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Jun 2005 INDEX ＊Reports ・ Yumi, Chief Executive Director's monthly note ・ Toshi, Chief Techinical Director's monthly note ・ What's up in Pangaea's Playground? (Activity report) *Yumi's monthly note（May） Pangaea started new series of activities in May. In addition to four locations in Shibuya, Pangaea activities now also take place in Suginami's Children Center in an san buru as part of Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology's attempt to create "Children's Space". Our R & D is speeding up to for developing various tools and systems such as Pangaea Box, and Pangaea Net. Also creation of exciting contents such as 326 (called Mitsuru, very well known artist famous for popular books, and illustrations) Pangaea activity book now resuming quickly to be launched very soon. I am in Seoul today for plan to do simultaneous Pangaea event in August to connect children in Shibuya and Seoul. Seven members at Pangaea office now working together for its preparation. It is my joy to see how things are now moving and getting visible day by day. I am looking forward to the day when I can show you what we are doing soon. I will be traveling during the month of June and July. I look forward to visit Nairobi, Kenya in July. In Nairobi, there are Pangaeans and children who have been very helpful and supportive to Pangaea activities. (Thanks for Maneno Magazine, and Paul of Nations Media Group!) They have sent us wonderful video letters from children of Kenya. I can't wait to tell them the progress we have made since the last time I visited there. There are people in Europe who are also waiting for our arrival. Due to our operation which includes lots of R & D, things are taking little more time than I anticipated at the beginning of this project, as we are trying to gather funds to do as we proceed. But I am happy to let you know that things are going well and we are making progress. I like to thank all of you who give us advices and help in very timely manner. Mr. Don Lewis, well known musician, visited Pangaea activities on May 28th at one of our Shibuya site. He had concerts scheduled next day, yet he stayed there and participated in three hour activity with children. He mentioned that he enjoyed his visit. I had a very nice dinner with him in Tokyo. He mentioned that finding out project like Pangaea started in this small Far East nation is so exciting, and he and I promised to start collaboration to realize Pangaea mission. With his passionate comments, all the hard works were paid off, and my staff and I felt that this is one of the reward which we are constanly able to experinece being part of Pangaea. If you have not seen Pangaea activities yet, and have a plan to visit Japan, please let me know. We like to welcome your visit and participation any time. Yumi@cafe in Seoul *Toshi's monthly note (May) ----------------------------------- Pangaea children have started using software called 'Viscuit' from Last month. Viscuit enables you to create a digital animation book very easily. Supported by the Viscuit's developer Dr. Yasunori Harada, we have started developing some multimedia activities with Viscuit. Dr. Harada is a researcher at NTT Communication Science Laboratories in Japan and he is also one of the project managers at IPA Exploratory Software project which I've got funded from. Though Viscuit is high-quality as it is, he has been working very hard on upgrade it to make it more usable and use-friendly. As NPO Pangaea is R&D-based organization, our goal is not merely to let Pangaea children play Viscuit, but to contribute Viscuit's development. So, we have been elaborating how to provide easy-to-understand and effective tutorials, observing how children use, and getting comments about usability from actual children. These feedbacks from Pangaea activity will be reported to Dr. Harada. It is our pleasure to share these feedbacks with him and keep a good relationship which enables our win-win cycle of 'development', 'experiment', and 'evaluation.' By the way, I visited Shanghai Jiao Tong University in Shanghai, China at the end of May to give a talk at "The Second China-Japan Symposium on Exploratory Software." Because we share Kanji-character in both Chinese and Japanese, I sometimes made conversation by means of writing using Kanji. This experience taught me several great hints about the pictogram communication for Pangaea. From this month, I'll visit Korea time to time for the preparation of Korea-Japan Pangaea event in August. Also, I'll put Pangaea Music Activity into shape with Mr. Keiichi Suzuki, Japan-academy music awards winner, and Mr. Ryota Kuwakubo, 'device' artist. And a prototype of RFID tag system will be tested. Finally, I'm looking for Pangaea technical volunteers for this summer. If you're interested in helping out Pangaea R&D, please let me know and I'll get back to you with more detailed information. *What's up in Pangaea's Playground? (Activity report by Seiji) Activity report@Shibuya New series of Pangaea activity has begun. On the first activity day… How many children are coming? Anxious & excited feelings were mixed together in my mind. 14 children participated for one elementary school and 4 for another. 7 children participated for one junior high school and 5 for another. There are 8 participants at the children's house in Suginami. Starting with introduction of others then practiced new soft ware called Viscuit. These are the main activities in May. Some kids got caught up in Viscuit, however some adults got caught more than them. We felt happy to see their smiles. Some kids were tired of playing with Viscuit, so they moved to do "My favorite map" and drawings. Analog things are absolutely fun and important. We learned the importance of balance between digital and analog from them. We had a special guest, Don-chan (Mr. Don Lewis), well-known black American musician. He participated our activity at one of junior high schools in Shibuya. He joined to the kids with excited eyes from the beginning. He gave us a happy time with his friendly power even though he communicated to them with an interpreter. His power made us to get over language, nationality and age barrier. Eight new volunteers… Six from the volunteer meeting and two more. They continuously come & visit our activity, so they've already fit in. Anybody who haven't tried Pangaea activity, come & visit us! Let's enjoy our activity together! We have a new activity called "Pangaea Cards" from next month. All the kids engage in all activities for the event in August. The activity schedule in June is 4(Sat), 12(Sun), 18(Sat) and 25(Sat). If you're interested in, please contact us! nonbiri@pangaean.org Seji ****************************************************** Please check for details at Pangaea homepage. Non Profit Organization PANGAEA: http://www.pangaean.org/ For inquiries, E-mail: info*pangaean.org (Please change "*" to "@".) [Registration/Termination of Subscription] This e-newsletter is delivered to *Registered Pangaea activity supporting members *Pangaea advisors *Pangaea fellows *Registered Pangaea volunteer staff *Anyone who supports Pangaea activity and has contacted to Pangaea President Ms. Mori/Vice-President Mr. Takasaki If you wish to change your e-mail address or to terminate, please contact us from the following site: http://www.pangaean.org/common/english/newsletter/change.html ****************************************************** Non Profit Organization PANGAEA TS building 4F, 2-14-3 Uchikanda, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo 101-0047, Japan TEL: +81-3-5298-1551 / FAX: +81-3-5298-1552 E-mail: info*pangaean.org (Please change "*" to "@".) Copyright (c) 2003-2004 NPO PANGAEA. All Rights Reserved. ****************************************************** |