[DMSC Governors Challenge Virtual Institute Summer 2010]

Participate in the DMSC Governors Challenge Virtual Institute Summer 2010 by submitting media from your students and faculty representing your institutions and by registering to judge the media during our Institute using our semantic assessment model.

We also ask you to kindly forward our link to your networks to help us recruit participants: our website is located at www.sandboxnetwork.org 

Essentially, Engaged Technology is a marriage of academic service learning/civic engagement and educational technology. Our method integrates active learning and action research in the process of building e.portfolios for students, faculty, institutions and communities based on validated multi-media and service equity.

Over the past four years of our academic media tournament, The Governors Challenge, we have evolved a guided system of:

1. Omni-disciplinary research and production of multimedia (text, audio, video and image),
2. Assessment with our semantic assessment instrument,
3. Analyze/Revise
4. Publish

Bringing those two resource bases together is an underlying design for our efforts. Partnering with the University of Virginia, UNC-CH, and Tennessee higher education, we will begin our Summer 2010 Virtual Institute for the fourth iteration of the Governors Challenge, which has been sponsored by FedEx Institute of University of Memphis, Apple Inc., Microsoft, emma, Echo, and Cisco, Tennessee Board of Regents, University of Tennessee systems and the Tennessee Campus Compact, among others.

Our vision of evolving partnerships would form a strong oversight body for an NCAA-like model of engaged scholarship. With multi-media conveying the content innovations created out of these partnerships and assessment provided from other stakeholders, personal learning spaces can be networked for capacity-building in many different areas and many different ways.

We seek to help evolve educational practice by reaching a broader talent pool of ‘flat-world outliers’ who want to create life/work options that leverage dreams, visions, and potential of heretofore silo-ed talent pools. This NCAA-like model of engaged scholarship embeds the guided learning system that will also function as a platform to engage local pre-k-12 public and private (including faith-based schools) systems to form P-20 Pathways for life-long learning.

Read more here. 

["internet is freedom"]

Lawrence Lessing's speech at the Italian Parliament, "Internet is Freedom":

[assessment in the digital age]

Via hastac:




How to grade, assess, teach, learn and structure the learning experience for students in the digital age?

Many interesting projects are working on this question, and we invite you to share others with us below. For example:

- The Learning Record, a portfolio-based evaluation system designed to emphasize student learning, not product-based outcomes
- Nils Peterson and his colleagues at the Center for Teaching, Learning, & Technology (at Washington State University) have been working on developing new assessment strategies and forms of classroom engagement
- Pecha Kucha in the classroom - reframing the presentation from the unstructured long-form speech to the conversation-starting breakdown
- Digital Youth Research was a 3 year project to investigate how kids use technology and media in their everyday learning. They have reports available on their site, and the group recently published a book, Hanging Out, Messing Around, and Geeking Out. 
- Re-mediating assessment, a blog considering participatory assessment models in education, authored by Daniel T. Hickey, Michelle Honeyford, and Jenna McWilliams (Indiana University).
 - The DML Research Hub, funded by a MacArthur grant, is supporting two projects. One, lead by Mimi Ito, is called Distributed Learning Research Network, and works on distributed learning that happens in social environments. The other, lead by Joseph Kahne, is called Youth, New Media, and Public Participation Research Network, and investigates the ways that youth, through social and political participation in online communities, affects their capacity and motivation to engage in social and political issues.
 - Cathy Davidson and David Theo Goldberg's report, The Future of Learning Institutions in a Digital Age (also available as a free PDF). The report found that students are learning in deeply collective and innovative ways, and that learning institutions - schools - have to keep up or risk obsolescence. They offer ten principles for redesigning learning institutions and pedagogical systems to better reflect the way students learn today. The book-length version of the project, The Future of Thinking: Learning Institutions in a Digital Age will be coming out in 2010.

 Note: Image on flickr by violet.blue

[2010 horizon report]

One of the "Critical Challenges" from the (preview of the) latest report :


Digital media literacy continues its rise in importance as a key 21st century skill, but there is a widening training gap for faculty and teachers. Often not seen as a priority for faculty or teacher training, digital media literacy is nonetheless a critical skill not only for students but for those who work with them. Faculty and instructors are beginning to realize that they are limiting their students by not helping them to develop and use digital media literacy skills across the curriculum. This challenge is exacerbated by the fact that it is not clear exactly how to codify the skills or set standards for their measurement.


And, one of the "Key Trends":


Students are increasingly seen as collaborators, and there is more cross-campus collaboration. Using collaborative technologies, students are working with faculty and peers in other classes and on other campuses to create online resources that both demonstrate learning and contribute to public knowledge. Research projects are conducted by larger, more distributed teams than previously, and they are often becoming more public much earlier in the research process.





Relevance for Teaching, Learning & Creative Expression

• Tablet PCs—small, portable computers that fall in size and function between smart phones and laptops—are used to record and analyze field research during Bluegrass Community & Technical College's off-campus chemistry labs. 
• In addition to the free lectures offered on iTunes, many universities are making courses available for mobile delivery. 
• Medical students at the University of Louisville School of Medicine use their smart phones to check H1N1 updates from the Center for Disease Control.

Read the entire preview here.


Read tweets about the draft here.

[digital writing: mfa applications sought]

Applications Sought:

 

A two-year position, including full tuition and a stipend, leading to an MFA.

Information on how to apply to Brown's graduate school is linked from the programme's website.

