Reading College at The Museum of English Rural Life

Sensory Objects and their co-researchers, students from Reading College LLD/D dept developed an Interactive Sensory Cow for The Museum of English Rural Life MERL. The idea of the cow is to be used during workshops to explore cows in alternative ways. The cow was commissioned by the Reading Arts Committee … Continue reading →

Over the last few months Sensory Objects and their co-researchers, students from Reading College LLD/D dept developed an Interactive Sensory Cow for The Museum of English Rural Life MERL. The idea of the cow is to be used during workshops to explore cows in alternative ways. The cow was commissioned by … Continue reading →

We have been given a small grant by the University of Reading Arts Committee to create one of our ideas of an interactive farm animal generated by our work with Reading College Learners with learning difficulties and disabilities dept at MERL in 2014. The proposal builds on Sensory Objects research … Continue reading →

Nic and Faustina took some of our Sensory Objects to display at Digital Dimensions: the University Museums Group Digital Technology Showcase in Bristol. We were given the “dressing room” of the Warwick Theatre to display everything. We put Rumena’s chicken in the hallway so that as people walked past it … Continue reading →

Our seminar was excellent and we want to say a big Thank You! to all who took part you were brilliant. Below shows the events of the day in our easy read programme Miranda Fox from Reading Mencap Coffee Club began the day with an intro to the project with … Continue reading →

On Monday June 9th we held our event Buckets, Baskets and Boots at MERL, it was very successful everyone enjoyed the chance to meet our co-researchers find out what they had been researching and try their sensory objects. The picture below shows Rachel and Sian helping to demonstrate Guillermo’s bucket, … Continue reading →

We had busy day at Reading College, Gosia and Ajay from the Rix Centre showed our Co-researchers videos compiled from their favourite photos chosen at the last session, the pictures are set to a piece of their favourite music. The video below shows clips of the group watching their videos. … Continue reading →

During our session we continued to test and finish our sensory objects.The video below shows Rachel testing her Pink Pig in a Bucket. Robyn helped our Co-researchers create different smoothie recipes and we all taste tested them, some of them used herbs planted and grown in boots by our Co-researchers. At … Continue reading →

Today’s workshop was primarily a reflective session, looking back on what has been accomplished in the previous workshops. At the beginning of the workshop, before the group arrived, the tables were filled with buckets, boots and baskets to show some of the work that had been created to date: Some … Continue reading →

We are going to have talks and demonstrations about the project on Tuesday 10th of June  the Seminar is part of Universities Week Below is a flyer in easy read version and with more text about the Seminar. Please send an email to k.allen@reading.ac.uk if you would like to attend the … Continue reading →

We are working towards two events in June part of Universities Week on Monday 9th our Co-researchers from Reading College LLD/D dept will present our research in the Museum of English Rural Life (MERL). Below is the poster for the event, hope you can come!

The main focus of our workshop was for our co-researchers to try out some of the Sensory Objects in development. Sian’s mooing boot was first, the group enjoyed stroking it, sometimes if fell over which surprised people, but the boot has been rebuilt by Nic with it’s electronics inside, to be pretty … Continue reading →

Reading Mencap Coffee Club came to MERL to help us with our research. We focussed on the sense of smells to begin, Kassie organised 6 bags with smells inside and asked the group to find something in the museum that linked to the smells in the bags. Kassie had placed … Continue reading →

At our session at MERL we took photos of our group with our International Design for All  Foundation Award and celebrated by making a chocolate cake organised by Robyn. Our Co-Researchers helped Robyn make a cake and prepare our lunch they were given the opportunity to try on some mop … Continue reading →

Andy and Ajay from the Rix Centre led a Multi Media Advocacy Session with our Co-Researchers at Reading College. They did some further work with students on their wikis, the idea was to see how we might be able to join up some of the work we have done about MERL with … Continue reading →

