bavatuesdays

Gardner Campbell just tipped me off on a veritable gold-mine of old postcard images of Fredericksburg, VA offered through the Central Rappahannock Library. Why might this be of interest to a native New Yorker and Yankee through and through, you ask? Well, because my middle name is “Stonewall”! Well, actually, it’s not for I never got a middle name (sniffle, sniffle). A bit more seriously, my interest has emerged from a project I was (and still am) working on with professor John Pearce’s Historic Preservation Museum Interpretation class. We designed a virtual exhibit which features many old images of Mary Washington over the last 100 years, and a site like the one Gardner discovered really starts to suggest just how many great resources there are to work with out there … exciting stuff!

Speaking of which, another thought crossed my mind while the lines above – at Faculty Academy I was on a panel with Carolyn Parsons, Jami Bryant and Patrick Gosetti-MurrayJohn in which we discussed the finer points of metadata, digital asset management systems, and the centrality of libraries and librarians with the new emphasis on cataloging, organizing, and serving the immense amount of digital resources that are beginning to become available. This panel discussed the process we are working out at UMW for gathering and organizing metadata, while at the same time allowed us project about the future possibilities of online resources. After the panel, we had a brief conversation with a librarian at the Central Rappahannock Library, Chris Glover, who was very interested in exploring new ways of tagging metadata and as well as experimenting with open source options for serving and distributing this information. One of the things he mentioned which really struck me while we were talking was that he has numerous groups from all over the region interested in trying to digitize and catalogue their archives (one example was the parks services), and while it is clear that such a job would be best suited for the local public library system -how much of the labor and time necessary is well above and beyond the scope of the all too often understaffed and over-extended public libraries and librarians. In fact, I may be speaking out of turn, the Central Rappahannock Library system may very well have the staff and resources they need to digitize and catalogue thousands of images and documents from numerous groups, although if their budget is anything like UMW’s I highly doubt it.

In NYC when their was a budget crisis of any magnitude the first thing to be cut were public services, and the first public services to go were library services such as extended library hours (which meant for many branched over 20 hours/week), librarians, new books, etc. And while this has always been a crime against the residents of NYC, particularly for residents of the neighborhoods effected, I wonder if and when city and/or municipal officials are going to realize that the greatest investment they could make in organizing for the future, while simultaneously preserving the past is going to be an investment in their library systems. And while librarians themselves still have many questions to ask and answer about best management practices for digital media, it seems their experience and expertise goes a long way towards getting at the root of many issues at stake at this moment – that certainly has been my experience with Carolyn and Jami at Simpson Library. For what other profession is better positioned to start integrating these digital resources into a publicly accessible database that offers knowledge to its constituents as a public service? Gosh, what a great mission a public librarian has! Sounds kinda like that of the public university, no? Don’t get me started … for I have recently heard a certain individual discussing this very topic with GREAT ENTHUSIASM, I wonder who it could have been? (Hint, he provided the fodder for this post!!!)

A screenshot of me getting ready to ride through the Haunted House for the Second time in Second Life. I can’t even begin to describe how cool this place is, but I will say this much, a friend of mine just bought a 1932 Indian motorcycle for $1.06, and it is in mint condition.

That should give you some idea …

Mikhail Gershovich, the director of the Bernard L. Shwartz Communication Institute at Baruch College (CUNY), has been engaging many of the questions about technology and learning that we are dealing with here at UMW. Like us, he has been integrating an external web-hosting service into the exploration of enterprise wide tools such as wikis, blogs, podcasts, etc. Moreover, we have just recently discussed the possibilities of a multi-user blogging program, such as Lyceum, that could offer a scalable option for a college of over 15,000 students, counting undergrads and grads.

In fact, the Institute’s blog, cac.ophony.org, is tracing many of the questions about the intersection of technology and learning that we have been grappling with lately. Kate Moss, who I worked with as an Instructional Technology Fellow at the CUNY Honors College, has recently posted an informative taxonomy of the different ways blogs can be used in the classroom setting for teaching an learning.

Recently, Mikhail and I have been speaking about hosting alternatives to that allow him and his staff to start playing with tools, such as Lyceum, in a more robust way -allowing experimentation and play to develop alongside research and adoption of new tools. So, i just wanted to draw your attention to the ways in which the conversation we are having is really important for many schools out there that want to pushing the envelope for communications possibilities. And cac.ophony.org is one of those places we need to keep a close eye on …

Well, I am back in the teaching saddle and it feels good, but I do feel sorry for the students in my class who have become subject to a whole lot of technologies. And while I think they’re enjoying it, I am also realizing that blogs and a wiki can really change the way one can do business in a class – which is an adjustment for every one involved. So heeding Jerry’s latest mantra, its is not all or nothing, it can be something in between -or even abandoned if need be (wow, this notion is really difficult for someone like me to accept!). Ok, but enough about the King, how about this thing called “Lyceum.”

