“IDEA” via Flickr (CC license)

I’ve put together a working abstract and annotated bibliography for my course paper on collaborative design in virtual worlds. It’s public on the Hub2 wiki.

“Engage stage of Hub2 project” (Creative Commons license)

We entered the Engage stage of our collaboration project yesterday with a visit from a number of avatars to our space on Boston Island (SLURL). It was great to have so many avatars, who we didn’t know previously, navigate through the space and give us feedback. While most of the avatars spent more time visiting the other group projects, we did receive some valuable comments from those we spoke to.

Among the comments, included not being sure what to do in the space when avatars first arrived. We did add signs to help people understand what was going on since last class. However, some of the avatars mentioned that they did not see the “Start Here” flag that we placed over our “Welcome to Government Center” sign because it was too high.

As a result, we moved the sign lower and put the flag directly in the middle of the space. We hope this will make it more clear to future avatars visiting for the first time. Because this sign explains the project and the space, it’s crucial that there is no confusion as to where it can be found. Now that the sign is in the middle of the space, I hope this will make it more clear.

After explaining the purpose of the space to one of our visitors, the avatar responded, “Thanks… I like the artwork already…” The layout of the space, the winning sculpture and the three future installations in the juried space, all seemed to appeal to those new to the space. The voting process “click here to vote” seemed to work much more smoothly since we broke up the triangle and created three separate viewing, gallery-like spaces. I was pleased with this response.

Overall, while most avatars were unclear what to do when first arriving in the space — because they did not see the “Start here” sign — once they heard what its purpose was, there seemed to be a lot of positive feedback on its design.

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“Upgrage! Boston” photo by Digital Lyceum

As I mentioned earlier, I’m working on a project at Emerson College to research best practices and propose a sustainable model for creating and facilitating “mixed reality” lecture-style events. We’re interested in connecting with others who have experience in this area, particularly those at colleges and universities who are using these technologies either in the classroom or for on-campus humanities events.

Here are some of the questions we are asking,

“How are universities using this technology to foster the group authoring of events? Is it being used at conferences? Is it being used in the classroom? Are people using simple text back channels, or more involved systems like Second Life or There.com. What is the future of this practice? And by documenting what is going on, can we help shape that future?”

To learn more visit Augmented Place.

[Disclosure: I'm working as a paid research assistant on this project]

The following is my response to a reading assignment and how it might be applied towards our group project in Second Life:

Taylor’s book talks about the social transfer of skills and knowledge in-between virtual and real worlds and the eroding boundaries between each. She makes problematic the ideas of “work” and “play” in order to create a new framework for evaluating our social participation in virtual spaces and its impact on our “everyday lives,” and vice versa. For example, through her discussions about gender and race, she makes explicit the ways in which we can use virtual spaces to acknowledge how these notions “circulate and the meanings they hold” in order to approach our social and institutional practices more critically (113).

For our group project, we are approaching our re-building/re-imagining of Govt. Center based on the idea of collaboration. In class last week, our group talked in Second Life about what collaboration in SL means and how it might be applied to our building process. In her chapter on “Productive Players and Remapping Ownership” Taylor writes

Given the intense ways users are living and embodying themselves in these virtual environments, we need to develop more complex ideas about the life of digital cultural artifacts, joint ownership, and the autonomy of user experience. (147)

Similarly, there is an opportunity for our group to use this project as a way “to develop more complex ideas” about collaboration in real life using Second Life as a platform. After reading this passage, I realized that while our goal is to build, it should also focus on how we can experiment with new forms of collaboration that might not be possible in real life. With the blurring between virtual and real, and work and play, as Taylor’s book suggests, we might then later think about how our methods can be applied to real life participatory group processes, particularly in the context of civic engagement.

I wrote up an edited transcript of David Weinberger’s new book talk for the iDC e-list, which I’ve also posted online. The full audio version is available for download over at MediaBerkman. I received an email from Michel Bauwens (p2p Foundation) who also informed me that the transcript is up in wiki form.

Buy the book and join the discussion.

I’m finished with my first year of graduate school at Emerson College. It was a great start to what I think will be an even better second year based on a number of projects that I’m looking forward to working on.