Since 1990, Brown’s Graduate Program in Literary Arts has earned recognition as an international leader in the field of electronic writing.  Today, writing digital media is part of the trans-departmental digital arts development at Brown involving Literary Arts, Music, Visual Art, Modern Culture and Media, Computer Science, and other departments. Links have also been forged with the Digital+Media Center at the Rhode Island School of Design. Though the focus is still on writing and thus on the text, students in literary hypermedia take courses offering the additional possibility of working in mixed hypermedia, including computer graphics, animation, electronic music, video, and virtual 3-D environments. A new experimental workshop, 'Cave Writing,' has been launched in Brown’s immersive virtual reality environment in the Center Computation and Visualization. Our faculty include Professor Robert Coover, who was the moving force behind these initiatives and, since 2007, Professor John Cayley.

Further information about ongoing activities can be found at http://writingdigitalmedia.org

Previous fellows: Talan Memmott, William Gillespie, Brian Kim Stefans, Daniel Howe, Aya Karpinska, Justin Katko. Current fellows: Samantha Gorman, Ian Hatcher, Edrex Fontanilla. Previous writing fellows who completed electronic theses or taught eWriting at Brown as graduates include: Bobby Arellano, Mark Amerika, Matthew Derby, Mary-Kim Arnold, Judd Morrissey, Noah Wardrip-Fruin.

Electronic Writing fellows have access to all the resources of the Literary Arts Program and its innovative and engaged faculty directed by Professor Brian Evenson. Please see the website for a complete listing.

 

 

 

[digital technologies and identity]

Digital Technologies of the Self - Yasmine Abbas and Fred Dervin (eds.).
Cambridge Scholars (2009).




- Information available at:
http://www.c-s-p.org/Flyers/Digital-Technologies-of-the-Self1-4438-1419-9.htm
- Introduction and table of contents:
http://www.c-s-p.org/Flyers/978-1-4438-1419-5-sample.pdf

Inspired by the “technologies of the self” theorized by Michel Foucault in the early 1980s, this volume investigates how contemporary individuals fashion their identity/identities using digital technologies such as ambient intelligent devices, social networking platforms and online communities (Facebook, CouchSurfing and craigslist), online gaming (SilkRoad Online, Oblivion and World of Warcraft), podcasts, etc. With high-speed internet access, ubiquitous computing and generous storage capacity, the opportunities for staging and transforming the self/selves have become nearly limitless.
This book explores how technologies contribute to the expression, (co-)construction and enactment of identities. It examines these issues from various perspectives as it brings together insights from different disciplines — design, discourse analysis, philosophy and sociology.

[employment: assistant or associate prof. of info graphics]

*ASSISTANT OR ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR IN INFORMATION GRAPHICS AND DATA VISUALIZATION*

*Working title/rank:*  Assistant or Associate Professor in Information
Graphics and Data Visualization

*Type of appointment:* Tenure-track faculty

*Position category:* Tenure-track faculty

*Department or school:* Journalism/Mass Communication

*Application deadline:* Open until filled (Applications will begin to be
reviewed on January 15, 2010)

*Proposed start date:* July 1, 2010

*Position summary*

The School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is searching for an outstanding assistant or associate professor specializing in information graphics and data visualization.  The successful applicant will teach courses in information graphics and visualization, which includes cartography and statistical representation, 3D design, animated graphic storytelling and other appropriate courses over time. All of the school’s graphic design courses are taught in our state-of-the-art Macintosh labs.  The successful candidate will teach a 2/2 course load and perform other customary duties of a faculty member in the school’s research tenure track: research, advising, service and teaching/advising students at the graduate and undergraduate levels.

*Education requirements*

A Ph.D. in journalism/mass communication or a relevant related field is required.  ABD will be considered with a firm anticipated completion date.

*Experience and qualifications*

   - Preferred 7 years of full-time professional experience as an informational graphic artist/specialist.
   - Entrepreneurial and/or freelance work experience.
   - An outstanding, international award-winning professional portfolio that includes print and online journalistic work.
   - Proficiency in appropriate software including Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop and a 3D software program such as Maya or Lightwave.  Working knowledge of Flash and Dreamweaver. Proficiency in programming languages such as ActionScript and R.
   - A well-defined research agenda that addresses pertinent issues in information visualization and new technologies.
   - Ability to be an outstanding teacher.



*Special instructions*

Go to *http://jobs.unc.edu/1002162* <http://jobs.unc.edu/1002162> to apply.
Please submit a letter, vitae, names and contact information of least three references and a link to online portfolio materials. Supporting documents including course syllabi and other materials will be helpful in selecting finalists and should be submitted as electronic attachments to the application when possible.  Any other materials may be mailed to: 
Jo Bass
Assistant to the Dean
School of Journalism and Mass Communication
UNC-Chapel Hill
Campus Box 3365
Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3365








Note: The amazing image is from Aaron Koblin who has compiled flight pattern data from the FAA for the United States and most of North America. He calls the work "Flight Curves."

[new model for narrative: electric literature]

The founders of Electric Literature, a new quarterly literary magazine, seek nothing less than to revitalize the short story in the age of the short attention span. To do so, they allow readers to enjoy the magazine any way they like: on paper, Kindle, e-book, iPhone and, starting next month, as an audiobook. YouTube videos feature collaborations among their writers and visual artists and musicians. Starting next month, Rick Moody will tweet a story over three days. 

In its first two issues, this year, the magazine showcased some of the country’s best writers — Michael Cunningham, Colson Whitehead, Lydia Davis, Jim Shepard — and created the kind of buzz that is a marketer’s dream. With a debut issue in June and an autumn issue out last week, each consisting of five stories, the magazine has racked up complimentary reviews everywhere from The Washington Post to a blogger on Destructive Anachronism, who wrote, “High quality content + innovative marketing + multimedia could just equal the new model for literature, post-print.”

[...]


