Published by Reverend May 8th, 2007
in video.
I installed the digg-clone Pligg on my bluehost account here, and all’s well so far. The install is very straight forward: create a mysql database, change some folder/file permissions, and click on /install.php. It has a few out-of-the-box module/plugins like including embedded videos in a submitted story which is a nice feature. And while the development of new themes is underway, I tried out a few of them but found they were borking -so for now I am just sticking with the default. I had some “fellow travelers” at DTLT register and try the service out (if you are interested in giving it a test run feel free) and it seems to be working swimmingly. Now, I just have to start conceptualizing some ways to use such a space in the classroom, departmental sites, or even more broadly around the campus. Any ideas?
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Or, what about as a ranked repository of campus news stories (either in the student paper or from the official releases) that students/faculty/community members would bring to the top through relevance or interest? [What about Middlesell? It seems ideal for such an installation.]
I have other ideas about how to use it, but they’re even less formed at the moment. It’s clearly a tool with lots of possibilities for unleashing student participation and creation, especially in the aggregate.
I’m glad you see the use of such a tool. I entirely agree with you, I is a quick and easy way for generating participation in the aggregate. I really like the idea of a participatory community sharing archival resources via images, links, and maybe even videos. Similar to del.icio.us (even if less malleable and effective) an application like this can provide a space where students can visually engage, share, and comment upon resources in dynamic ways by voting, burying, creating categories, etc. I am particularly interested in allowing a group of students to converge around an install and allowing them to forge an identity for the service for themselves. Brian Lamb linked to a participatory student-driven blog at UBC on Iranian History and Culture and it is really impressive. What would a group of history students playing with such a service look like as opposed to a group of biology students or business students? How would a service like this be used to share work in several classes throughout a department? This could be an interesting place for some cross pollination of ideas and topics -or even disciplines.
Alternatively, Patrick suggested that the foreign language department students use it to create a quick and easy repository of foreign language resources from podcasts or videos on YouTube, etc. It seems easy enough that it just might work!
Now, let me think -who on Earth could we get to test something like this in the classroom? I imagine they would have to be a bit adventurous, have recently got some job security, and be ready to take a risk or two when it comes to technology. Hmm, no one’s coming to mind at the moment.
Good luck.