Impact of Digital Media SHUCDT notes

from abstract: "The UC Berkeley Journalism and Architecture schools are using a video game to tell the story of Oakland's famed 7th Street jazz and blues club scene in the 1940s and 1950s, and its subsequent destruction by urban redevelopment. Learners will access the virtual world over the Internet, adopt avatar figures, walk up and down the street, enter clubs, listen to music of the era, interact with other online visitors and fight to save the clubs."
Game built using the Torque game engine http://www.garagegames.com/pg/product/view.php?id=1
Not sure how much of a game this is. It sounds like quite an accurate reconstration of the place where journalism students are charged with researching the history.
Players pawn possessions in order to play and continue playing - fairly realistic behaviour for the era they're trying to reconstruct. You have to bargain with the pawn shop owner.
Interprofessional exercise: architecture students and journalism students.

from abstract: "...The ability of computers to combine text, images, and sounds together into remixed messages from original material and cultural artifacts creates a new type of literacy. Remixed messages and Internet shorthand are forms of expression that are based on a visual or “gestalt” understanding of information."
Content creation is the killer app on the Internet she says. I know what she means - people have a new capacity, but this is a very simplistic, technology focussed perspective. I think the 'killer' word will fade very quickly as such apps are going to become very everyday and common place very quickly. She's talking about 'remix' or mashing of content. Now that is slightly more interesting for us, because it's related to post modernism and changing outlooks of what contemporary culture means.
The computer is a great equaliser and educators need to bridge the divide between generations and young people still need adult guides.
Some back chat (I've removed the names):
Q: Any thoughts on the sticky issue of IP, copyright?
: Q: Who owns the IP of a remix?
: there will be a radical change in our ideas of rights.
: Can I submit my homework as a remix?
: Youtube has started to make contracts w/ media companies
...
: Q: But more than copyright in the negative sense, what about the value and courtesy of providing attribution, e.g. a la creative commons?
: How do you define plagarism in the age of remix?
: Distributed data right management
: plagiarism is a slightly old school concept
: There is an electric moment when someone attributes your work
: maybe a new word?
: linktribution
: open source attribution - does that assume we all have the same value system?
: How can people learn to remix?
: isn't homework always a part of remixing? I think a better emphasis is on attribution
...
: linktribute... the more i look at it the more i like it

So if you hear people talking about linktribution... it was invented here.

Presenters from The Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Cleveland Museum of Art
From abstract: " "Steve" (www.steve.museum) is a research project on social tagging of museum collections. Project team members have learned firsthand about the usefulness of social tagging methods for eliciting user-contributed terms from cataloguers with specialist knowledge not usually available to museum professionals."
Example of what public searchers expect to find compared to museum record. No common terms.
Steve tool has been released as Open Source: http://sourceforge.net/projects/steve-museum/

