Inquiry Into Digital Content #3b: Diversified Dynamic Devices

Get Digital Content Everywhere You Go On Any Device 

by TopTenReviews Accessed at YouTube

The digital landscape

somehow affords me the luxury

to follow particular winding knowledge threads

toward serendipitous discoveries

and larger webs of meaning

(Jeannette Jackson)

To watch the above video is to be overwhelmed with gadgetry fever and a sense of frenetic activity to create more things that can spread more stuff and to inch ever closer to immediacy of speed and transmission: it is a dizzying landscape.  Of course this speaks to the intention of the video in the first place: choices of material, voice-over, sounds, transitions, and locations all play into the intended perspective of the message that we-are-going-places-with-integrated-media! As they promote in the video, people "can enjoy everything everywhere, without going anywhere!"  Do they mean in body, spirit or in mind? This comment in itself provokes serious contemplation!

However, it is not the gadgetry itself that does and will create interconnections; knowledge sharing and creation; social activism; inter-cultural understanding; global community; and the like.  It is the ability of people to imagine, understand, and actualize the possibilities inherent in the ever increasing and changing digital technologies available to us that will provoke such positive use. As Marshall Mcluhan attested, our culture(s) is shaped by the nature of communication media rather then the content itself: still, someone has to decide on that content and that format and that purpose. Tom Wolf explains--as he narrates for the 100th birthday year (2011) commemoration of Mashall Mcluhan--that Mcluhan believed that electronic media changes humans' patterns of thought and behaviour and also alters human nature.  He explains that Mcluhen describes the post-print-media-man as:

more like primitive tribesmen, intimately involved with one another whether they liked it or not and captives of what they hear over the grapevine whether it's true or not. (Wolf for Mcluhan, 2011)

From a teachers perspective I hope to encourage students and colleagues to utilize such amazing media tools and online spaces for building or constructing knowledge that is applicable and of interest to them, as they seek, store, retrieve and share information and learn by so doing.  Also, I hope to enable collaborative work and conversation that is supported by the richness of available materials and not hampered by time, distance, or place.  However, students need to be assisted and guided in their use of such available technologies in order to ensure an ethical, empathetic, wise, intellectual or intelligent, and socially profitable online digital landscape.

 As Mcluhen emphasised, "We are responsible for our technologies and the effects of our technologies as we are responsible for tidying up our grammar." 

I am inspired by many online examples of the power of digital narratives to call people to thoughtful reflection and action. For example, as suggested to us during our summer session, PhotoVoice, Participatory Photography for Social Change is dedicated to providing all people with the chance to speak out and be heard. Their mission as stated on the website is to:

build skills within disadvantaged and marginalised communities using innovative participatory photography and digital storytelling methods so that they have the opportunity to represent themselves and create tools for advocacy and communications to achieve positive social change.

The following video details the process followed in the Photovoice youth program in Hamilton, Ontario (2008), and illustrates the hands-on-ness, community centered, call for action embedded in the process and production with the local youth.  It also is an excellent example of the production of knowledge and a constructivist approach to inquiry.

An interesting and useful guide prepared for those hoping to follow the Photovoice example and goals is provided by Carolyn Wang , from the University of Michigan School of Public Health at http://people.umass.edu/afeldman/Photovoice.htm

Inquiry Into Digital Content #3a: Research that Reverberates

Michael Wesch: Mediated Culture

Recorded at UX Week 2010 from YouTube

The beauty of the current moment

is that new media has thrown all of us

as educators

into just this kind of

question-asking, bias-busting, assumption-exposing

environment.

There are no easy answers

but we can at least be thankful

for the questions that drive us on.

(Jeannette, adapted from Wesch, 2009)

Michael Wesch emphasizes, through his research, that the various media mediate our culture or translate and define the way we relate to others.  As he relates, various forms of media shape what is said; how it is said; who is able and can say it; and who is able and can receive it.  In addition how the "knowledge," or what has been said, is stored can determine who can access it.  Media shape how we experience the world.  It is, however, not to say that we all experience this is the same manner: many cultures and many pockets of societies will have a differential access to the stored knowledge of the world and therefore we may unknowingly promote, not only unequal access but also multiple complexities of understanding about how the world is or even how it should be.

My Blythe Family by Valeri-DBF

The proliferation and increasingly wide-spread use of digital technologies may eventually reduce these differences but, in so doing, possibly flatten our sense of the world, encouraging a sameness that is perpetuated by those very same liberating technologies.  For example, more of the world's population will be influenced by the tone set by the interconnected media. 