As for Mr. Moody, he said he came up with the idea of Twitter fiction after he fell in love with the new form. “It’s like trying to write in haiku continuously,” he said in an e-mail message.
“I like that E.L. seems as though it will try just about anything, and I think it’s important for literature that it’s always pushing the envelope, colliding with other forms, trying to find new envelopes for its message, and generally renewing itself,” Mr. Moody’s message continued. He called it a method that was partly pioneered by magazines like McSweeny’s and Ninth Letter.
Stephen O’Connor, whose story “Love” is in the second Electric Literature issue, said, “They approached me after a story came out in The New Yorker.” At about 12,000 words, he added, “Love” is a bit long for a conventional literary magazine.
“I’m hoping it will be a younger audience, all those kids like my students at Columbia and Sarah Lawrence who are always on Facebook and iPhone,” Mr. O’Connor said.

[...]


“We have an optimistic message at a time of pessimism,” Mr. Hunter said. “As writers, we got tired of the doom and gloom. The future is not something you acquiesce to, it’s something you create.”




From the NY Times. 

Image from Electric Literature. Follow Electric Literature on Twitter.

[kids online: new publication]

"Kids Online: Opportunities and Risks for Children", edited by Sonia Livingstone and Leslie Haddon (Bristol: Policy Press). 

The book provides an up to date account of how children use the internet in Europe, including such topical issues as social networking, risky contacts, parental mediation, media literacy and many more.


Ordering information is available here: http://www.lse.ac.uk/collections/EUKidsOnline/KidsOnlineflyer.pdf

As Professor Tanya Byron, author of the influential Byron Review into Safer Children in a Digital World says, "Professor Livingstone and colleagues provide extensive evidence-based findings which enable academics, educationalists, policy makers, parents and young people to think beyond anxieties generated by new technologies and make informed decisions about maximizing digital opportunities while managing risks. An impressive and essential book, central to the child digital safety debate."


Expected Results:

• Core findings regarding children’s and parents’ experiences of online technologies, focused on comparisons of children’s and parents’ perceptions of and practices regarding online risk and safety.
  
• Patterns of risk and safety online to be identified following top-down hypothesis testing and bottom-up exploration of relationships among different variables, conducted on a cross-national basis.
  
• Evidence-based policy and research recommendations.
  

Read more here.






Note: top image from Kids Online book site and second image from Teenagers Today site.

[digital materials]

It seems quite apt, following the discussion over at the Transliteracy Research Group blog, that this new publication made its way into my inbox.




Reading Erna Kotkamp's chapter on e-learning I find numerous echoes with my own thinking of both transliteracy and pedagogy.


Here is just one, Kotkamp notes:

"According to Dewey, ‘all genuine education comes about through experience’ (Dewey 1938, 13). In a classroom setting this means that the experience of a learner has to be incorporated in the teaching to improve the learning process" (66).

Precisely. As with transliteracy, we learn about it through experience. And then reflecting on the experience - the coming together of modes, views, participatory sections - can be incorporated into the larger understanding of what transliteracy is meaning (gerund because it's under construction).


Digital Material: Tracing New Media in Everyday Life and Technology
Edited by Marianne van den Boomen, Sybille Lammes, Ann-Sophie Lehmann, Joost Raessens, and Mirko Tobias Schäfer


Three decades of societal and cultural alignment of new media yielded to a host of innovations, trials, and problems, accompanied by versatile popular and academic discourse. New Media Studies crystallized internationally into an established academic discipline, which begs the question: where do we stand now? Which new issues have emerged now that new media are taken for granted, and which riddles remain unsolved? Is contemporary digital culture indeed all about 'you', or do we still not really understand the digital machinery and how it constitutes us as 'you'? From desktop metaphors to Web 2.0 ecosystems, from touch screens to blogging to e-learning, from role-playing games to Cybergoth music to wireless dreams, this timely volume offers a showcase of the most up-to-date research in the field from what may be called a 'digital-materialist' perspective.


The book is available in print from Amsterdam University Press (ISBN 978 908964 0680) and as a PDF file under a Creative Commons License (BY NC ND).

[colour matters...even in the twitterverse]

New Box UK Study Finds Twitter Users of Both Sex More Likely to ‘Follow’ White Women



Between June and October of 2009 London-based digital agency Box UK (http://www.boxuk.com) conducted two sequential social experiments to test how Twitter users reacted to being followed by strictly controlled test accounts. The results strongly suggest that given a choice of following black and white people of either sex, Twitter users are more likely to ‘follow’ white women, and least likely to follow black women.


This distribution also holds when the data is sub-divided into male followers and female followers for each account, showing that both sexes are most likely to follow White Female or Ambiguous accounts, and least likely to follow Black Females. We can also deduce that on average, female twitter users are 30% less likely to follow a request from a stranger, than a male twitter user.

“While it may be rather premature to conclusively argue that white women get more followers on Twitter than non-white women or men, we do know that a digital divide does exist and that certain groups of people tend to explore new applications with greater speed and enthusiasm. Without wading into a debate on technology users, more information on the aggregate of Twitter users is necessary to come to any real conclusions about their use of technology,” says Dr. Tina Basi a sociologist specializing in ethnography for design.


Basi, who previously worked with Intel’s Digital Health Research Group argues that, “perhaps what the data is pointing to, is that our relationship, as users, with new social media remains somewhat perplexing. We are still struggling with using Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn, as ways of engaging and connecting with others, and instead, fall back on using them to simply keep tabs on others. The internet, as a medium, still holds the spectacle of say film or television, and seeing someone on your screen attaches a celebrity like status to them. The lack of reciprocity for some of the Twitter accounts created in this experiment, might better reflect our assumptions about celebrity and tendency toward voyeurism, as opposed to forming any real argument about Tweeters.”


Twitter is an increasingly important platform for conducting social experiments, with its ability to tap-into and measure human communication and behaviour on a massive scale. As the platform grows, we expect to see businesses and academics harnessing this capability to ‘invisibly’ survey the real behaviour and reactions of people, enabling a new wave of social research and customer intelligence.

Read more about the methodology and report here.






Image from Dan Zambonini's post on the report findings.

[creative industry phd opportunities: queensland uni]

Calling for applications for the upcoming scholarship round at the ARC Centre of Excellence for Creative Industries and Innovation in Brisbane, Australia:

Queensland University of Technology
ARC Centre of Excellence for Creative Industries and Innovation (CCI)
Research Higher Degree Project Opportunities

                   
September 2009 Scholarship Round

If you are considering applying for a scholarship in the current September round to pursue postgraduate research studies you may wish to consider connecting with projects we have in development here at the Centre (CCI) and pursue your studies with us at QUT. These projects will link you with industry, government or other partners in order to enhance your networks, the applications of your research, and potentially open up career opportunities as a result of your studies.

Here are a few of the project areas to give you a taste of these opportunities:

* Innovation and sustainability in Australian games and interactive entertainment with companies such as Firemint and Infinite Interactive, and government agencies such as the Australia Council (key contact person John Banks Ph: (07) 3138 8764; email: ja.banks@qut.edu.au)

* Australia's creative engagements with Asia in such fields as design, architecture, fashion and digital media with partners such as Austrade (Key contact person Michael Keane Ph: (07) 3138 3757;email: m.keane@qut.edu.au)

* Designing creative clusters in China and Japan with partners such as Arup (Key contact person Justin O'Connor ph: 0402 395 008; email: justin.oconnor@qut.edu.au)

* International development and empowerment through ICTs in south Asia with partners such as Intel and UNESCO (Key Contact Person: Jo Tacchi Ph: (07) 3138 8178; email: j.tacchi@qut.edu.au)

* Urban regeneration and creative reuses of space with partners such as eastern seaboard city councils and state government agencies (Key Contact Person: Justin O'Connor Ph: 0402 395 008; email: justin.oconnor@qut.edu.au)

Please note the QUT closing date for scholarship applications is Wednesday 30 September for international students and Friday 9 October 2009 for domestic students.

To apply go to: http://www.rsc.qut.edu.au/future/scholarships/Annual_round_awards.jsp

If you have any questions in regards to the application process please contact Britta Froehling (Ph: (07) 3138 3716; email: britta.froehling@qut.edu.au).

General inquiries about the Centre's research agenda and supervision capacity can be addressed to the Director, Stuart Cunningham Ph: (07) 3138 3743; email: s.cunningham@qut.edu.au.

[digital media & learning]

Re-reading a report on the "digital youth" and how they use/interact with digital media. (Note this is US-based but over 800 "youths and young adults"). Some interesting take-aways:

• Most youth use online networks to extend the friendships that they navigate in the familiar contexts of school, religious organizations, sports, and other local activities
• The majority of youth use new media to “hang out” and extend existing friendships
• Contrary to popular images, geeking out is highly social and engaged, although usually not driven primarily by local friendships
• Geeking out in many respects erases the traditional markers of status and authority
• New media allow for a degree of freedom and autonomy for youth that is less apparent in a classroom setting
• Rather than assuming that education is primarily about preparing for jobs and careers, they question what it would mean to think of it as a process guiding youths’ participation in public life more generally.

[computer human interaction conference: australia]

OZCHI 2009 – Design: Open 24/7

21st Annual Conference of the Australian Computer-Human Interaction Special Interest Group (CHISIG) of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society of Australia (HFESA)

23 – 27 November 2009, The University of Melbourne, Australia

http://www.ozchi.org/

Paper submission site now open: http://precisionconference.com/~ozchi

OZCHI is Australia’s leading forum for research and development in all areas of Human-Computer Interaction. OZCHI attracts an international community of practitioners, researchers, academics and students from a wide range of disciplines including user experience designers, information architects, software engineers, human factors experts, information systems analysts, and social scientists.

The main conference will be from Wed 25 to Fri 27 Nov 2009, and will be preceded by two days of Workshops, Tutorials and a Doctoral Consortium on Mon 23 and Tue 24 Nov 2009.OZCHI will take place back-to-back with HFESA 2009: http://www.hfesaconference.org.au/ scheduled to run from 22-25 Nov 2009. The venue for both conferences is the ICT building of the University of Melbourne, 111 Barry St, Parkville.

The keynote speakers for this year's OZCHI conference:

• Bill Moggridge, Co-founder of IDEO.com
• Patrick Hofmann, Head of User Experience, Google Australia
• Yvonne Rogers, Director, Pervasive Interaction Lab, Open University, UK

Important Dates

Long papers, and workshop & tutorial proposals
19 Jun 2009: EXTENDED SUBMISSION DEADLINE
14 Aug 2009: Notification of acceptance
28 Aug 2009: Camera ready papers deadline

Short papers, industry case studies, demos & posters, workshop papers, and doctoral consortium
28 Aug 2009: Submission deadline
25 Sep 2009: Notification of acceptance
02 Oct 2009: Camera ready papers deadline

Conference Theme

The 2009 conference theme is Design: Open 24/7. Accessibility, inclusivity and dissolving boundaries are core to the Open 24/7 theme for the design of human interaction with and through digital technologies. The integration of digital technologies into our everyday life allows for a seamless transitioning between open and closed, work and leisure, public and private. Open implies participation and collaboration across traditional borders between individuals, organisations and disciplines. OZCHI 2009 provides a forum to discuss all aspects of openness, open borders, open participation, open source and open architecture. Theme-related submissions may address these topics:

• Open always-on real-time ubiquitous and pervasive designs
• Open design and universality versus situatedness, contextualisation and personalisation
• Open source for design – design for open source
• Open mind – new ideas, concepts and approaches from outside HCI
• Beyond open – never closed: design for escapism

Conference Topics

Submissions in all areas of HCI are encouraged. In addition, we particularly invite authors to address any of the following topics:

• Augmented Reality
• Context and Location Awareness
• Education and HCI
• Health Care and HCI
• Innovative Design Methodologies
• Smart Service Delivery
• Sustainability
• Universal Usability and Accessibility
• Urban Informatics
• Tangible User Interfaces
• Visualisation Techniques
• Working across Cultures

Read more about the paper/workshop submission process and conference here.

