To create a collaboration space for our efforts with the MIT iCampus projects, we just set up a new wiki site under ELT:
http://zircon.mcli.dist.maricopa.edu/emerging/wiki?MITiCampus
We had a lot of interest in iCamopus from our demo at the 2005 Ocotillo Retreat and the visit by Phil Long on May 25, 2005.
This is intended to be informational as well as a place for people to register their ideas, interests etc. We are hoping to pull together some people for a handful of iCampus projects we can explore for 2005-2006. The wiki is open to reading, but to add content you will need to get the access instructions from Alan Levine.
So join the wiki action!
Ahhh, the places serendipity will lead you. Someone commented on my flickr photo of the famous wiki wiki bus (taken on my way into town for the 2005 NMC Summer Conference) and linked to a site where they re-published the photo (no questions need be asked as that is why I put creative commons license on my photos).
And ten my web curiosity got to me to figure out what this URL was all about http://www.futureofthebook.org/:
The Institute for the Future of the Book was founded in 2004. The work of the Institute is funded by The Macarthur Foundation, The Mellon Foundation, and our host-institution, The Annnenberg Center for Communication at the University of Southern California.
Wow, heavy hitters...
While it may be argued that the form of printed books (pages bound together by a spine) was inevitable, screen-based books have no inevitable, physically-imposed form. The challenge confronting us is to develop new forms that empower both authors and readers and enhance intellectual and social discourse throughout society.We are inventing the future of human communication, and we need to do a good job of it.
The mission of the Institute for the Future of the Book is to play an important role in developing the form and function of books in the digital era.
The institute will be a place where artists, scholars, and technologists collaborate to address a broad range of questions, such as:
• how to define and assure authority of the text within a dynamic medium
• how readers know “where they are” within the more complex structures afforded by digital books
• how to integrate text with audio and video so that they do not work at cross-purposes. (This is key to the development of new rhetorical devices at the center of intellectual discourse.)
• working to define new ways of navigating and parsing complex “data spaces” – e.g. what high-level alternatives to the index might be devised?
• typography and iconography designed specifically for the screen
• in a wired world, how to encourage and enable readers to link to each other and to the author
• what is the best way to take several thousand years of analog culture into the digital era in a way that respects the original form but that also exploits the potential of emerging technologies to help readers see, hear, and read better?
The resources include exhibitions, a library list (Would that be printed books about the topic of digital books?), a long list of links. They are creating software such as TK3 and Spohie to enable the authoring of these future books.
So, what is your future book?
Just about everything at the 2005 NMC Summer Conference seemed to be related to emerging technologies, but here is an attempt to recap. For more, see some of the presentations that have been made available from the conference site.
Media/Visual Literacy:
This was actually the theme of both the opening plenary by Henry Jenkins (MIT) and the closing one by Stephanie Barish (Creative Media Collaborative) both of which were impressive presentations. (see my notes on Media Literacy? Who Needs it? (Jenkins) Beyond Words (Barish). Also note that NCM has a 21st Century Literacy project.
And related was:
How to Spot a Turkey in Cyber SpaceConsistent with the 2005 NMC Horizon Report on Intelligent Searching, information literacy is increasingly becoming a distinct area of competence — largely due to exponential proliferation of information resources found on the Internet. Even information managed by tools like Blinkx and Google Desktop ultimately depends on personalized skilled evaluation processes of assessing, managing, and using information. This session defines intellectual frameworks for understanding, evaluating, and managing information-skills that extend opportunities for self-directed lifelong learning.
Presentation materials from this one are available.
A number of interesting video projects were shown, e.g.:
Searchable, Captioned, Dynamic Flash Video PlayerThe Flash player is available on 98% of computers. Using Flash and XML, an application (Learning Object) was created that can be used to quickly produce a dynamic video player. Some of the features of the cross-platform video player include a dynamic table of contents, searchable text, and closed captioning.
-- Damon Betlow, Rochester Institute of Technology; Ian Webber, Rochester Institute of Technology
and
VOILÀ: Video-Oriented Instructional Lesson AuthoringThis presentation will demonstrate a collaboratively developed online authoring tool for the purpose of creating web-based video lessons for education. As a result, educators have a no-cost method to easily publish video lessons into Light Bridge for use with their own students or for dissemination to colleagues. This session will demonstrate current resources, as well as how to access the authoring system for producing your own video lessons.
-- Brett Christie, Sonoma State University; James Fouché, Sonoma State University
And you can always count on Jared Bendis from Case Western do some edgy demos, such as:
The iPodQuizGeneratorToday’s iPods can do much more than play music. We have created ‘iPodQuizGenerator,’ a program that takes advantage of the hypertext capabilities of the iPod’s note feature and allows people to create quizzes that can then be run on an iPod. This presentation will demonstrate the program and its capabilities.
and a poster that Jared was a co-presenter one where a virtual world is being created on a PDA that woulod allows the users to move about it by actually walking in real space:
Pocket Virtual WorldsWhen people think of virtual worlds, they think of themselves sitting in a chair in front of a computer. What’s needed is a virtual world in your pocket so you can take it with you. This presentation will outline some of the ideas that have been explored to make this a reality by using a PocketPC, a Digital Compass, a Pedometer, and your own two feet.
In the areas of technology for collabration, especially two way video conferencing, sessions included:
Connecting Our Learning Environment Over Internet2 An alternative title for this presentation might be “How to Wire Classrooms for Internet2 Video Conferencing for less than $500 with Apple’s iChat.” iChat AV has extended the popular instant messaging protocol to include high quality video conferencing functionality. Bradley University has been utilizing iChat and Internet2 to connect to students with classrooms and industry professionals around the world. In addition to Apple’s iSight cameras, the presenters will discuss inexpensive DV hardware that can be permanently installed in classrooms and will also demonstrate the next generation of iChat and technology that extends iChat into a powerful, low cost remote presentation alternative. -- Kevin Reynen, Bradley University; Kurt Knight, Apple Computer “Virtually”
Actually the session was not really relevant to Internet2 - just that iChatAv automatically uses I2 if it is available. Sadly, the network connection went far south, so some of the demos did not work. Kevin has done a lot of interesting stuff with iChat and video conference tools- see his work at http://gcc.bradley.edu/ichat/
Another session was:
Creative Action at a Distance: Practical Tools for Effective Online CollaborationWhat do you do when you are working on a project with colleagues spread across North America? Throughout the development of the Pachyderm 2.0 software, the Pachyderm developers came up with a powerful combination of loosely bound applications that enabled communication, interaction, and collaboration. The team chose freely available programs that perform specific functions, rather than monolithic commercial packages. This suite of tools provides an effective means to conduct “extreme programming” techniques, leading to higher quality software development than isolated individuals could provide. Come to this session to learn about the setup, and to see it in action!
-- Joshua Archer, California State University; D’Arcy Norman, The University of Calgary; King Chung Huang, The University of Calgary