Flowers, Central Kiev by Maistora

I suppose it illustrates two sides of the communication coin:

heads we create a wonderfully connected and growing networked community that is liberating and culturally enriching; tails we create a flattened reality that subsumes differences under a powerful influencing media.  And so, will we eventually shape many cultures or one overriding and powerful one?

I have noticed the tendency of many to hotly defend any raqueries offered, or mild differences of opinion expressed, regarding the positives of social digital technologies:  it is either seen as an instance of digital ignorance based on age or experience or a lack of a mind-shift that we should and have-to embrace as, in my opinion, we allow technology to lead us rather than the other way around. There should always be room for healthy discourse around the influences, both positive and negative, of any technology that humanity is tempted to embrace: the pros and cons, the fors and againsts are an essential aspect of using technology wisely and with informed judgement. This is especially important for educators who make such choices, sometimes on a snap of the fingers:  it is cool after all!  We should not condemn caution.  As danah boyd (2010),  intimates:

I've been blogging for 13 years, determined to communicate to the world what I've had the privilege of witnessing.  I love technology but I also love to be critical of technology.  What keeps me up at night is trying to make sense of how social media transforms society and, more importantly, what it helps make visible about humanity. Technophobes love to talk about how technology is ruining everything and technophiles obsess over how everything is radically different.  I like to wade through the extremes to see the subtle inflection points. Reality is always in the details.

In the video above, Wesch tells of the consequences to a particular culture that begins to embrace technology just because they can: the very foundations that the culture is based upon shifts dramatically and affects all of the institutions of this Papua New Guinea community.  I wonder if this was a culmination of wise and informed judgement or just the consequential re-sorting action of introduced technology: in this case writing. We ourselves are experiencing this same action as we embrace more and more of the online communication structures together with the plethora of creative tools for connecting and creating across distances.  Wesch tells of the points made from Lee Rainie who studied research conducted by Elizabeth Eisenstein (1979) regarding the effects on society of the introduction of the printing press.  I rewrite them here as they are particularly pertinent to our own 21st century re-sorting:

1. The role of experts are challenged by newly empowered voices
2. New institutions emerge to deal with changes happening
3. Struggles to revise social and legal norms ensue
4. Concepts of identity and community multiply
5. New forms of language arise

Literacy in a Digital Habitat by Tahani, Eryn, Heather, Robin, & Jeannette

Hence, the power of today's technologies embolden, and afford a platform for, many voices that have  traditionally been silenced or at least discounted; moves to reform our schools and universities in a ploy to harness the possibilities inherent in new technologies for education; we experience much debate and furor over copyright legislation and the establishment of online sites devoted to "no loopholes" sharing and remixing; and the use of logos, emoticons, acronyms and the like as new communication forms.  I would probably add the increased re-reliance and re-recognition of the power of visuals and sound as languages of communication.

Interestingly, collecting digital data as methodology for qualitative research studies, in particular for ethnographic/anthropological inquiries, presents its own ethical and moral implications, and dilemmas around what it means to own and control information.  Quoting dana boyd (2010) once more: 

 What we are seeing is extremely messy. Observing people's data traces gives no indication of whether or not they are trying to be public or private. You need to understand their intentions, how they're interpreting a technological system, and what they're trying to do to make it work for them.  Each of you...needs to think through the implications and ethics of your decisions, of what it means to invade someone's privacy, or how your presumptions about someone's publicity may actually affect them. You are shaping the future. How you handle these challenging issues will affect a generation. Make sure you're creating the future you want to live in. 

To conclude: from his studies within cultural anthropology Wesch (2007) states, 

If we don't understand our digital technology and its effects, it can actually make humans and human needs even more invisible than ever before.  But the technology also creates a remarkable opportunity for us to make a profound difference in the world.

