The Thinking Company
Speciality Sectors
Over the years, we have worked in multiple sectors. But the three sectors that we have done multiple projects in are (i) education sector, (ii) capacity building and Training, and (iii) media productions.
In the education & Capacity building sectors, we have done several consulting projects, in addition to multiple content creation projects, where we have used our knowledge and expertise in media production to produce effective, efficient and impactful content.
Education
We designed and implemented projects that were rolled out country wide, as in the eMath & eScience, and we designed and implemented smaller specialized projects like "Think First", for kids to learn head and spinal chord injury prevention, "Violence Against Children", to help children understand and deal with violence against them. In the past 10 years, we have been concentrating our efforts on projects where the message or concepts are more intricate and difficult, or might carry emotional and psychological weight. The "Violence Against Children" is a typical example. Please see below, and the Portfolio sections for details and case studies.
Strategy & Pedagogy
Pedagogy is to the study of teaching and learning, and the methods and strategies that educators use to facilitate learning in students. It encompasses all aspects of the teaching process, including the design of educational materials, the organization of classroom environments, the selection of instructional techniques and approaches, and the assessment and evaluation of learning outcomes.
We will help you draft the best (optimal, best fit) pedagogy for your teaching needs, and then help you create the content that fits this pedagogy.
Key elements of pedagogy include understanding the needs and characteristics of learners, setting clear learning objectives, using a variety of instructional methods and techniques to address diverse learning styles, providing opportunities for active and collaborative learning, and using feedback and assessment to monitor and improve learning outcomes.
The Thinking Company can help your organization design the optimal pedagogy and teaching strategy to fit your needs, your learners and your situation.
Content Creations
We bring a wealth of knowledge, experience, and expertise to the creation process. We are able to communicate and present complex ideas and concepts in a way that is accessible and engaging for learners.
Tailor fit content: Additionally, we help you identify the most important and relevant information, and present it in a clear and organized way that helps learners to understand and retain the information.
Methods: We can identify new and innovative approaches to teaching and learning. We draw on our experience working with learners in different contexts, and tailor your content to meet the needs of diverse learners with different backgrounds, interests, and learning styles.
We create high-quality, engaging, and effective learning materials that support learners in achieving their educational goals.
Deployement & Monitoring
Depending on what kind of content you have, and where your audience/customers are, we can deploy and monitor the content just about anywhere on earth, from remote villages to corporate offices to on-demand.
Moreover, by monitoring and analyzing content performance, we can optimize learning outcomes and help you achieve your training and development goals.
Gamification & Simulation
Gamification and simulation in educational content can increase student engagement and motivation by making learning more fun and interactive. These techniques often create a safe and low-risk environment for learners to experiment with new skills and concepts, helping them to build confidence and mastery. Further, gamification or simulation can provide immediate feedback and rewards for learners, which can be more effective in promoting learning and behavior change than traditional teaching methods. These techniques can also help learners to transfer their knowledge and skills to real-world settings, as they learn to apply what they have learned in a simulated environment to real-life situations.
Additionally, gamification and simulation can cater to individual learner needs and preferences, helping them to achieve their educational goals more effectively.
We can gamify or create simulation for just about any content. Again, the pedagogy and strategy are key in determining how we accomplish that.
Data Science in Education
Data science can help identify patterns and insights in educational data, providing teachers and administrators with valuable information for improving teaching and learning outcomes.
By using predictive analytics, data science can help identify students who may be at risk of falling behind or dropping out, allowing educators to intervene early and provide targeted support.
Data science can also be used to personalize learning experiences, by tailoring content and instructional approaches to the individual needs and preferences of learners.
Finally, data science can help identify areas of inefficiency and waste in educational systems, allowing educators to optimize resource allocation and improve overall system performance.
The Thinking Company can help your organization design data science strategy, approach and implementation to increase your educational efficiency and reduce administrative cost and eliminate waste.
About the images: I went looking for AI in education images, and, well, there isn't any, because it is new and still nobody really using it, much less having pictures. . And not liking clipart and photo banks, I decided to create my own "AI in education" images using AI!. These images were created using Leonardo.ai. I will write a blog about it, but this demonstrates that power: in less than an hour I generated about 20 images. It took an hour because I was enjoying playing with the parameters.
AI in Education
AI use in education is just starting! Here are some of the potentials:
AI can help personalize learning experiences for students by tailoring content, assessments, and feedback to their individual needs and preferences.
With natural language processing, AI can support language learning by providing students with conversational practice and feedback in real-time.
AI-powered chatbots and virtual assistants can provide 24/7 support for students, answering questions and providing guidance on course materials and assignments.
Through machine learning, AI can analyze vast amounts of educational data to identify patterns and insights, providing teachers and administrators with valuable information for improving teaching and learning outcomes.