From abstract: "As a substitute for [these] inaccessible publics, network publics like MySpace are emerging to provide contemporary American youth with a necessary site for peer engagement. While networked publics provide space for various critical forms of sociality, the architecture of the sites that support networked publics is fundamentally different than the physical architecture that we take for granted in unmediated life. Persistence, searchability, replicability, and invisible audiences are all properties that today's youth must face in their public expressions. "
If we're wondering about the student of the future this has to be a good starting point. The last sentence I've quoted from the abstract above suggests to me that the DI should avoid the temptation to use the phrase 'dumbing down' when thinking about the DN - actually I think we're looking at a highly sophisticated ability to draw upon networks.
Why Teens Love MySpace: 1997 social networking space called Six Degrees - MySpace (MyS) is not first. Historically MyS comes from a lineage of dating sites (Friendster). Bands used it to find (date!) their fans.
MyS emerged because it saw the band opportunity and the desire for groups of youth to network. Originally targetted at an older age range, but now MS sees 14 year olds as target.
MyS allows people to make friends who links to each other. They are making friends online with people who they know in real life. It's another place to 'hang out'.
The guestbook feature developed into a conversational space. Friend to friend communication in the witness of other people - likea public hug. This is meant to be overheard. A public statement of loyalty.
DB explains that this generation were the first generation who access to each other has been highly moderated/restricted by parents due to safety concerns. They have had to be resourceful therefore.
Here's some talk from the back chat:
Teacher: [pupils don't like it] ...they say it's cluttered and the interface isn't easy to work with
contributor1: I was at a lecture last night where Barry Wellman (another social network sociologist) asserted that most MySpace accounts were 'bogus' -- unmaintained experiments -- and that the stats therefore were 'meaningless'.
DB talks about:
Persistence - what you say hangs around
searchability
Replicability - copy and paste it out of context
Invisible audiences - 76 people listening to this, but who are you? "I can't see you" What sort of people are you. Therefore, how does this affect the way I communicate when I speak into the ether?
See: http://www.zephoria.org/thoughts/archives/2006/10/10/comscore_misint.html comScore misinterprets data: MySpace is *NOT* gray
Q&As
There's a problem that has emerged as the adult world has discovered MyS - MyS does not really work, or can be understood, when multiple generations are in there.
Adults are much more concerned about knowing where their children are than the privacy of their children.
A lot of back chat in relation to DOPA saying kids need a place to practice safely - this is important to us too. We need to note that DNs coming to our blended envorinoment may see online as being safe and different, as a place to practice and be intimate and to trust those around them in ways that us DNs may not understand. I may not be right.
Also note that DB's keynote was very US-centric.

Learning context: adoption of digital devices.
Are your learners ready? Are YOU ready?
Digi immigrants have to 'unlearn' - yes the shift is not just learning new approaches, it's about unlearning old approaches.
Ellen mentioned Everyware (http://www.studies-observations.com/everyware/) - looks good.

EW offers 8 simple rules for engaging learners:
1. Capture their attention
2. Convince them to care
3. Motivate them change
4. Give them choices
5. Connect them with community
6. Induce them to participate (they understandind the value of being part of the dialogue)
7. Enable opportunities to contribute (Online Educa keynote has emailed all delegates ahead of time to contribute to the keynote on Web 2.0)
8. Make it an experience to remember

Q: How to we make these rules real? Apply them in the digital domain?
A lot of talk about devices and gadgets and these rules. I'm not sure its a technology thing and technologies are changing too quickly for a tech focus to be useful. Best consider the rules without any specific technologies in mind.

Just waiting for the next session and we've been told that the previous sessions from Elluminate are already up

from abstract: Students with Internet access are caught between two conflicting paradigms for measuring credibility: the centralized structures of authority promoted by their teachers, and the ad hoc personal and electronic networks of their peers.

http://three.org/ippolito/writing/ippolito_in_net_we_trust@m.html

Do we need to reconsider plagiarism in the light of sharing cultures?
How do DN's validate evaluate sources? (FOAF?) He talks about trust metrics, recognition networks.
He demoes: http://reposte.org
This is great. Go to Re:poste and drag the bookmarklet to your Firefox tool bar. Then visit one of the posted links and click on the bookmark to see comments/critique. Now Web 1.0 has become Web 2.0 because we can write on people's websites.
He demoes: http://pool.newmedia.umaine.edu/art_pool.php
These two sites move away from the authorial model for information and critique.

Creation and destruction in games
Joline Blais (Univ Maine)

(see http://cordova.asap.un.maine.edu/~blaisj/creation)Playing God in games is actually adjusting parameters already set out by programmer.
Stories of virtual funerals, suicides, weddings etc in Simms.
"It's a dangerous idea that we can code reality in a game".
This session is useful to what we're thinking in CDT. I recommend revisiting it.
The Nature of Participatory Culture
[I'm recording this in Audacity]
Media becoming participatory rather than traditionalyl didactic as we know it.
She's demo-ing machina movies created using the Sims! Been there (nearly).
Dynamic knowledge creation (Users as producers) . Part of Read/Write Web
Red vs Blue site: Digital storytelling
Youth Gamers in Thailand: the crucial role of cybercafes
Aaron Delwiche Trinity University
Who are gamers? Compulsively fixated, solitary, male
Popular games? WoW, SL, Sims, MySpace, America's army, Everquest, Final Fantasy XI
Not v real looking games in Thailand. It's 2D.
To what extent are young gamers forming sub-cultural identifications and what are they actually doing?
Joshua Archer asked: Q: If girls can be virtual monks online in game why not in real life? Me: this reminds me of my recent blog posting about the blurring between real and virtual world in SL. There is a real blur beginning to happen. People acknowledged this point.