I’m writing this post to help me organize some of the stuff going on. Let’s take a crack at it here:

Community Media in Transition

The response to my graduate thesis blog and wiki has been very positive so far. I’ve done some preliminary research there into some of the topics I’ll be exploring for the project. The best thing about it is that folks in access are participating. The thesis has not been formulated yet because I am waiting to see what happens through these participatory platforms (blog, wiki, del.icio.us, etc.) and, more importantly, the people using them to help inform the direction of the project.

Rather than walking into the project with an idea of what I think it should be, I’m learning from other folks in access to help me organize the most important topics. This has been extremely helpful in a way that I don’t think would be possible without the web.

Open Media Publishing in Online Learning Environments

I’ll be working on a directed study in the fall on the topic of open source media publishing tools in online learning environments. My short-term goals include laying out some of the key concepts and ideas building on the work that others have already established in this area. I will be putting together a syllabus and annotated bibliography for the course which I’ll be working on under the guidance of Eric Gordon at Emerson College.

The Open Media Library project that Dean Jansen has spearheaded, along with the overwhelming response from the academic, public media and other non-profit communities has made me really excited to explore the possibilities of a cross-institutional open source platform for e-media sharing.

Dean and I will be presenting a demo of the Open Media Library at the Video, Education and Open Content conference at Columbia U. on May 23. I’m looking forward to meeting and learning from other folks working in this space to help inform the project.

The Place of Social Media

Eric Gordon is writing a book titled, “The Place of Social Media” to explore how sociable media platforms are impacting everyday (real) life. I’ll be working with him over the summer as a research assistant to set-up a blog and podcast for the book. I’m really looking forward to contributing to this project and learning from Eric and his experience in the process.

Jalapenos, Basil, Cilantro, and Tomatoes

I’m also pretty excited about my indoor herb and veggie garden. I’m looking forward to growing and eating them.

Mark Frydenberg invited me back to Bentley for a CIS Presents lecture this past Monday to discuss creative uses of social networking tools in education. I spoke to a room of about 60 students about my collaborative graduate thesis project and the tools I’m using to allow others to participate in sharing their experience and knowledge.

The podcast is available for download from the CIS presents blog.

Last month I mentioned that I was interested in using a wiki for my thesis. Not for the purpose of dumping my ideas somewhere on the web, but to invite real participation from the community I’m exploring. At that time, I (1) wondered if this was possible to do at Emerson College and (2) was interested to learn if there were other examples out there on the web.

Since then, I received a comment from an incoming graduate student (who found my blog through a “thesis & wiki” search on the web) at the University of Ottawa who is also interested in this idea of writing a collaborative thesis in wiki form. I also spoke to my thesis advisor who gave me a thumbs up on the project. So, I now have the go ahead from the College to use a wiki to participate collaboratively with others who could share their experience and knowledge for the benefit of the project = very cool.

As I mentioned on the Community Media in Transition blog, Emerson College’s Instructional Technology Group were total rockstars and helped me to not only set-up the wiki but they made it available for anyone who would like to participate.

So, if you are currently or have worked at the intersection of PEG Access TV and new media technologies (web-based platforms) please consider participating in this collaborative graduate research project to share your knowledge.

I’ll also be setting up a new blog (soon) at cmediachange.net where I will be blogging more regularly about the project.

Amy Gahran of Poynter Online’s E-Media Tidbits is looking for News organizations who have in the past or are currently using a wikis. If so, she asks

please comment below, explain what you’re doing, and give us your wiki link(s). Also, if you’ve seen something like this, please speak up. I’d love to have some current examples to discuss.

Gahran writes, “Personally, I think there are many ways that wikis could enhance journalism, and I’d like to see more experimentation on this front.”

Excellent.

[Link to article]

The Center for History and New Media recently launched a podcast titled, “Digital Campus“. Here’s an excerpt from the announcement:

“CHNM is happy to announce the launch of a new podcast, Digital Campus, now available from iTunes and http://digitalcampus.tv

The biweekly roundtable will discuss how digital media and technology are affecting learning, teaching, and scholarship at colleges, universities, libraries, and museums.”