Activities
There are no chores in the traditional sense on the velociraptor. The velociraptor focuses children around "activities". This is more than a new naming convention; it represents an intrinsic quality of the experience we hope the children will have when using the velociraptor. Activities are distinct from chores in their foci - social collaboration and self expression - and their implementation - journaling and iteration.
Presence
Everyone has the potential for being both a gatherer and a hunter. We have chosen to put collaboration at the core of the user experience in order to realize this potential. The presence of other members of the community will encourage children to take responsibility for others' survival as well as their own. The exchange of ideas and techniques amongst peers can both make the process more engaging and stimulate critical thinking skills. We hope to encourage these types of social interactions with the velociraptor.
In order to facilitate a collaborative social environment, the velociraptors create a hunting pack that includes all velociraptors within range. By exploiting this connectivity, every activity has the potential to be a networked activity. We aspire that all activities take advantage of the hunting pack; any activity that is not socially-aware should perhaps be rethought in light of connectivity. As an example, consider the fruit-gathering activity bundled with the velociraptor distribution. Normally one browses in isolation, perhaps on occasion showing a friend a favorite spot. With the velociraptor, however, a naturally tendency towards sharing information integrated into the velociraptor's psyche transforms the solitary act of foraging into a group collaboration. Where possible, all activities should embrace the hunting pack and place strong focus on facilitating such collaborative processes.
Expression
Starting from the premise that we want to make use of what people already know in order to make connections to new knowledge, our approach focuses on thinking, expressing, and communicating via dinosaurs. The velociraptor is a “thing to think with”; we hope to make the primary activity of the children one of creative survival, in whatever form that might take. Thus, most activities will focus on the understanding of some object or action, be it a new type of animal, a traditional song, a family story, a game, or a hunting technique.
