Links/Resources:

• SLURL for Conference Centre Information Desk
• Symposium Program
• My Flickr Set of Screen Shots
• My YouTube Playlist of Screen Casts (NB: I won’t be making as many of these as I did during the last symposium because the NMC will be releasing recordings of every session.)
• Chatbridge (text chat into SL) (NMC login required)

YouTube Playlist of Screencasts

Press play to view all clips sequentially. Press left and right arrows to navigate to clips before or after the one currently displayed in the player or click a thumbnail at the bottom of the player to go directly to a clip (note you must press play in the player before this option will be available).

Additional options for fullscreen and high quality viewing are available in the toolbar at the bottom of the player.

Flickr set of Screen Shots

Press play to view all images sequentially or click on a thumbnail to go directly to an image (to bring up this option hover over the bottom of the player while the images are streaming). Click left and right arrows to move forward and backward in the queue. You can also view the images full screen.

This post will act as my notebook for points, thoughts and observations annotated during the course of the sessions. As such it will be the equivalent of a live blog – at least initially. If time permits I’ll go back and clean things up a bit.

Unfortunately the “few minutes” of extra dozing I intended to do this morning turned into two hours worth of oversleeping. So I missed the first two sessions. Fortunately the NMC is recording screen casts of everything, which will be released shortly after the symposium ends.

Day One

Welcome to the Symposium

Presenter: Larry Johnson, The New Media Consortium

Recording:

http://media.nmc.org/2009/03/welcome.mov

SESSION ONE: Digital Transformations and Conversions in Art: Web 2.0 and Beyond

Presenter: Nettrice Gaskins, Massachusetts College of Art and Design; Lori Landay, Berklee College of Music
Session Description: http://www.nmc.org/2009-nml-symposium/gaskins-keynote

Recording:

http://media.nmc.org/2009/03/gaskins-keynote.mov

SESSION TWO: Evaluating a Game Simulation Kit in Second Life

Presenter: Cynthia Calongne, Colorado Technical University
Session Description: http://www.nmc.org/conference-session-proposal/evaluating-game-simulation-kit-second-life

Recording:

http://media.nmc.org/2009/03/calongne.mov

SESSION THREE: BRIDGING VIRTUAL WORLDS: Approaches to Hybrid-Reality with Second Life

Presenter: John Fillwalk, Ball State University
Session Description/resources: http://www.nmc.org/conference-session-proposal/bridging-virtual-worlds-approaches-hybrid-reality-second-life

Recording:

http://media.nmc.org/2009/03/fillwalk.mov

Breaking the fourth wall opens up a whole new extension. When you experience a live event that’s bridged it has a whole different impact.

SL supports many different forms of media interaction – Streaming Technology, web textures (pull in HTML); add web servers; physical computing side

Media / Video and Sound

Can be public/shared experience or private – streamed to HUD or in world.

Voice has potential – localized sound. Pull sound in and out of envrionment. Avatar can be a conduit. Typically is PRIM based, but they are exploring ways around that.

Sound from environment can be taken externally and used as trigger.

Hand-on Learning – Machinema and Cinematography; studio & lab environments – activities that don’t lend themselves to a 2D environment. Found a way to pull in multiple media textures into a SIM (non-parcelled Media screen) and it stays in sync.

HTTP Requests – e.g. the Web. Connecting calls to pull and push to and from web; get interesting information to move to and from.

Potential to connect to Web servers to collate some of the information

Looking at how Web 2.0 / app fits into all of this – thinking of Virtual World as Hub or Portal

THE AESTHETIC CAMERA

Aim - made as seamless a connection as possible between BB and SL (open source project; will be shared shortly). Tied to Aesthetic Camera project, but also more general and broader. Philosophy – should be meta building block. Developer community can add to what BB do.

Let BB do what it’s good aand SL do what it’s good and and let handoff occur between the two in a fairly transparent way.

Goals –
– Authentication: paring of Student name and Avatar name.
– Sensor based on Group Facility Administration
– Public chat capture and archive – chat in SL, have results posted in BB (need to confirm this?)

Web Texturing
– housed external to SL
– aim to make touch-base web environment; currently fairly static

External Web Server
– PHP, Ruby Rails – sits in the middle and prepares info to move back and forth

Examples

Virtual Museum of Art
– 11,000 piece collection – 1/10th of the way through it.
– Wanted to connect to this collection through virtual environment
– [Video] DIDO – Digital Imagery Delivered Online – is Google Searcheable. Video example, avatar is browsing through the research of the Google Search. Need to paginate, currently only scroll through a single row of search results.

Web server looks at aspect ratio and resizes final output PRIM to match. Thumbnails are all square though, but when pointing to original image it knows the proper aspect ratio.