[employment: phd in digital literacy practises of immigrant youth]

The digital literacy practices of immigrant youth for the formation of identity and learning networks (0.9 fte)

This project is focused on the analysis of the everyday digital literacy practices of Moroccan immigrant youth.While the past several years have seen an increasing amount of research on the digital literacy practices of youth, within and well beyond theNetherlands, relatively little of this work to date has focused on immigrant youth and their productions and interpretations of social media (e.g. weblogs, Hyves, YouTube, texting, Twitter, gaming). This project will provide a unique contribution to the field by developing ethnographic studies of youth as they use social media and integrate it into their everyday lives in the Netherlands.

We are particularly interested in how digital literacy practices are used to produce identities and learning networks. What are the shapes and scales of new media networks for Moroccan immigrant youth? How are these new networks changing, and how are they related to social networks with longer histories (e.g., extended family, community)? How do networks formed through practices with social media support the development of local, national, and transnational identities? How do such networks also structure new social spaces for learning?

These questions are addressed in this project through ethnographic research that will be augmented with other research methods, including social network analysis and survey data.

For more information see: www.uu.nl/wireduphttp://www.academictransfer.nl/organisaties/?adm_pin=00351&fuseaction=detail&Vacature_ID=B3KTUQY9

[cfp: born digital]

Educational Insights (an online journal mostly focused on education) has a call for papers out. Due date for abstracts is 15 of June:

Teresa Dobson, Academic Editor | Michael Boyce, Managing Editor

Born Digital (Contemporary Art and Education)

"Over the last 20 years a new generation of art and literature born as electronic, or borne within distributive digital channels, has developed in tandem with new ways of defining, measuring and decoding them (i.e. reading), and along side new delivery mechanisms for pedagogical methods and practices. Born Digital wishes to explore these new artifacts and their new distributive form in the context of pedagogy and artistic practice.

A wide range of new forms wherein narrative is restructuring and redefining itself are of interest: Blog novels; E-literature; Narrative within locative applications such as google maps and geo-tagging with GPS; RSS poetics; Narrative in the context of mobile games and social media applications such as youtube, flickr and facebook. Likewise, consideration and analysis of the digital artifacts born out these mediums is a concern to us.

We are interested playing with the concept of being Born Digital, taking into account multiple meanings of Born, including: Existing as a result of birth; Having a natural or perfectly suited ability; Existing as a result of a particular situation or feeling; And keeping in mind its homonym Borne, to play with a notion of transport, of delivery, of support and endurance.

Generally, we support submissions using an original approach, which avoid excessive commentary on any canon, and we encourage efforts to express the matter within the structure of the medium itself. That being said, we expect rigorously critical investigation within the parameters of any play.

Please submit your précis by June 15, 2009 to educational.insights@ubc.ca

For more information : born digital"

[critical digital literacy]

I believe that access to technology (digital or otherwise) is not synonomous with literacy. Via Doug Belshaw I find a resonance in a passage from Allan Martin’s Digital Literacy and the “Digital Society” in Digital Literacies: Concepts, Policies and Practices. The notion of identity (biography) as a constructing and reconstructive practise plays alongside notions of digital literacy.

"Society is being transformed by the passage from the “solid” to the “liquid” phases of modernity, in which all social forms melt faster than new ones can be cast. They are not given enough time to solidify and cannot serve as the frame of reference for human actions and long-term life-strategies because their allegedly short life expectation undermines efforts to develop a strategy that would require the consistent fulfillment of a “life-project.” (Bauman, 205, p.303)

For those who do not belong to the global elite, life has become an individual struggle for meaning and livelihood in a world that has lost its predictability… Consumption has become the only reality, the main topic of TV and of conversation, and the focus of leisure activity. The modes of consumption become badges of order, so that to wear a football strip of a certain team (themselves now multinational concerns) or a logo of a multinational company become temporary guarantors of safety and normality.

In this society, the construction of individual identity has become the fundamental social act. The taken-for-granted structures of modern (i.e., industrial) society - the nation state, institutionalized religion, social class - have become weaker and fuzzier as providers of meaning and, to that extent, of predictability. Even the family has become more atomized and short term. Under such conditions individual identity becomes the major life-project. You have to choose the pieces (from those available to you) rather than having them (largely) chosen for you. In this context, awareness of the self assumes new importance, reflexivity is a condition of life; a life that needs to be constantly active and constantly re-created. And care is needed, because each individual is responsible for their own biography. Risk and uncertainty have become endemic features of the personal biography, and individual risk-management action is thus an essential element of social action (Beck, 1992, 2001). The community can be no longer regarded as a given that confers aspects of identity, and the building of involvement in communities has become a conscious action-forming part of the construction of individual identity. Individualization has positive as well as negative aspects: the freedom to make one’s own biography has never been greater, a theme frequently repeated in the media. But the structures of society continue to distribute the choices available very unequally, and the price of failure is greater since social support is now offered only equivocally."