AI can help bridge the digital divide by providing access to educational resources and opportunities for underserved populations, regardless of their location or socioeconomic status.
We can help you choose & implement the right AI strategy and tools.
Capacity Building & Training
Wether you are building your own in-house training material, or you want to license training material to fit your needs, we can help you.
We have extensive expertise in creating content based on agreed upon pedagogy and strategy, and we can help you deploy and manage this content (please see the Education section above).
Or we can help you in locating and licensing content that best suits your needs and your trainees.
We have training partners across diverse fields, such as workplace safety, cyber security, hospitality, supply chain and project management, just to name a few.
Examples of purposely built training/capacity building content
Media Production
We have extensive experience and expertise in multiple media production pipelines, including:
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Animation - both 2D (cell and cutout) and 3D
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VR & Augmented reality
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Video productions - documentary style
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Interactive media & interactive videos
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Multimedia
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Game design, gamification or simulation.
Often, the learning objectives & outcomes (or the walk-away knowledge) need to be wrapped in a story of some kind, and then produced in a media piece for easier 'delivery' to the learner. We have a sister company, Simo Media Solutions, that is totally dedicated to (i) storytelling - by either finding the stories, or else creating them, and (ii) managing the production aspect, from pre production, to production to post, including hiring or outsourcing any talent needed.
Below please find two examples of our media production capabilities:
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The First, Violence Against Children, is an education (or mind-set changing) product, and and is a good example on how we use media (animation in this case), pedagogy (here blended learning approach), and storytelling to craft the product.
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The second, The Pink Panther & Pals, is pure entertainment, and here the emphasis is on entertainment, aesthetics, and engagement. We would like point out the shear complexity, size and timeline constraints of this project. Nevertheless, with Dr. Ayoubi as executive producer, the project was delivered on-time and on-budget.
Violence Against Children
The Problem
As part of their effort to reduce or eliminate violence against children, UNICEF wanted an animation-based entertainment product that targets children ages 7-13 years, to help this group deal with violence against children. The product is intended for schools in Jordan, to be in Arabic language, and to address local culture.
The Challenge
The first problem we have faced since the start is in determining the nature of the product. Children are not the perpetrators of violence against themselves, so what can you tell children so they deal with violence? The UNICEF RFP did not specify what messages or behaviors were needed, but left that up to us.
There are several other challenges with such a project. The major ones are:
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What do you tell children about violence against children? After all, they are not the perpetrators of violence, they are also not policy makers. In fact, they are almost helpless in the face of violence against them.
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Even if we figured out what to tell them, how do you say something like that in an entertaining and non-preachy manner? How can we make a topic like this engaging for the children and at the same time help them deal with the problem?
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How can we make adults, especially parents and teachers, participate and have an active role in such a project?
Our Solution
We spent over three months doing both office and field research (with focus groups as well), on violence against children. This led us to a series of about 15 ‘behavioral changes’ that we wanted to imbed in the show to help children deal with violence against them.
We then structured the series’ logline.
Then we created 13 adventure-based story synopses, where in each episode several behavioral points related to an aspect of violence against children is addressed. We created a “Teacher’s Manual” to accompany the series, to help the teacher drive the discussion in the classroom, and a website to promote others to participate, blog, and discuss issues related to violence against children.
This type of educational problems is common:
An organization or NGO has some concepts or behavioral changes that they want to convey to certain target audiences. After thorough research, we can get these messages across to the target audiences using stories. We can find or create these stories, produce them, and distribute them within the target audience.
Pink Panther & Pals
The Pink Panther and Pals is a 78 episodes series about the young Pink Panther.
It was produced in partnership with MGM at Rubicon, when Dr. Ayoubi was a partner, VP and Head of Operations at Rubicon. Serving as the Executive Producer of the show, Dr. Ayoubi was responsible for all aspects of production, timeline (in adherence with delivery schedules), budget, legal, marketing, licensing and merchandising, and a variety of other issues related to the production or the IP.
Working on such a classic and beloved IP has its advantages and disadvantages. For a producer, the two biggest constraints are the timeline and the budget. Keeping production on track for 78 episodes, each episode requiring over 48 task-station, each station having 2 to 24 staff/artists/animators, requires a complex mechanism. Moreover, the production (as most productions do) had a very intricate web of dependencies. Nevertheless, the show was finished on time and on budget, and won several awards.
Pink Party of One - animatics vs final
The 2D cell pipeline
The important point here is that in order to meet the deadlines, Dr Ayoubi set up a conveyer belt production line spanning Manilla-Philippines, , Amman-Jordan and LA-California, with one studio handing the work to the next, continuously over the 24 hrs period.
Here the Rubicon Studio Manilla, where animators meet once a week in the studio with the director, he explains the shots and hands the shots to the various animators. The studio then digitizes, colors, in-betweens the poses & puts the shots together, and hand it over to the next team.
