Growing the New Technopolis

Several things have come down the pipes lately that seem post-worthy, so I thought I’d try to list them in one fell swoop.

- The Carolina portal at iTunesU, for which Doug was mainly responsible for getting going, launched recently. Here’s an article in The Daily Tar Heel about the launch. The content itself can be accessed by pointing your browser to http://itunes.unc.edu.

This is also exciting for me because my department, Communication Studies, will have its own channel for student and faculty content. Good stuff!

- Bob came over to UNC on the day of the launch and he and I met with staff members at UNC’s service learning organization APPLES about getting them involved with Bob’s Digital Media Sandbox Consortium. Bob was very eloquent about the need for digital fluency in service-learning, and the APPLES crew was excited about the possibilities (that was my take on it, anyway). We made plans to get them involved in the podcasting tournament. Then, this week, I had a good meeting with their Associate Director to talk about how they could more sustainably integrate podcasting into their service-learning efforts.

- Finally, a little own-horn-tooting: I have had a paper accepted to the Community Informatics & Development Informatics Conference in Prato, Italy. I am collaborating with the Academic Director of the City of Knowledge at the Universidade de São Paulo in Brazil. If anyone cares to read the first draft (written for a community development class last semester) and offer feedback – well, I just don’t know what I’d do for you. It’s on my website here. It concerns the use of digital storytelling for community and economic development. And, uh, if you have a couple grand’s worth of staff development grants to fly me over there, that’d be nice too!

I’ve been feeling over-worked lately (isn’t it summertime?!), but this is all great news and evidence that some of our hard work is paying off!

I just came across a Flash-based tool called PrimaryAccess, a slideshow application similar to VoiceThread. According to its website, “PrimaryAccess is a web-based tool that offers teachers and students frictionless access to digital images and materials that enable them to construct compelling personal narratives.” It was developed by Bill Ferster at the Virginia Center for Digital History. You can watch an introduction to it here.

There are a few things I really like about it:
- Unlike VoiceThread or Microsoft’s Photo Story, it’s open source.
- It provides a good introduction for students to the idea of using primary (media) documents for scholarship. Students use historical photos from a database that are already annotated with APA citation.
- It has an integrated “idea map” for planning movies. Mind-mapping is a new passion of mine. Non-linear approaches to project-planning offer students a flexible tool for getting their ideas together (vs traditional outlining or storyboarding, say).

In Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture, Henry Jenkins et al say:

…we do not want to see media literacy treated as an add-on subject. Rather, we should see it as a paradigm shift, one which, like multiculturalism or globalization, reshapes how we teach every existing subject. Media change is impacting every aspect of our contemporary experience and as a consequence, every school discipline needs to take responsibility for helping students to master the skills and knowledge they need to function in a hypermediated environment.

PrimaryAccess seems to hold great potential for working towards that goal in history curricula. What better way to learn history than contextualized through the primary photographical documents of an era?

Mike

Hello, I’m Mike Nutt.

I recently had the unexpected pleasure of meeting Bob and Doug. Through the Carolina Challenge program, we discovered a mutual interest in developing a business plan for Digital Media Arts Cooperatives. They have graciously invited me to help with this blog, and I’m excited about teaming up with them. My primary interest is in using digital storytelling to advance the goals they have already articulated here, so hopefully I can bring some new ideas to the table.

About me: I’ve been a part of the UNC Department of Communication Studies for the last seven years, first as an undergraduate and since 2005 as the Media Technician for the Department’s Media Production program. I am also currently enrolled in the UNC School of Social Work’s Nonprofit Management Certificate Program. My media-making tendencies stretch back to high school, including stints as a writer, audio artist, musician, documentarian, reporter, radio DJ, and sound engineer. On Wikumentary is a blog I use to ponder what happens when documentaries and wiki structures make babies, i.e. wikumentaries.

Thanks for having me guys!
Mike