[digital citizenship: the internet, society & participation]

Today I attended a presentation given by Karen Mossberger (Associate Professor, University of Illinois at Chicago) on Digital Citizenship: The Internet, Society and Participation. Overall the presentation was interesting however I don't think the data told us anything really new...but it certainly backs up what we already surmise. Poor people and African-Americans and Latinas/Latinos has less access to computers and the internet and this filters through to less participation in public life (voting was one of the examples). The definition of citizenship put forth was that by T. H. Marshall, basically you need to participate to be a full member of a community. Citizenship is also a "developing institution" according to Marshall. So how to develop citizenship through digital means...well, Mossberger didn't really talk much about this. She concentrated on providing statistics which empirically show the digital divide. It was pretty apalling. In this day and age (here I am, using a computer, on the 'net, blogging) there are people who are too poor, or without sufficient education which in the States seems to mean you're not white...the statistics were incredible. Of course there are poor white people but apparently they are not on the 'net because they're not interested in it. From Mossberger's research, African-Americans connected internet/computer literacy with better jobs etc....and the statistics back this up. The issue of broadband access also came up. Sure people can use computers (for a bit) at a local library etc...but interestingly enough there are certain neighbourhoods where there is no DSL access (i.e. no affordable access) to the internet...only cable. That's another deterrent. I would have been interested to know what the statistics *really* meant in terms of "going online." Was it for checking bus times? What about banking online and using SNS? Mossberger at the end suggested it was more for *entertainment* purposes....but I guess what we're looking at here is not just issues of access (of course) but issues of literacy. *How* to properly navigate that content/information. Mossberger's latest project, results to be publishes as we speak, looks at Chicago neighbourhoods and notes the use of internet. I wonder what that will show. Two things aside from the presentation that I would like to share here.

1. There were 18 people at the presentation today. 16 in the audience (then the speaker and the introducer). Out of the 18 people 7 were women. All were white.
2. Mossberger made this comment at the end re: twitter: "I don't care what movie you saw lastnight. I don't have time for this." Actually, I think twitter (like mobile 'phones, especially if we're talking about financial cost) has it's uses. Just look at how the knowledge of swine flu is spreading/trending via twitter....

Of interest to those working with participation policies, internet access, excluded groups or web 2.0 in general, check out Mez's great article at Futherfield: The Sound of Reality Lag: Versionals are the New Black. See also Mark Pesce's post on Digital Citizenship (scroll down for a comment by Mez).

[e-books for e-ducation]

A British Columbia school is trading in books for e-books:

"It’s about as big as a day-planner and much, much lighter than 300 textbooks.

Flicking from virtual page to virtual page, teacher Devon Stokes-Bennett deftly navigates through her electronic book, highlighting passages of Marley and Me. She looks right at home in this brave new world of education.

WestShore Centre for Learning and Training, part of the Sooke School District, is introducing 50 e-books to its students in an attempt to give learning a push into the digital age.

“These kids were born in the digital era. They came out of the womb knowing how to use technology,” says Daphne Churchill, principal of WCLT. “(For students), going to a building and trying to access information out of books, to copy it down ... doesn’t make sense in their world anymore.”

WCLT is the first school in the province to adopt e-books as a vehicle to deliver part of its curriculum, mainly novels for English class. The pilot project — called Teaching for the 21st Century — has also caught the attention of the University of Victoria’s digital humanities department.

Before full rollout, a few WCLT students are “beta testing” the electronic book technology — the main roadblocks are SD 62 security features conflicting with online digital libraries. The educators admit they depend on students to flush out problems. Kids are driving how the technology is used in the classroom, not the other way around, Stokes-Bennett says.

“They play around, take intuitive guesses. They just poke away at it,” she says. “We’ve got to listen to the kids to find out what works. This can’t be imposed from the top-down.”

Stokes-Bennett and fellow teacher Dawn Anderson launched the e-book project after being awarded $75,000 from the Times-Colonist Raise-a-Reader fund. Part of the grant went toward 50 Sony Reader Digital Books.

E-books are part of the inevitable evolution of education, the teachers say.

Virtual books can’t be lost or damaged, allowing more money directed into student resources (although electronic readers are about $400 each). The most basic e-book can collapse dozens of heavy textbooks into a 200 gram computer. Buying the rights to digital copies is half the price as physical books, Stokes-Bennett says.

On the learning end, e-books allow students to integrate study with online social networking, blogging and almost instantaneous access to information that has become the norm. Ultimately, it’s supposed to help students become better readers and more creative thinkers.

UVic English professor Ray Siemens, the Canada Research Chair for Digital Humanities, said the WCLT project will allow his lab to better understand how electronic media influences learning.

For instance, if a high school student reads a Charles Dickens novel, they would normally tap into associated online social networks, dictionaries, wikis and information, which enhances and encourages the learning process, he says. Take that resource away and the students are less likely to succeed.

“Kids of this generation are very intuitive. They quickly realize the benefits of working this way,” Siemens says. “I’m interested in learning from those who are emerging readers, where all the computer skills reside. This is a generation who doesn’t know the world without computers, e-mail or networking.”

It’s still early days, but Siemens says e-book technology, book publishers and the reading public have finally found an equilibrium. “E-ink” technology is easier on the eyes and more people are reading with electronic media. He expects the next generation of kids to almost exclusively use electronic reading devices.

The e-books at WCLT are black and white and have rudimentary graphics, but the educators say they are the future of education. Stokes-Bennett described it as teaching kids skills for the future instead of obsolete methods of the past.

Churchill expects to iron out the kinks and see what sets of problems emerge using e-books, but ultimately they would like to see the project expand across the district.

“This will fundamentally change the way we do education,” she says."

[2 employment opportunities: professor of new media and digital culture and research assistant in new media and education

Here are two exciting opportunities for new media and digital culture academics. One is an assistant prof. position at the University of the Netherlands, the other is a research assistant role on an exciting project to create an educational website (with the British Library).

Association of Universities in The Netherlands - VSNU

Assistant Professor of New Media and Digital Culture

University of Amsterdam

Assistant Professor of New Media and Digital Culture
(Noord-Holland), 30 hours per week
University of Amsterdam

Job description
The ideal candidate would have familiarity with the study of digital media in the humanities, and have made acquaintance with such areas as cyberculture, digital humanities, information aesthetics and visualization, Internet studies, media arts, media history, media theory and/or virtual ethnography. Internet skills are essential, as is up-to-date knowledge of Internet culture. Practical experience in working with Web-based applications (e.g., blogs and wikis) is desirable.

The new media and digital culture team is part of the Media Studies department and concerns itself with research strategies for the critical study of Internet culture. The Assistant Professor is expected to teach on both the bachelor's and master's degree levels, in courses concerned with such topics as digital journalism, digital aesthetics, Internet research methods and techniques, media archaeology as well as the politics of code.

Candidates also should have a new media research agenda.

Tasks:

• Teaching and developing teaching activities both as part of and outside the Media and Culture programme
• (Co-)supervising Bachelor's and Master's theses
• Independently conducting research in the area mentioned, resulting in contributions to leading international publications
• Co-supervising PhD candidates
• Making a contribution to raising contract and indirect funding

Requirements
Required education/skills:

• Relevant PhD degree
• Experience in research and excellent research skills, evidenced by publications in renowned international professional journals / book form
• Teaching experience at the university level and demonstrable didactic abilities and / or training, evidence by an educational portfolio
• Experience with digital and audio-visual equipment; affinity with ICT in academic education
• Team spirit and capable of functioning at all levels of more than one study programme
• Willingness to develop in a multidisciplinary capacity in order to be able to participate in multiple areas of the Faculty's curriculum
• Organisational experience and skills
• Thorough knowledge of Dutch and English; non-native Dutch speakers must achieve fluency in Dutch within two years

Read more about this opportunity here: http://www.jobs.ac.uk/jobs/XF244/Assistant_Professor_of_New_Media_and_Digital_Culture/

Closing Date: Sunday, 19th April 2009

British Library

Research Assistant

Children's Play in the New Media Age

St Pancras, London
18-month post, starting October 2009
£30,768
Ref: S&C00166

This is an opportunity to explore the theme of children's play and develop an interactive resource that will be used by audiences worldwide.

The British Library, in collaboration with the Institute of Education, the University of Sheffield and the University of East London, is embarking on a innovative project entitled ‘Children's Play in the New Media Age', inspired by the Opie Collection of Children's Games and Songs.

As part of a team of researchers you'll deliver an educational website aimed at a variety of audiences, learners and researchers. Specifically, you'll be involved in selecting, editing and digitising audio recordings, enhancing existing catalogue records and writing descriptive and interpretative content.

Excellent research and organisational skills are essential. It's likely you will have a post-graduate or equivalent qualification in an area such as Childhood Studies, Primary Education, Folklore/Cultural Tradition, Sociology or Social Studies - and you will certainly be familiar with the research output of Peter and Iona Opie.

Basic technical skills and experience of creating educational resources and/or web content are also important. However, training will be provided where required.

To apply for this unique opportunity, visit http://gs10.globalsuccessor.com/fe/tpl_britishlibrary01.asp?newms=jj&id=65150&----JOB-PREVIEW-MODE----

Closing date: 29 April 2009

Read more about this position here: http://www.jobs.ac.uk/jobs/GH546/

[o'reilly on open access publishing]

Working on a report for the IOCT which suggests our next steps in terms of our transdisciplinary journal and future publishing efforts, I've been researching ideas of open access and new models/methods of publishing. Looking beyond academic (which seems to be moving slowly...) to business and there are loads of innovative ideas and changes in publishing practise.

Our "fundamental mission" as O'Reilly says, it to pass on information...so "why would we want to lock it up?" Good question.



Tim O'Reilly makes the argument for Open Publishing @ TOC 2009 from Open Publishing Lab @ RIT on Vimeo.

Read Danah Boyd's interesting post on boycotting locked-down journals.

[ghosts in the machines]

Tracking GhostNet: Investigating a Cyber Espionage Network.

The report has now been covered in an exclusive story by the New York Times' John Markoff. Download the New York Times story here http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/29/technology/29spy.html

Researchers at the Information Warfare Monitor uncovered a suspected cyber espionage network of over 1,295 infected hosts in 103 countries. This finding comes at the close of a 10-month investigation of alleged Chinese cyber spying against Tibetan institutions that consisted of fieldwork, technical scouting, and laboratory analysis.

Close to 30% of the infected hosts are considered high-value and include computers located at ministries of foreign affairs, embassies, international organizations, news media, and NGOs. The investigation was able to conclude that Tibetan computer systems were compromised by multiple infections that gave attackers unprecedented access to potentially sensitive information, including documents from the private office of the Dalai Lama.

Who is ultimately in control of the GhostNet system? While our analysis reveals that numerous politically sensitive and high value computer systems were compromised in ways that circumstantially point to China as the culprit, we do not know the exact motivation or the identity of the attacker(s), or how to accurately characterize this network of infections as a whole. One of the characteristics of cyber- attacks of the sort we document here is the ease by which attribution can be obscured.

Regardless of who or what is ultimately in control of GhostNet, it is the capabilities of exploitation, and the strategic intelligence that can be harvested from it, which matters most. Indeed, although the Achilles' heel of the GhostNet system allowed us to monitor and document its far-reaching network of infiltration, we can safely hypothesize that it is neither the first nor the only one of its kind.