So May I Introduce to you by Andrea Joseph

References:

Battelle J. (2007). A Brief Interview with Michael Wesch at URL  http://tinyurl.com/3g8sh4t

boyd, d. (2010). Making Sense of Privacy and Publicity. SXSW. Austin, Texas, March 13, 2010: Keynote address at URL http://www.danah.org/papers/talks/2010/SXSW2010.html 

Wesch, M. (2009). From Knowledgeable to Knowledge-able: Learning in New Media Environments. Academic Commons at URL http://www.academiccommons.org/commons/essay/knowledgable-knowledge-able

Inquiry into Digital Content #2b: Reflections on Creating One-Minute Video

Reflect

From Pics4Learning

I was not immediately engaged with the one-minute-video challenge but became more so as a story started to formulate in my imagination: eventually becoming a message I truly wanted to share!  Originally I spent much time seeking out that magical comfy spot for the imaginary warm drink scenario but I had little sense of a theme or direction for my beginning, middle, and end.  In several of my scenarios I was to end up at Sundance Lake, down the road from where I live, and so I dutifully trotted over and took video in a haphazard sort of manner.  I also took some updated photographs of my grandson, Rory, playing on the beach near the water's edge with my husband, Richard: good material for something I thought!

Then I contemplated utilizing the many, many photographs I had collected from my travels abroad and wondered about the ethics of using such photographs as most included images of various members of the family.  On approaching my daughter, early in the project development, I was asked not to use clear images of Rory: so much for the beach scene!

After several initial storyboarding attempts in which I explored locations close to home and later within and around my house--here is where I could use those lake clips, I imagined, or else take video clips of various areas in my home--I began to mull over the reason behind my particular video.  “What is so special to me, personally, about having that warm drink—or any drink for that matter?  Is a particular place to drink really that important to me?”

And so my message changed: my narrative would argue that the best place for a warm drink is anywhere where close friends and family are located.  Such a digital story would truly offer a grounded narrative from my personal perspective.  Much culling of images, and changing of ideas ensued.  At this point the informal storyboards that I had scribbled earlier did not do justice to the new argument in formulation: my final idea was to use video footage of various uninhabited places in my home juxtaposed with images of my family gathering and enjoying times in those same locations.

Setting to work on the storyboard I discarded an online tool I had considered for this task, and also decided against using my limited sketching skills.  Instead I chose to use Microsoft Word and created a table into which I could add representative clip-art and images.  I posited different camera shots that I might use, as well as initial voice over narration.  I did not use all of the storyboard suggestions in the end, as the video was far too long: I had to cull many images and video footage, as well as ideas that had occurred to me outside of the storyboard framework.

For example I had recorded a clip of the well known cartoon figures, Hoops and Yoyo, as they chanted a mantra about needing coffee: I thought this would add some levity to my narrative.   Then I had included an image of the same characters on each of the video clips and several photographs I snapped.  But, in the interests of final length much of these elements were cut! 

In addition I discarded several photographs in which my stuffed penguins had been carefully placed to represent the low levels I had reached in searching for company for my drinking moments!  Thus, much of the levity was sacrificed in order to stay within the time constraints.  I had hoped to reduce the possible maudlin interpretation of the narrative.  Oh well!  A bonus presented itself however: I had not planned to have my cat, Eighteen, turn her nose up at having coffee with me, but she instinctively obliged as I was recording video.  I couldn't resist including this little gem.  What did I learn?  Much about my inadequacy at judging length for a video!  As we discussed in class, the video needs to be just long enough to effectively illustrate your message and it is right to rid the piece of extraneous material!

The above-mentioned humor edits encouraged me to attempt, instead, a more light-hearted script to accompany the video.  Hence my use of alliteration and many references to coffee related vocabulary.  Although I was able to record my voice-over using this composed text, I was unsuccessful in attempts to paste related phrases over any of the stills or video clips.  I have since discovered, with the help of a classmate, how to do this in the new version of iMovie on the Mac.

A sacrifice I had to make was to exclude an idea that had occurred to me during filming: I wanted to add subtle messages about being "alone" to the video clips of areas in the house.  I have several books where the word Alone is a prominent part of the title and  I took video that included a zoomed shot of the titles on each clip.  Again, due to length, most of this was omitted in the final cut--except for one!

Another problem arose: my actual video camera was kaput and so I had decided to use the video recording setting on my digital camera, although I had never used that mode before.  In uploading and previewing the video snippets I was disappointed at the recording quality: the footage was grainy and fuzzy and certainly betrayed my amateur status!  In addition, the planned zooms and pans where not exactly what I had seen in my mind's eye!  Certainly, I need to work on developing a new skill set!

I spent a fair amount of enjoyable time evaluating music tracks to accompany the footage.  This also involved playing with sound recording elements as I tried to balance voice-over and sound effects with the chosen music track.  I selected Human Beat by Kevin Macleod as the title was amazingly fortuitous, the music was fun and addictive, and, most of all, seemed to represent an appropriate mood for the piece: slightly humorous but not too irreverent.  I sent a voluntary donation for the privilege of using it: much of Macleod's work is amazing!

