Mariano Velamazán
Design & interaction for learning
As an interaction design researcher, my work focuses on creating learning experiences that move beyond traditional rote memorization and engage learners in a more active, meaningful way.
This project, a core part of my PhD, addresses a long-standing challenge in language education:
making the abstract rules of grammar accessible and intuitive for young learners. The result is wor(l)ds, a physical card game designed to transform grammar from a dry subject into a dynamic and collaborative activity.
This project, which forms a core part of my PhD research, explores a significant gap in Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning (CSCL): the lack of tools designed to support the socio – emotional dynamics of group work.
It is an interface for groups of children with features that afford learning to have a good collaboration for school home work.
Superbleeper is a system of wooden blocks that map music concepts to tangible tokens. These blocks have been designed to visualize the math behind music.
The system is shaped by the relationships between concepts like patterns, shapes, measurement, set and number sense.
(work in progress)
Can we connect schools formal learning with kids daily lives?, can we improve the experience of homework based on situated theories of learning?
In this project I am trying to give agency to students providing affordances for them to become learning designers and create their own math tasks out of their interests.
This project was about really getting involved with the potential users: ethnographic methods applied to design. Another important aspect for me was to explore and try new creative methods.
In this sense, the focus was in revealing and making visible group dynamics and generating ideas around it.
The element of discovery in this project came when numbers were given a physical shape with certain characteristics that mapped their mathematical properties.
Children normally get stuck with the superficiality of operations without understanding the higher –more abstract– power of their use. This system tried to give numbers a body that children could touch, explore and get to know.
What is the most efficient way to collect tons of logs in a forest close to the arctic circle takes around ten years of experience to answer. Could we help reveal the secret of what is the best log to pick up next?
Could we show students different alternatives and let them take the last decision in order to help learners to perform much better and much faster?
When various events happen simultaneously, the usual presentation of them is one of the following:
(a) the space is divided in as many columns as number of events, (b) the text is truncated to fit in whatever width there is available from the operation mentioned before and…
as a result, when people share calendars it is difficult to see overlapping events between different users. Some events look more important than others just because they don’t overlap with others and, therefore, they occupy more space in the calendar grid
Learning is a complex process. How can you explain what you have learned? What happens if you try to visualize it? Can you use quantitative data visualization techniques to explain feelings and emotions?
Is it possible to get the whole picture while being able to address the small details? We finally asked ourselves: Is a graph able to tell a story?
One of the main complaints about math is that people don’t see the connection to their everyday life. Do people think so because math is abstract or because it is presented in a very abstract way? The moment of wonder comes when children can touch a triangle and change it and see it working in everyday objects like the slides in a playground.
Triangles is another learning project that tries to explain visually the geometry, properties and importance of triangles in our daily life. It tries to do so with interactive and visual demonstrations of properties of triangles and with real life problems. Written in ActionScript 3 using Adobe FlexBuilder ®.
Children master the physics of inclined planes when they learn to skate but the formal knowledge of the simple laws that apply remain dark, mysterious and boring. Could we reveal the inner potential of one of the simplest and most capable machines of human history?
The time for surprise came when we tried to separate the different parameters of a ramp into the different screens of a video game against ButMan.
About me
My c.v.
Contact
Hi, I am an intreaction designer with a background in Computer Science and Visual Communication. Research through design, ethnography design and participatory design are my main methods of working.
I have a passion for designing learning experiences and making visible the invisible.
Take a look at my c.v. if you want more details.
Drop me a line at: hi@marianovelamazan.com