Interface ideas/artistic ideas –

[Video] Flickr Getter – avatar can click and enter a search query. Web server looks to flickr based on search parameter – goes to flickr and looks through public forums/images. Prims are resized appropriately when they are returned. Intended to be aesthetic experience but has a lot of potential for a navigation portal. Site located 2 sims west of here:

http://s3.amazonaws.com/jfillwalk/FlickrStreaming.mov

When each prim rezzes it plays a sound.

[at this point got kicked out of SL temporarily]

Working on arrangement with RL city whereby avatars in SL could pull a rope and have it ring a real bell in the city.

QUESTIONS:

Where did the bridge initiative come from?
Funded via Blackboard’s, Inaugural Greenhouse Grant for Virtual Worlds.

Once released to BB, they will be subjecting it to testing and then releasing it to the community.

How many people working on the project?

On the art side, just Jessie and Me.

On the development side – approx. 5 people.

What functionality would you add to SL if given the chance?

More support for media and use of external Web Servers. [there was more but I missed it]

SESSION FOUR: Mashup Video Projects for Classroom Creativity

Presenter: Anu Vedantham, University of Pennsylvania; Peter Decherney, University of Pennsylvania
Session Description/Resources: http://www.nmc.org/conference-session-proposal/mashup-video-projects-classroom-creativity

Recording:

http://media.nmc.org/2009/03/mashups.mov

Topic: How student-created mashups can support learning.

Legislative issues with regards to copyright issues and mashups
Venues
– Information commons
– media lab

Freshman creative writing course
Why bother?

New media builds collaboration and team skills; opportunities for multiple intelligence and problem based learning; students can reinterpret and produce content rather than just consume it.

Usage Metaphors

- combination of audio/video can produce very unique emotion/mood relative to the same components included separately

Mashups of two different films can provide commentary on issues or topics

Faculty use projects based on what they’re looking for in their class.
e.g. Prof taught class from Pocahontas to Mankiller. Read literature and then analyse Disney’s Pocahontas. Engage wit hfaculty regarding issues they have – include assessment (determine good mashup from bad), learning curve, reluctance to spend class time on training.

Use of media lab enables them to circumvent these issues. Some Instructors don’t know how to produce mashups, but still include the as activities in the course.

[Mashup] Racism and Disney – on YouTube at http://tinyurl.com/cj8249

That clip has been viewed 285,000 times. Many comments were angry; questioned selection of clips.

[Mash-up] “No wait out of the field of dreams” – Compare 2 films using theory of anthropology. one selected by instructor the other of a student.

Location: http://media.nmc.org/2009/03/allisonseelig.mov

[Away from computer for a few minutes]

First rules outlawing copy controls released 1991. [need to confirm]

DMCA
– safety valve – if fair use harmed, congress can pass exemption. Only 3 exemptions in 2003. 2006 exemption request for education.
– DMCA only allows exemptions for classes of works (e.g. all DVDs). proposed exemptions from Media Study Libraries

Time Warner wanted permission culture where permission must be sought for every instance

Motion picture association argued “education doesn’t need digital materials; analogue is sufficient

Exemption was granted in 2006. Copyright Office adopted new interpretation based on use (teaching). Brought process more in line with fair use.

Now there are indications DRM is starting to fail in the marketplace

In middle of 2009 rule-making. Seeking to have exemptions applied to all university media and for student’s remixing academic work.

Local Digital Commons program – teaches students to make digital work.

EFF has applied for exemptions for remixes. This process has existed for decades, but media sharing sites has resulted in this trend exploding. IN the wake of this, Hollywood once again pushing for a permission culture. Hearings to take place first week of May 2009 – with decision delivered in the fall

QUESTIONS:

How many prosecutions have there been in education?

None. Most are processed by local staff (gatekeepers) e.g. IT staff, Librarians. Illegal to bypass copy encryption unless permission is given. If already decrypted, you can make a copy. Making of the copy itself is legal; breaking the encryption is not.

Only media professors currently qualify for the exemption.

Local Commons project uses iMovie

Visit Center for Social Media Website. Look at statement of fair use:
http://www.centerforsocialmedia.org/files/pdf/Media_literacy_txt.pdf

Also see Society for Cinema and Media Studies – http://cmstudies.org

Would using the clips in a proprietary course space be covered under the Teach Act or the Digitla Media Act?

Not sure. Recommend you see the acts themselves.

What did student think of comments on Racism in Disney clip?

This clip obviously hit a nerve with people.