Eventually compiling and editing the video presented more conundrums.  Due to the grainy nature of my film clips I decided to use black and white coloration instead of color.  I wish I could say I planned this, as eventually it occurred to me that this was an effective way of differentiating the colorless, more routine coffee times alone in my home, from the more colorful, animated, and cozy ones with family. (I had to cut  out the friends--length!) In essence, the black and white sections are reality and the color sections are the memories or longings I harbor: as in there is less color in my "drink" life without the family around.  I also tried modifying the color or mood finish on the still images but found that that my chosen "Dream" format managed to make the photographs look merely badly taken!  I chose the "ripple" transition as a reference to both a dream state and to the swirling of the coffee. A final effect that I explored was using the "cartoon" representation (in iMovie) applied to a section of the film as I rushed down the stairs seeking my personal warm drink solace and possible companion--the cat.

The ultimate challenge was to ensure a one minute length and yet maintain some level of quality as I played around with size, recording format, sound quality, streaming rates, and other technical obstacles as I exported the film in a format that could be shared online.  Interestingly, it was after I had uploaded a copy from my desktop to this blog that I discovered tutorials on the Vimeo website that are extremely helpful for novices such as I!  Consequently, I learned a little more about compressions rates and the like and followed Vimeo's advice in uploading to its collection site ---with  a guarantee of no adverts being added to my video--and have since replaced my original on the previous posting.  It is of far better quality--it even disguises some of my fuzziness!

So, on to the next challenge!

Director by Wanderingchiara

For that I will make use of resources I have located online such as:
Creative Narrations Mutimedia for Community Development Resorces section at URL http://www.creativenarrations.net/produce

JakesOnline.org at URL http://www.jakesonline.org/storytelling.htm
Centre for Active Learning, University of Gloucestershire, Pedagogic tools and guides at URL
http://resources.glos.ac.uk/ceal/pedagogictoolsguides/digitalstorytelling.cfm
Vimeo Video School at URL http://vimeo.com/videoschool

Inquiry into Digital Content #2a: Where to Have a Warm Drink Digital Challenge

Where to Have a Warm Drink from Jeannette Jackson on Vimeo.

One-Minute Digital Argument:

“The Best Place for a Warm Drink is…”

Story Idea Pitch

My first thoughts were to create a digital artifact that depicted locations beyond my home environment: I thought of the many exotic and intriguing locations that I long to visit and, by association, no doubt partake of a warm cuppa!  I originally thought to utilize various images I might find in my exploration of shared picture/image web applications.  On further reflection, however, I realized that I already had some of my own beautiful pictures from several vacations taken abroad—Paris, Rome, and Venice for example.  An added bonus would have been the evidence of family and friends in such photographs.  It was then that I realized that I may be approaching this challenging task rather backwardly: I was thinking of what I already possessed or could utilize via shared media resources rather than contemplating the story I wanted to express through such media.  Back to the drawing board—literally!

It was at this juncture that my ideas and storyboarding started to coalesce during the planning of the project.  Initially, I imagined creating a digital recording of all of the places local to my home that could illustrate the many options I have of beautiful vistas to enjoy when supping my warm drink.  My first storyboarding attempts followed this line of inquiry, which in essence became more of a tourist guide to Sundance, in Calgary!  I now possess some exciting videos of activities at Sundance Lake!

I longed to produce something that gave of and from myself: to share a particular perspective on the taking of a warm drink.  Hence many questions-to-self arose, culminating in: “What is so special to me, personally, about having that warm drink—or any drink for that matter?  Is a particular place to drink really that important to me?”  It is the answers to these questions that directed my digital product.  I realized that, in truth, most places will “do” for me to enjoy, say, a morning or midday coffee.  However, what actually makes the drinking places memorable is the people—friends and family—that have shared these indulgent moments in those particular places.

And so to my final proposal or one-minute-movie-pitch: viewers of my digital narrative will understand the message or argument that, for me, “The best place for a warm drink is one with a cupful of company!”  I will juxtapose bland video of the usual “coffee areas” in and around my home with vibrant and colorful images of family members gathered together in those same or similar locations.  Hopefully, the use of contrasting images: color vs. black and white; still vs. motion; people vs. places; compliments the framework of myself searching for what, in actuality, is not a particular place but for the loved ones to share that moment with.  Thus, it is people not place that enrich the drinking experience.