Links to check out from this session
http://minimediaguy.org/2006/04/participatory_media_or_intelle.php
http://rvb.roosterteeth.com/archive/
http://cordova.asap.um.maine.edu/~blaisj/creation/

Education is happening in non-traditional places and spaces and times.
Self-guided learners. Digi natives..
Make use of natural enthusiasm of the DNs. 'Participatory media education can draw them into positive early experiences with citizenship that could influence their civic behaviour throughout their lives' [abstract]
((Photo PowerPoints work much better))
((Voting taking place on DOPA using buttons))
There's a lot of back chat about how can teachers/parents keep up? Tech is moving so fast. But how do the digi natives keep up? I think: They don't stop to learn - they just do (and maybe learn by doing). But they are much more pragmatic than older gens who feel the need to stop to learn and digest.
Is there a general lesson for education if I'm right?
Discussion about the importance in learning of the back channel. We're saying very important in the chat. Multi-tasking but very conversational learning activity.
((I'm making notes, contributing to the chat and listening to Howard - I'm becoming a DN by doing).
A question: Can technologies help to develop civil participation in countries where free speech is not the norm?

Ulises A. Mejias
Title of session stems from Frank Capra film Mr Smith Goes to Washington. The session is about the influence that technology has on behaviour. Who or what controls who or what?

Theories of agency:
Realism: technological determinism. Technology shapes society. Prescribes behaviour. Agency can be attributed to technology therefore.
Social constructivism: agency cannot just be attributed to artefacts however it is designed. We use and decide how to understand technologies as suits our needs. We are in control therefore.
Hybrid constructivism: actor network theory. Technology agency emerges through human interaction(?) One affects the other.

I found this theory pretty hard to grasp. Not my usual territory.
The difference between Public (and equality of active and passive participation - we all make up the public) and Mass where there is a significant difference in participation of actors. More equality in public all listen all talk. In Mass - difficult for the individual to participate. (Mills, The Power Elite, pp303-304). Not sure of what we can do with this understanding...
Ulises A. Mejias says Society and technology co-determine each other. (Hybrid). Yes I would agree that we should acknowledge that.
Ulises A. Mejias gave us this task. Do this mind hack:
Choose an ICT that has become part of your life:
1. List benefits: How does yjis technology enhance your participation in the world in new ways?
2. List motivations. What desires make the benefits listed above appealing to you?
3. Identify contradictions: Does using the technology sometimes get in the way of the motivations listed above?
4. Question competiting motivations: What makes the contradictions acceptable? Are there 'hidden' motivations?

eg Nick Noates: Skype, benefits: low cost. motivation: more contact with remote friends. Contradiction removes him from his close family!
eg Me: Second Life (loads of people suggesting SL as their mind hack subject)
Benefits: safe place to explore new ideas/relationships. Benefits: low cost, use it when you want, go where you want, try things out without risk. Motivation: to explore and find things out and see what others are doing. Contradiction: stops me from exploring in real life as it's time consuming. Always playing safe is not necessarily good for learning.
OK well I just learnt something about SL!
The Mind Hack exercise suggests Normalisation processes are useful in understanding and using technologies.
((The back chat in Elluminate is very interesting - strong parallel conversations underneath the presenter. Very coherent multi-tasking. The Applause function is really daft!)).

The NMC Conference is using Elluminate Live! I've never used it before though it seems to be similar to Breeze. Seems to be working well so far!