The Initial DIL Project

The DIL-project is concerned with Design of Interactive Learning tools - with computer support. My first contact with the project occurred in November 1995, when Yngve Sundblad invited me to a meeting (13/11) at The Royal College of Music (KMH). There I met Kenneth Olusson and Bjarne Nyqvist from KMH, Bosse Westerlund from Konstfack, Peter Becker from KTH and Jorge de Sousa Pires from Apple. We had a general discussion on the nature of the project, and I 'introduced myself' and talked a bit about my background and interests within this field - such as the pattern generating program MacWallpaper and my educational project in First Class Mathematics. Then Kenneth and Bjarne presented a few of the multi-media based projects that were going on at KMH, and - as an external source of inspiration - we had a look at a CD-rom produced by Laurie Anderson.

At this time, the discussion that was going on within the DIL project was centered around the possibilities of using Jorge's hypercard-based Electronics Handbook as a starting point to test and develop different multi-medial forms of 'pedagogical reinforcements'. I remember Jorge talking enthusiastically about the great possibilities of such 'thinking tools' - which was the term he used repeatedly. At our next meeting (in December) we chose an entry from the Electronics Handbook at random. It happend to be 'modem', and - as a form of home assignment until next time - we decided to think about various multi-medially supported descriptions of the concept of 'modem'.