The final Storyboard and ultimate script can be viewed below:

The Final Script Used for “The Best Place for a Warm Drink is…”

There were many improvised changes to the original storyboard plan as shown above.  This included many scribbled drafts of possible accompanying voice-over narration.  The following script, however, is the final voice-over narration that is used in the edited, produced and posted digital tale:

What is a Place Without Any Company?

The best place for a warm drink is—well there are so many right here at home!

So, let’s try the cozy kitchen.

               But no iChat coffee chums!

To the comfy couch?

               But no café au lait sofa buddies!

How about the treed front yard?

               But no frappachino folkies!

               No cappuccino comrades!

               And no macchiato mates!

Then it’s off to the primo patio café!

               But no java Joes!

But wait! Downstairs! You can count on a cat for coffee company!

               But then—maybe not.

Hmm. I guess the best place for a warm drink is one with a cupful of company.

In my next blog I will share some thoughts on the making of the video, choices made and my reflections on the challenge! 

Nespresso-What else? by Ronny Stiffel

Inquiry Into Digital Content #1b: Samples of Different Media for Creativity In Digital Storytelling

Born Digital, In Video: Identities

What is a "Digital Native?"

Attribution: The Berkman Center for Internet and Society

I enjoyed the above video example of Digital Storytelling especially as it attempts to illuminate the permanence of items we choose to place into various online social media.  It has a consistent presentation format, a neat piece of xylophone music and a clear textual message.  The series of digital images/photographs were clearly and deliberately chosen to narrate a story with a particular message or viewpoint.  The music builds in association with the time-lined imagery and gives a sense of adventure, activity, and constant movement and change: neatly echoing the message.

This digital story records the changes in online identity of one supposed "Digital Native" as she develops and alters her looks, interests, and emotional and intellectual personality.  As the creators metaphorically summarize, " Her identity is a performance and social media platforms are her stage."  The video also concludes that despite the ongoing personal changes that develop with age and maturity, all previous identities remain in their wake: they all exist online at the same time.

Representing research in this digital manner, with carefully selected visuals and related text, tells a particular story: the recording presents one telling of the story, or one perspective/viewpoint toward the public-ness of much of our digital world and interactions within it.  The "authors" of this narrative hold a definite stance toward the social-media world and the situation of individuals within it: they have also made particular choices regarding the best way to share the results of their study and the conclusions they have reached. And so, the video expresses a particular understanding of the experience of others and self. It illustrates the power of digital multi-media to communicate meaning.  In addition, by uploading to a public platform there is a possibility that the message is received by many and  in many disparate places.

 Born Digital, In Video: Learners
Playground 2.0: Video Games and Learning

Attribution: The Berkman Center for Internet and Society

This example of digital storytelling uses the Prezi online application to create an interesting mix of text, images, and non-linear progressions to tell the story of the increasing use of online games as social and learning spaces.  Discussion forums allow players to collaborate on designing new games, share ideas,  consult on strategies, and explore each participant's online creations. As the video producers claim, here we experience how "play and learning go together."

These videos belongs to a collection of such interpretations produced by interns at The Berkman Center at Harvard University.  The task was to create a set of videos to accompany and represent each chapter or topic of the John Palfrey and Urs Gasser book, Born Digital.  Each video is available on the Born Digital, In Video site where students' own perspectives and experiences are digitally narrated.  The creators are represented as Reporters in the Field.

There are amazing examples of digital storytelling techniques as well as amazing stories to watch and listen to--some will make you cry--here at the Center for Digital Storytelling

I'll close this post with an amusing, clever example of very effective use of a simple combination of gentle music, video, and vocal narration: It underscores the power of the oral storyteller to this day!  I loved the careful choices of color setting in the background for most of this video and just a few inserts that help to underline the message. You'll love this!

The Thumber from Nathan Ross on Vimeo.

