2.S972  Developing Technologies for Music and Health

First, I want to thank you all for being a fantastic group. I learned a ton this semester. Please enter your final reflections here:
bit.ly/kzclass12
A number of you have asked about the Spring class. I'll paste a draft of the class description below. We'll meet again on Friday afternoons, but we're changing the time to be 2pm to 4pm. And we'll follow an MIT calendar, which means Berklee students will have the first couple of weeks off. Our first session will be Friday February 5.  There will be a separate subject numbers for both MIT students and Berklee students, and you'll work with your respective advisors/schools to figure out how to register (let me know if you need help). Here's the class description:
Learning to play a musical instrument (or learning about music) is an undertaking that touches special parts of the brain and soul. Startups are building new tablets, apps, innovative musical instruments, wearables, biometric sensors, games, and virtual reality platforms that help people learn. In this special seminar, which combines students from MIT and Berklee College of Music, we'll explore the current landscape of learning science and music education. Students will design and prototype new devices, apps, or other creations for teaching music. We'll also build upon insights gleaned from music education to inform new approaches to teaching any subject matter. We'll partner with prominent startups and music technology companies who will provide tools and challenges to the class, and we'll provide opportunities for motivated students to extend their projects into a summer launch program.

I'm sure you all know there's no class today (11/27), but I can't let a Friday go by without at least saying hello.
Some of you have asked about the format for next week, and I've answered individually, but just to recap it here:
We will go around the room and ask each team/individual to give a presentation. Plan to present for up to 5 minutes, leaving 5 minutes for Q&A. You can use a few powerpoint slides or demos if you want, but try to minimize your reliance on special A/V or  internet... Murphy's law of giving a presentation, the website never loads, the video doesn't play, etc. Be prepared to improvise, or use more reliable formats such as screen-shots of a website, or a saved video file on your laptop in an mp4 or mov format which doesn't require youtube to be loading promptly. If you are giving a demonstration of a possible app, you might find it useful to use a prototyping tool such as : https://balsamiq.com/ or proto.io or ratchet . Or maybe bring a physical prototype or some big flash cards that can demonstrate a use case, etc.
As I mentioned before, I don't want you to feel pressure to pitch an idea that you're not certain is viable, and I don't want you thinking of this as a "shark tank" exercise where you have to convince me that you've got a great idea. Instead, I would like to see your process and your logic. You could say something along the lines of "we observed x, we were inspired by x, we thought x would be a good product idea, we attempted to validate it by doing x, we got x feedback from person x, we ran experiments as described here..., we brought on team-mate x, we're still looking for future team-mate x, We estimate that we would need x in order to proceed. Competitor x is already doing some of what we proposed, but we could add x to it to make it better, or maybe we would pivot to produce product x instead." I'm just spinning some hypothetical story lines you might follow, and you don't need to follow that template, but find a way to tell a story of what you learned and how you did work to bring yourself to those learnings.

Please enter your after-class reflections here:
bit.ly/kzclass11

Xiao Xiao has shared a few resources from our class today:

• These are the slides from the prototyping exerise we were considering running (which we can do during some optional future session if enough of you are interested):
  www.dropbox.com/s/644e0haiwf9exkn/xiao_xiao_prototyping.pdf
• And here's the video of InForm (the shape display):
  https://vimeo.com/79179138
• The "Makey Makey" project (turn any object into a musical instrument) is described here:
  www.makeymakey.com/

Since we have no class next week, and our final class is December 4, I urge you to all reach out to me (or another mentor of your choice) to set up office hours and talk through your final class projects. I'll be in town next Friday 11/27, and could possibly meet informally with some of you. If I don't see you, please enjoy the Thanksgiving break.

Remember that tomorrow (11/20) we do not meet in our usual classroom,  instead we meet at the MIT Media Lab, here:
goo.gl/maps/MRx9Wf9FFpw
We'll start at 1pm in room E14-240 (on the second floor of the Media Lab).
Also, some of you asked about materials from last week's class. Here are some links:
Grace Leslie's presentation:
www.dropbox.com/s/5c1l9zmr4w8p24f/Leslie_MIT%20guest%20lecture.pdf
Susan Rogers' presentation:
www.dropbox.com/s/l10pbf5lmbh07sl/Rogers_MIT2.S972_FA15.pdf
"Personality Processes and Individual Differences" paper by Rentfrow and Gosling:
www.dropbox.com/s/ppwpjhsacpz1swu/Rentfrow_03.pdf
"Emotional Responses to Music" by Juslin and Vastfjall:
www.dropbox.com/s/2fyxcco01pf5pn1/Juslin_08.pdf

It's early, and I usually send these after class. But I'm about to board a ship (long story, I'll explain next week), and might be out of contact this afternoon. You're in good hands with Susan Rogers today. Please enter your after class reflections here:
bit.ly/kzclass10
Next week (Nov 20) is our field trip to the MIT Media Lab, graciously hosted by Xiao Xiao and Marko.
We'll meet in building E14. You can see the location on an MIT campus map is here:
whereis.mit.edu/
Google map is here:
goo.gl/maps/MRx9Wf9FFpw
Once inside the building, walk up one flight and find the conference room E14-240. Note that even though we'll start in E14-240, a good part of our visit will involve walking around the various labs, so I encourage you to arrive VERY PROMPTLY by 1pm. If you miss us and we start walking around, it might be difficult for you to find us.
Xiao has passed along the following links for you to explore, two we'll ask you all to explore, and a bunch of optional ones for those of you who want to dive in deeper.
The first two for all are here: