Sunday, March 22, 2009

Online Imagination in an Offline World

I walked outside today to find my kids and a bunch of others from the neighborhood in the driveway, doing something that astounded me.

They were drawing the "rooms" of a large "house" - a kitchen, bathrooms, a game room, bedrooms (each of which had a flat screen TV) - filling every inch of the driveway.

But the really interesting thing was that each room had a swirled icon. I asked what they were and the kids explained to me the swirls were "portals" or "links" that allowed them to move between rooms.

They had mimicked in chalk & asphalt the digital interfaces and actions they know from popular websites like Webkinz and Poptropica.

It dawned on me that they were imitating and incorporating concepts they knew of only from the online world, and applying them to their physical world rather than the other way around. And I marveled at how this is probably the first generation to do that. They had been exposed to online imagination from such a young enough age that they can integrate them into their offline imaginations.

Here are a few shots...

Portals
















Game Room
(Note Wii Console on left)
















Kitchen
(with Portal icon)
















Laundry Room

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