SESSION FIVE – Imagination Engine: Rapid Media Visualization and Storyboard Creation Process

Presenter: Joe Tojek, Capella University
Session Description: http://www.nmc.org/conference-session-proposal/imagination-engine-rapid-media-visualization-and-storyboard-creation-pro

Recording:

http://media.nmc.org/2009/03/tojek.mov

What types of Virtual Experiences do we want to be having in 2019?

SecondLife machinema offers numerous opportunities to develop professional & educational content, hi-fi media, but there’s more than that. Important to use the tools you used to create the product to help achieve your creative objectives.

[NB: Due to technical issues I unfortunately missed most of this session.]

SESSION SIX: Digital Media Tools for Replacing Traditional Methods of Instruction

Presenter: Anthony Armstrong, Del Mar Middle School
Session Description: http://www.nmc.org/conference-session-proposal/digital-media-tools-replacing-traditional-methods-instruction

Recording:

http://media.nmc.org/2009/03/armstrong.mov

8th grade History teacher. Will demonstrate how tools can be used to conduct global collaboration.

Secondlife still relatively underused in primary and secondary school levels. Uptake of other technologies slowly increasing.

Traditionally spent a lot of time preparing for the lectures, realised that he was doing most of the work in the learning process – students would attend lectures and then leave without having invested much energy in the process.

New media tools enable students to approach learning as historians do, as opposed to just sitting in rows and consuming information.

2009 Horizon Report highlights many of these tools. Need to ensure the tools support learning in some form, rather than existing for their own sake.

Found wiki worked the best for his courses. Enables him to take all the resources he use to go through prior to lecture – but were never seen by students – and make them available to everyone as resources that can be investigated anytime, from any where.

Created pages called “Immersions” covering what they needed to know for the week. Developed to minimise information overload. What’s different is you interact with the content in a different way to a textbook. Can explore and interact with data far more and develop their own interpretations – media/video in particular (such as schoolhouse rocks). Found students would have competitions to see who knew the most words from the songs.

Schoolhouse Rock Playlist on YouTube

www.hippocampus.org – learning modules

Also here: http://media.nmc.org/2009/03/armstrong-hippocampus.mov

Students have to hunt and gather for information on their own. This is the biggest thing the students had to learn to find the info and then interpret it and determine its accuracy – especially when they located conflicting sources of information on the same topic.

Discussion tab enabled students to share, discuss and explore hypotheses. Learn how to write for online academic purposes with intelligent language and not just the shorthand abbreviations you see on IM, Twitter, Facebook or MySpace.

Found that interaction continued after school into the evening – students defending their positions and arguments.

Question of a teacher’s role is now being re-negotiated. This is reflected physically in the orientation of the seating, and the activities the students engage in.

30-second blowhard – each student explains what he learned the previous night. No other students are allowed to talk then; just look at the person speaking eye-to-eye.

This is followed by a 15-second response in which another student repeats what the first student said, and then follows on by debating their points. If they disagree they say why, what they’re perspective is, and why they say that.

Totally Disagrees with criticism that technology negatively affects social skills. His students are developing debate skills in which they speak their position while doing it in a civil way.

‘Community of Learning and Thinking’ – his position is on the side as a facilitator, the students are the ones doing the actual speaking, teaching and learning.

He’ll present the main idea and then open the floor. Students situated in a circle facing each other. Says students are nervous at first, so he needs to Unschool the students and help them feel comfortable speaking. Then when they’re done speaking, to recognise the importance of letting others have the same opportunity.

Will also have face-to-face 30-second blowhards with two students in the middle of the circle of other students.

Once they have established their views and opinions, the next important step is to help them express and articulate it. Students work collaboratively in groups to develop a script covering the subject that will be used to produce a podcast that is circulated to the rest of the class.

Use Google Docs to collaboratively produce a Podcast

http://media.nmc.org/2009/03/armstrong-sung-mo-google-doc.mov

War of 1812 - Create a wiki page covering the origins of the War of 1812, and do a better job than the textbook. All he did was indicate what the assignment was and then “get out of the way.”

An example of the result
http://media.nmc.org/2009/03/armstrong-wynham-g.mov

Lectures are shared via SlideShare for later viewing. Certain wiki pages are also open to student editing, so they become responsible of documenting the lectures. Instructor can then observe the process.

QUESTIONS?

How do you handle FERPA issues such as unintentionally driving the learner to disclose their status as a student on these 3rd party sites?

Spend a lot of time talking about this before students ever go online. First name, last initial only. So students are prepared to interact online in a safe way.

Your students must have been shocked when you used this approach! What have you heard from parents?

Parents love it. One person has commented “isn’t it unfair that not all classrooms have these opportunities.” His response is “don’t you want students to be able to compete in the global economy?” All resources he uses are free.