This evening Nic was in Paris for the International Design for All Foundation Award and our project Sensory Objects won an International Design for All Foundation Award. The award was given for our research Making Electronics Accessible to People with Learning Disabilities we told them all about the research we are all … Continue reading →

We met up for the first time this year at MERL we started our workshop by reviewing the objects we made last term, and what needed still to be done ready for our exhibition on June 9th 2014. Nic had added a sensor to Lukes bucket the idea was based … Continue reading →

The Sensory Objects Project features in the latest MERL Whats On Guide The picture above shows a page of the MERL newsletter featuring our Co-Researcher from Reading College Sian showing her Old Mac Donald’s wellie boot. The article tells about our SHOWCASE EVENT to be held at MERL on June … Continue reading →

Making Electronics Accessible to People with Learning Disabilities Category: Project proposals, initiatives, methodologies and studies has been selected as a Good Practice in the International Design for All Foundation Awards 2014

We have been asking our Co-Researchers to experience MERL, The Museum of English Rural Life, using their 5 senses. We aim to share these sensory experiences with the public by adding sensory information through artwork made during workshops this term. We have been making and collecting sounds, often inspired by the groups … Continue reading →

In workshop nine we first first reviewed the activities from the previous workshop, and on the tables we arranged the artefacts that the co-researchers had created: paintings and drawings on canvas to be attached in some way to either a bucket, boot or basket, the papier mache covered balloons which … Continue reading →

Our Co-Researchers became farm animals, we asked them to find places in the museum they would like to see or hear animals. The pictures below show Guillermo, Skye and Rachel getting ready and the whole group in the museum. There are lots of machines in the museum, there are some … Continue reading →

We held a session at Reading College using Talking Mats which is a way of finding out what our Co-researchers had experienced using their sense to discover MERL. The session was led by Gosia from the Rix Centre. The mat has images of the five senses and objects from the MERL collection. … Continue reading →

In the workshop today we concentrated on the sense of SMELL and SOUNDS. In the morning we asked the group to use their sense of smell. We asked the group if they could point to the part of the body we use for our sense of smell. The picture below … Continue reading →

Our fifth workshop at Reading College was spread over two days the morning of Friday 8th and Monday 11th. On the Friday Gosia came and showed our Co-Researchers how to create their individual webpages unlike the group webpage which you can see here the individual webpages are private for each … Continue reading →

We focused this workshop on the sense of TOUCH in the morning, we had seven bags each with a collection of materials inside. We asked the Co-Researchers to feel inside the bags first and try to describe how the materials felt, some of the words the group used were rough, … Continue reading →

Our Co-Researchers from Reading College met at MERL for their 3rd workshop. MERL had just held its Apple Day celebration on Sat and we were given some apples to taste, they were very delicious. The picture below shows us tasting various types of English Apples. We were joined by John from … Continue reading →

Today we met at Reading College to develop Klikin websites with our Co-Researchers exploring our senses and how we used our senses to experience our visit to the Museum of English Rural Life MERL. You can see the Klikin Group Page HERE The picture below shows drawings by Andy reminding … Continue reading →

We had our first sensory workshop with our new project Co-Researchers from Reading College. Students from the LLD/D (Learners with Learning Difficulties and/or Disabilities) department visited MERL Museum of English Rural Life for the workshop session. From left to right they are Sian,  Guillermo, Rachel, Rachel, Skye, Luke and Rumena (who is … Continue reading →

This video documents our discussion after our pilot workshop at MERL with Reading Mencap organised by our UROP student Kassie. We wanted to find out what the group enjoyed, did they like using the sound box?, what other sounds would they like to hear?, would they like to leave their … Continue reading →

Today we held our first pilot workshop at MERL Museum of English Rural Life, in Reading. We were joined by Co-Researchers from Mencap Reading, many thanks to Miranda, Stacy, Charley, Caroline, support worker Alle and Stuart from MERL who gave us the tour. Also thanks to Kassie our project UROP … Continue reading →