 There are many web resources for samples, examples, and useful connections referencing digital storytelling, whether as research narrative or purely a sharing of ideas and the like, such as:

Center for Digital Story Telling at URL http://www.storycenter.org/index1.html

Digital Storytelling at URL http://electronicportfolios.com/digistory/

The Educational Uses of Digital Storytelling at URL http://digitalstorytelling.coe.uh.edu/

Creative Narrations: Multimedia for Community Development at URL http://www.creativenarrations.net/stories

Inquiry Into Digital Content #1a Faces of the Narrative

 

TEDTalk: Clay Shirky: How social media can make history

According to Clay Shirky we are currently experiencing the "largest increase in expressive capability in human history" (TEDtalk, June, 2009).  We can receive instantaneous news and spread such news worldwide.  We are all able to be producers as well as consumers of ideas in the digital media landscape which, as Shirky states, encourages us to create our own social media communication rules, albeit somewhat informally.  Hence it is interesting that we can create digital stories using still and moving images; recorded and text-ed poetry, rhyme and prose; and sound effects and music to construct our meanings, hopeful that others will understand the intent of the communication; but this is not guaranteed.  Through such mediated attempts can we effectively convey the relationships, emotions, and feelings evoked by the storied events?  Using such media platforms as YouTube, are we really trying to recapture an earlier oral culture from a long-ago time, particularly as it pertains to a Western social and cultural history? 

For those who are discomforted by the freedom and seeming organic nature of such practices, perhaps we have become less trusting with the idea of story coming from within us and around us; less convinced of our own storytelling abilities and doubtful regarding the value of sharing lived experiences and thoughts about the world around us.  Maybe we have been conditioned by the top-down nature of our past experiences: used to the division between experts (who supposedly have something of worth to impart) and the rest of us (who receive the wisdom of others, as it relates to various contexts).  I like Shirky's statement above, as it re-establishes and relocates the power of the word or narrative within us all.  We each have the right to express ideas, opinions, interpretations, reflections and the like, in our attempts to story the historical moments: whether they are shared moments in the larger world history, or the individual and personal ones of our lives and interactions with others.  As participants in a socio-cultural movement,  it seems that we are gaining confidence and audacity in sharing that which we value and assume others will too. 

In An Anthropological Introduction to YouTube, by Michael Wesch   we see some of this reclaiming of story power in action: people making their own mark in the storied digital landscape.  There is evidence of participants ensuring the human-ness, once more, of what could be actualized as a very distant and disconnecting media experience.  Although, it is interesting that several of Wesch's students do appear to miss the immediate visual of a person, rather than an inanimate object, to share conversational ideas with: a receiver of the communication that is obvious and able to respond, say, with facial expressions, murmurings, and encouragement.  Finding ways to bridge such communication gaps is challenging: several of my colleagues addressed this issue by positing a changing social/community landscape that presents an alternate communication context that we are slowly adapting to, and accepting of.   


Interestingly, the growing use and manipulation of common elements such as music/sound, facial expression/body language, intimacy of voice/body language and the choice and placement of visual supports speak to the increasing need for skills in the Fine and Communication Arts.  These literacies embrace the common elements that speak to us "out there" in the digital landscape.  The very video that Michael Wesch and his students produced is a testament to the power and mastery of using stills, action, music, textual effects, and more to support the calm voice of explanation and proffered viewpoint for us, the audience, to consider.


Rotman and Preece describe YouTube as allowing "users to calibrate their participation and interaction levels--alternating between viewing the site's content passively and actively communicating with other users" (The 'WeTube' in YouTube: creating an online community through video sharing, in Int. J. Web Based Communities, Vol. 6, no. 3, 2010, p. 318). Their qualitative grounded theory research study,

seeks to understand whether YouTube users employed the social tools of the site to create and maintain a lively online community, or do they act independently of each other, posting videos with little regard to possible future interaction with their peers. (2010, p. 318)

They conclude that their selected group of YouTube users almost unanimously feel that it is a valid community and is a platform for communication and interaction rather than a broadcasting application: However, there was agreement that many individuals and groups, both commercial and not, did utilize YouTube and similar digital video sharing platforms for that exact purpose (p. 330). They found that "the thread which runs through all the video posts is the feeling of companionship, the ability to create meaningful relationships and practices, and even a sense of emotional attachment to 'their' site" (p. 330).


