Case Study

The Art Institute of Tampa

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On September 28th 2005, The Art Institute of Tampa, one of the newest advertising, design and animation educators in the Art Institutes system of 32 post-secondary schools, began a trial of Curio in their 30-station Macintosh G5 computer lab.

"We're excited about the possibilities of using Curio as a creative teaching tool in the classroom," said Ryan Lowe, Interactive Media Design faculty member.

Curio in the classroom

"Planning and organization skills are not natural to some students and Curio helps solve that development gap," said Lowe. "Plus it's intuitive, so students who struggle with learning new software can learn a lot in just a day. It doesn't matter if you've used computers before, you can sit down and use Curio — you just need to know how to drag and drop items."

As chair of The Art Institute of Tampa's Faculty Technology Committee, Lowe leads a team of faculty members who review software, hardware, and new technologies for the school and make recommendations for future purchases.

"Curio was brought to my attention when I noticed that one of my students in a Digital Visual Composition class was able to clearly develop his narrative project and storyboarding project to create quality work," said Lowe. "When I asked him how he organized his ideas, he said he had used Curio, which enabled him to focus in on his idea development. So I had to check it out for myself."

Made for brainstorming

With features such as Sleuth and Dossier, users can brainstorm and build their creative ideas the way they think – with ideas and information rushing in, the user can place images, text and sound clips anywhere on the page, while keeping the goals at the forefront of a project.

Built-in sketching tools enhance the interactive process, which can also be used with presure-sensitive graphic tablets. Chalk boards and flip chart pads are passé – bring a laptop and project Curio on an interactive white board for large group brainstorming sessions.

With its intuitive freeform environment, and built-in Sleuth and Dossier assistants, Curio helps students keep their focus on their creative project, so they can realize the true potential of their ideas.

"The keys to design projects are research and idea management," said Lowe. "If our students using Curio can build a concise Dossier and submit their ideas to a team of designers in a cohesive presentation, then there is definitely value in investing in this software. We want to get them used to using idea management tools now, so that when they're working on senior projects, they will have developed the ability to focus and hone their creative ideas. This will give them an advantage when they enter the creative design job market."

Rollout

Students at The Art Institute of Tampa are enthusiastic about Curio and its application to classroom projects. "I've been using Curio since it was introduced to us," said Anniryn Armstrong, interactive media design student. "Even when it wasn't assigned, I've used it on all my projects. I like that Curio can be used as a total brainstorming resource because you write down everything instead of keeping it in your head."

Lowe assigned Curio to be used in his Introduction to Authoring class for the initial planning and research of projects, and the diagramming of the overall structure of how CDs would be developed to work on both PC and Mac platforms. For instance, when students map out a development structure, typically rectangles represent instances whereas diamonds would signify a question (the user making a decision, like "yes" or "no").

"Planning tools are built into other programs, like Dreamweaver, but Curio helps design the schematic," explained Lowe. "This could be used for any interactive media design course to develop a mapping structure, or flow chart the variables. Some practical applications would be e-commerce and shopping carts." Added Armstrong, "Curio is a good layout tool for project briefs and I love it for flow charts. I can move things around and it links them."

Results

In the end, Curio passed the test with flying colors. Originally planning to use the software on a three-month trial basis in its interactive media design courses, the college chose to purchase Curio after just one month of use.

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