Lyceum is a multi-user blog solution based on the WordPress blog engine (you can read more Lyceum in an earlier post of mine here). I have been tinkering with it for a few months and the developer at UNC Chapel Hill, John Joseph Bachir, has been an unbelievable help it getting me up and running along the way -as have several other folks in the lyceum irc forum like whatup. One of the most impressive aspects of this project, besides the solid program, is the number of online venues they have made available for support. My experimentation was ultimately preparation for a live run, which has just recently started. So, now I am trying to give a little direction to anyone who might want to see how this program is installed, as well as a quick overview of the maintenance and administration involved.
Continue reading →

Coming late to the UMW Faculty Academy experience, I have heard on several occasions during this year’s event that I was spoiled. Why, you ask? I am sure there are many reasons, but one certainty is that this year’s conference did an exceptional job of framing the space where scholarship, technology and camaraderie intersect through a philosophical lens. It is truly an exceptional thing to have a supervisor and colleagues who refuse to succumb to criticism and constantly raise the bar for excellence to an ever-higher level. The group of ITSs I have joined seems to have the uncanny ability to bring out the best in one another, and this represents a unique form of chemistry that more often than not defines success. It also helps to have people like Rachel Smith, Jon Udell and Cyprien Lomas encouraging and shaping the work we are doing here -as they all superbly did during this year’s Faculty Academy. A little recognition from a cool guy who brings generosity, wit, and a hyper-analytical mind to IT concerns never hurts either. Yet, all these elements would be irrelevant without the unbelievably dedicated faculty at UMW that made this event both possible and meaningful.

Upon reflection, Faculty Academy 2006 (at least for me) was about the future of now, and how the members of DTLT at the the Unviersity of Mary Washington are trying to define this concept as well as continually push it forward. I had no idea on a rainy day last October (when I interviewed for this job) of how quickly and how forcefully the people I was speaking to were going to push the boundaries of their discipline. Serendipity sublimated … thanks y’all.

“Well, Lloyd, I’ve been away but now I’m back. So, you line ’em up and I’ll knock ’em back, one by one.”

That’s right the best damn ITS from Timbuktu to Portland, Maine (or Portland, Oregon for that matter) is back in the blogosphere. It has been one of those months, as they say, where I have been all work and no play, making Jackie here a dull boy. So much to say with so little time to frame it means that I have been battling a bit of my own writer’s block – but this silly post is just a way to warm up … so stay tuned I am getting ready to tackle a number of topics such as:

• Faculty Academy
• Teaching with Lyceum
• And using wikis as developmental syllabi

So stay tuned …

I have been thinking a lot about the space of multimedia authoring in higher education lately, and it just seems to me that most universities I have been at are grossly under-prepared for the challenges that freshmen over the next ten years are going to represent in terms of “non-traditional” authoring. In fact, Gardner’s Donne Seminar podcasts are one example of incorporating a “non-traditional” (whatever the hell that means) media authoring tool into a 16th and 17th century Brit Lit college classroom. As it has been recently claimed, if technology is understood as a heuristic then we must consider how such techniques for learning and discovering shape the context in which we learn and, hence, the content that we learn.

I have been particularly interested in these questions because over a year and a half ago I turned my then 14 year old nephew on to Sorenson Squeeze, he has since discovered how to edit films quite impressively – moreover, he has just started publishing them on his very own blog! Wow, here’s a kid who is developing a filmic vocabulary that is allowing him to communicate ideas, emotions, and his own life experience quite effectively through numerous mediums to a potential audience of millions.

There is no question that universities privilege the written word over all other media, yet there is a question as to how long this can and will remain the case. We are, indeed, embarking on a brave new world characterized, at least for the moment, by a popular digital-authoring movement (just go check out youtube.com if you don’t believe me)- but are we at all prepared here in higher-ed? Not by a long-shot!

That is how I would describe the student readings of Donne being published on Gardner Campbell’s blog. Where was this guy when I was an undergraduate in English literature?

Wow! The sound quality is impeccable, but, more importantly, the interpretive and analytical nuances of such a student generated project are truly amazing. This is Web 2.0 in the academy at its finest … Bravo to all involved!

As a proud member of DTLT I think it is safe to say that we had a relatively successful run of our “Bluehost: A Fantastico Expedition” presentation at the ACCS conference today. It was really a pleasure to talk about all the fantastic”o” things we are doing here at UMW, and framing it through our experiment with bluehost web hosting gave me a fresh and important perspective on all the great things we do on a daily basis. Additionally, it makes me really excited about the next steps we take. I know Gardner always talks about the ‘Dream Team’ – and today I think I saw what he was talking about when I watched my colleagues share their knowledge so articulately with the audience … bully for DTLT!!! Below is a picture of the group (I actually took the picture so, unfortunately, I am absent from the photo) right after the rock concert:

Oh, yeah, did I mention Jon Udell is coming to Mary Washington? More info here …