Mark Wesch and Rotman/Preece used qualitative approaches to their research and both use a form of narrative to present and represent their research and results. Wesch and his students embed their research into active participation in the digital culture that is under investigation and represent their study by documenting the story of the experiences: a situated activity.  Rotman and Preece explore the digital community using and sharing the stories of the participants from their particular vantage points: their narratives. For example, one fascinating interpretation of community in YouTube was storied as:

 I like to call this a spiderweb, because everyone interacts with each other, and everyone is a sender and a receiver. In this entire community there are smaller communities, smaller different topics and interests that they share with each other. So this is me, right here, and I interact with all these different groups...I participate in a community. (User-22, p. 324)

Both studies appear to hold to the description of narrative as stated by Barrett and Stauffer:

It is viewed variously as "story," as a "mode of knowing" and constructing meaning, and, more recently, as a method of inquiry." At times it is all of these simultaneously. Perhaps the most enduring description and understanding of narrative is as "story," an account to self and others of people, places, and events and the relationships that hold between these elements. (2009, p. 7)

This would align with Bruner's idea that we humans are naturally drawn to story: we use the narrative arts to help us make meaning of the world and our place in it. It is a comfortable and effective communicative and interpretive mode of being (2009, pp. 8-9). Richard Kearney, (2002), says that historical and fictional narratives relate to each other, which produces a practical wisdom that can respect the singularity of situations and the universality of values (p. 143). This would seem to support the shift toward the use of narrative in inquiry and the idea that we should be cognizant of why and how particular parts of such narratives are combined in any particular way (Barrett and Stauffer, 2009). It suggests a coming together of two ways of knowing: the logico-scientific and the contemplative search for meaning.


References:

Wesch, M. (2008). An Anthropological Introduction to YouTube

http://www.youtube.com/user/mwesch

Barrett, M. S., & Stauffer, S. L. (2009). Narrative inquiry: From story to method. Narrative inquiry in music education (pp. 7-17). Springer Science and Business Media.
http://www.springerlink.com.ezproxy.lib.ucalgary.ca/content/uu15578688737084/

Shirky, C. (2009). How social media can make history. Video on TED.com
http://www.ted.com/talks/clay_shirky_how_cellphones_twitter_facebook_can_make_history.html

Kearney, R. (2002). On Stories. Thinking in Action Series. New York, NY: Routledge


Rotman, D. & Preece, J.(2010). The "WeTube" in YouTube: creating an online community through media sharing. Intl. Journal of Web-Based Communities 6(3) 313-333 
http://www.danarotman.com/publications 

Thoughtful Chunk 11: Adaptive House or Adaptive Human?

 

 

The Adaptive House as a Schoolhouse around 1926

Professor Michael Mozer, from the Department of Computer Science and Institute of Cognitive Science at the University of Colorado, Boulder, created a so called adaptive house. That is, Mike Mozer bought an old building and redesigned it to be alert and responsive to his activities within it: turning lights on and off and adjusting heating as it monitored his movements, for example. The following video was hosted on Extreme Homes and in it Mike Mozer chronicles the transformation. He tells of the history behind the decision to attempt the creation of this “Neural Network House”—a type of computer system that learns.

At Mike Mozer's website view several videos that demonstrate some of the networked system in action. According to Norman (2007) the neural network operating system is "designed to mimic the pattern-recognition and learning abilities of human neurons, thus the human brain" (p. 119). Norman asks whether this house is actually smart or intelligent but Mike Mozer says that adaptive is a better descriptor as it changes or "improves" its behavior in response to preferences that Mozer indicates: it "learns" what Mozer will expect. Some of these adaptive learnings can be viewed on the linked site above.


Interestingly, Norman mentions that Mozer would often remember that his house was anticipating his arrival at a certain time and dutifully would be preparing the appropriate ambiance, as it were: Mozer would consequently feel somewhat obliged to get home! Hence my title questions that asks which is adapting here--the house or the human? 


Does this example signify what we could expect as more and more "adaptive" paraphernalia enters society? Imagine excusing yourself from further conversation with buddies due to the "Assistant Robot" who is running your bath at that particular time! Must get home! As Norman recognizes, this would become onerous: he exclaims "This house sounds like a real nag" (p. 121). In truth, this conundrum occurs as this house and other such "robotized" systems are actually unable to read the human mind--which can be unpredictable and even nonsensical at times. Norman would describe these incidents as exemplifying the lack of "Common Ground" (pp. 49-55). In his words:


The lack of common ground is the major cause of our inability to communicate with machines. People and machines have so little in common that they lack any notion of common ground. People and people? Machine and machine? That's different: those pairs function quite well. People can share with other people. Machines can share with other machines. But people and machines? Nope. (Norman, 2007, pp. 50-51) 

I'm just not sure what choices we will make, or even should make, as we continue to advocate for, and develop, supposed intelligent or smart technologies: will we opt for adaptive technologies or adaptive humans?