this problem, detailing early work on a real-time adaptive haptic keyboard interface that changes its action in response to sampled resistance curves, measured on a key-by-key basis from the original instruments