As Information Warfare Monitor principal investigators Ron Deibert and Rafal Rohozinski say in the foreword to the report, "This report serves as a wake-up call. At the very least, a large percentage of high-value targets compromised by this network demonstrate the relative ease with which a technically unsophisticated approach can quickly be harnessed to create a very effective spynet.These are major disruptive capabilities that the professional information security community, as well as policymakers, need to come to terms with rapidly."

Download the full report on 29 March 2009 at http://www.infowar-monitor.net/ghostnet/

[lecture MEDS2009: new media, new identities]

Following on from today's lecture, please feel free to answer the following questions here or within blackboard.


How similar is the “you” of the blog to the “you” in various real-life contexts?

What happens when people who know the “you” from one context suddenly encounter the “you” from another?


Two videos to watch.

One from a DMU student:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kqQoCtIv-zk

Another famous one from Professor Michael Wesch:



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLlGopyXT_g&mode=related&search=

[employment: ioct digital research fellow]

An amazing position just advertised now. Work for the IOCT and Phoenix Square.

This post is designed to initiate, supervise and promote IOCT-related digital work and research in Leicester's Phoenix Square. The postholder will advise on an annual programme of activities in the ‘cube’ and elsewhere in Phoenix Square that allows for a wide range of user experiences and reflects the best in digital work in the IOCT as well as in a national and international context. The postholder will have knowledge of venue programming and exhibiting digital art in the public realm, and will show an awareness of the latest developments and significant work in the field of digital media. He/she will undertake original transdisciplinary research in this area and will show an appreciation of the wider objectives of the development of Leicester’s Cultural Quarter.





For more info have a look here.

[employment: lecturer in digital anthropology]

I just love seeing employment opportunities that are focused on the digital (especially within humanities).

Applications are invited for a permanent lectureship in Digital Anthropology to begin 1 August 2009. The successful applicant will be responsible for, and will teach within, our new MA programme in Digital Anthropology and contribute to general teaching in Material and Visual Culture. They will carry out research in Digital Anthropology and contribute to normal administrative duties within the UCL Department of Anthropology.

Applicants should have a PhD and begun researching in the field of Digital Anthropology.

Applications from qualified candidates specialised in any area of the world are welcome.

Further particulars are available here. This appointment is available from 1 August 2009 on the UCL salary scale Grade 7 in the range £ 32,458 per annum to £35,469 per annum plus £2,781 per annum London Allowance. A UCL application form may be downloaded from the UCL website. Applications consisting of the application form, a CV, the names and contact details (particularly e-mail) of three referees and a cover letter describing the candidate's research interests and teaching expertise should all be sent electronically to the Departmental Administrator, Mrs Alena Kocourek (a.kocourekucl.ac.uk).

UCL Taking Action for Equality
The closing date for applications is Wednesday, 1st April 2009.

[going paperless = a tidier desk]

Time for some procrastinating after all my work today...by procrastinating I erm...mean work. Because, everyone knows that tidying up one's work area is really part of the job description and...a tidy desk means more work gets done which has nothing to do with procrastination...


1) What do I do with the myriad of business cards I've collected from conferences, meetings, interviews and general travels (you'd be surprised who one can meet on the train out of London). Ah ha. I'll send my clutter cards over to shoeboxed and because it is now mashed with evernote, it means I'll be able to folksonomize all my cards...hey, tagging business cards, that'll make them way more searchable.

2) Next, looking around I see my desk has a lovely collection of receipts; train tickets, that ever-necessary coffee in the morning from the station shop, museum tickets etc...I think my receipts or pixily will be able to help. Interesting with my receipts, seems that they're partnering with shops so that receipts begin as digital copies rather than paper in the first place. This is how pixily works:

3) Ok. So papers on my desk are disappearing...but what about all those wires. Ugh, mouse wire, keyboard wire, web cam wire, camera cable, power cord, external hard drive cable, speaker wires, headset cables, printer, scanner...the list goes on. I think I'll be ordering the nice blue cable turtle from, hurrah, a uk company. So this doesn't really help me use less paper...but it does help with the digital tidying.

4) Some fiction books that I won't read again, an unopened box of Christmas crackers (don't ask) and some photo frames are going to my local freecycle site. Most already off to good homes.

5) Of course, what desk would be complete without a few old mobiles scattered around? With all my important information (i.e. my memory) in my snazzy pink blackberry, I can send my old mobiles to envirofone and even make a bit of cash in the process.

6) Online banking means no more silly paper statements messing up my lovely and now visible desk!

7) I'll be using remindr to, wait for it, remind me to do things like return those pesky library books that have been sitting on my desk, all used and ready for the bookshelf. I can also use remindr when little kitty needs to be combed (trying to keep fur balls at bay), bring in the laundry, return that dvd or pay the newspaper bill...I can get reminders to my mobile, via twitter, e-mail or gtalk. Excellent stuff.

8) Instead and jotting notes while I talk on the 'phone, I'll add my scribblings directly to a google doc or perhaps if I'm driving, I'll add my voice notes (hands-free of course) as a memo to spinvox.

9) So I'm addicted to my lovely pink leather filofax (how old school, I know) and I get a good overview of my time because I can flick though pages and see weeks and months at a glance. However, a useful online tool is google's calendar where I can let friends and family add their info too so it becomes more like a community calendar. There's an app. for my blackberry too so I can sync the two, perfect.

10) Though most of my communication is done online, there are times when I need to send physical post. Handily, the Royal Mail now lets me buy stamps online which I can then print out. So, no more books of stamps sliding to hide indefinitely under my keyboard.

11) Those cds that I used to love now sound soooo 2001...I'll be sending them to music magpie. They also accept dvds and games.

That's so much better now...