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Nick

Dinner & A Movie Event at Greater Allegheny

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Dinner and a Movie Conversational Space

Media Commons hosted a new kind of event at the Greater Allegheny campus last night.  Entitled “Dinner & A Movie”, the evening get together was an effort to use a film as the starting point for a conversation with faculty and staff about digital media in the classroom.

Hannah Inzko and I started things off with a brief introduction to the evening’s main feature, PressPausePlay.  Then, participants spent 80 minutes exploring the conundrums of signal vs. noise, craft vs. radical democratization and other implications of the digital media revolution that has steeped our current cohort of students.  When everyone has the tools to make art at their fingertips (through spaces like Media Commons and at home), what does it mean to be an artist?  And how do we engage with these creators in the traditional classroom?

Conversation followed over a tasty dinner spread provided by the campus catering staff and included faculty from History, Art, Criminal Justice as well as the Library on campus and at Penn State Beaver.  Greater Allegheny’s chancellor, Dr. Curtiss Porter also made an appearance and we had a great discussion about upcoming project ideas for his Civic Engagement course.

Dinner and a Movie Invite

Dinner & A Movie was a fun collaboration between Media Commons and head librarian at Greater Allegheny, Courtney Young (to whom we are so grateful).  It’s also an offering that we’d love to try out at other campuses across the Commonwealth this coming Fall semester.  Let us know if you’re interested!

UNDO Mix

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  1. UndoCover“What’s On Your Mind? (Pure Energy)” – Information Society
  2. “Promises” – The Presets
  3. “Love Long Distance” – Gossip
  4. “Fiction” – The xx
  5. “Under The Milky Way” – The Church
  6. “Days” – CREEP
  7. “The Haunted Man” – Bat For Lashes
  8. “Recover” – Chvrches
  9. “Damaged Goods” – Yeasayer
  10. “When I Dream” – Ra Ra Riot

Download the entire playlist for a limited time.

Where the iPad Goes, Students Follow

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“Five years from now when young students come into college, the expectation is going to be a lot different than it is now. They’ll be used to using tablets in middle and high school,” Stoltzfus said. “We have to be the ones that are pushing the limits.”

– Wired (Can the iPad Rescue a Struggling American Education System?)

It’s a valid point, this. Anecdotally, when we do Mobile Media Pilot training sessions in the classroom, there are very few hands left down when we ask if students have used an iPad, iPod touch or iPhone before.  Slightly more when asked about producing video or editing on these devices, but the number is dwindling with each passing semester.  From the Media Commons point of view then, it’s really sink or swim: the students have the skills and experience with tablet computing and it’s not long before they see its absence in their classes (as at least an option) as a real limitation.

Fully charged

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Honestly, I don’t think io9 was excited enough about the supercapacitor – found by accident – profiled in this video.  Holy crud, this could change so much so quickly if it all pans out!

Slash the trash

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Wired today has presented some design concepts from a Masters thesis project by newly minted creative person, Aaron Mickelson.  The goal of the project, entitled The Disappearing Package, is to reduce consumer waste from exorbitant amounts of packaging on our day to day items.  For example:

5-NIVEA-Method

There are more interesting concepts over at Wired so check them out.  While not perfect (as pointed out viciously by a few commenters) the intention is noble and the ideas are certainly novel.  It does, though, remind me at least a little of this Portlandia sketch:

Both food for thought and food for rats…

Re-engage with your practice

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installationshot

“I think it’s possible to feel angry with the curator for not selecting a particularly excellent example of your oeuvre.” […] The game asks the question of how value is determined: not so much by the creator as by how the artwork is received by a community’s power brokers and the world at large.

Art Game by Pippin Barr aims to recreate the soul-crushing and challenging experience of creating visual work for the New York art scene.  I think it also speaks to the creator in all of us who has to interface with those that commission our efforts.

(via Hyperallergic)

Media Commons @ Teaching for Engagement Event

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A few days ago, Media Commons had the pleasure of joining the traveling IDS staff in hosting an event about classroom engagement strategies at Penn State Fayette.  I traveled with Brian Young and Heather Huhges on a blustery winter morning and was pleased to find a wonderful and thought-provoking space in the Cultural Center on campus.

Cultural Center at Fayette

Settling in among the artifacts and art, Heather started of our presentation with a quick set of introductions and then a simple-seeming question: “What’s your biggest engagement challenge?”  Faculty participants took several moments to come up with their own answers and then a conversation about real-world teaching obstacles commenced.

Introduction

We then moved into a slide deck presenting some of the engagement strategies and technologies that ETS recommends and, most importantly, how they fit with different classes and teaching styles.  Questions were encouraged and many came our way, especially during the demonstrations of tools that followed immediately after the presentation.

Conversation

With 17 attendees, the three of us were quite happy with the attendance and the discussions in the room, even through lunch, were enthusiastic and we each started a dialogue with at least two new (future) clients.  Based on our early evaluations, participants were most pleased with the communications about the event, it’s logistics and agenda and the level of relevance and interest to their disciplines.  One comment suggested that the event could have been more Meida Commons-focused, a very flattering remark that will surely result in a follow up session focused on media projects.

Thanks to all who braved the cold weather to join us at Fayette!  And special thanks to Bobby Salitrik and Cheryl Farren Tkacs who helped us get everything schedule, set up and advertised.

– Nick

Wake Up Waggle and Other Oddities

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Multi-Touch_Gestures_Gabriele_Meldaikyte_slide

“Multi-Touch Gestures” by Gabriele Meldaikyte

“Artist Gabriele Meldaikyte’s ‘Multi-Touch Gestures‘ series remakes the actions through which we interact with our smartphones. Meldaikyte turned five actions, flicking, pinching, tapping, swiping, and scrolling, into lo-fi, non-digital devices made of paper, plastic, and wood that mimic those gestures.”

This quote is from a Hyperallergic article talking about a research project called “Curious Rituals” which aims to catalogue the odd things we do with our bodies that have become an everyday part of life with technology.  From the “on the phone aimless amble” to the “iPad photographer” two handed point-and-shoot (one I’m now promoting via Mobile Media Pilot), our odd dances while interacting with devices have become ingrained in the daily experience to the point of becoming overlooked.  “Curious Rituals” and “Multi-Touch Gestures” aim to tease these behaviors out, look at them from all angles and preserve them for the future.

(via my personal blog)

Curbing bad parking

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curbtxt_610x279

CurbTXT is a sweet idea. It could turn San Francisco into a wonderland of parking good deeds, helping people avoid fines and giving them the opportunity to move their vehicles before they get towed.

Or, you know, allow you to tell the person who parks so close to your car in the parking lot that you can’t actually open the door to get in (on a 7 degree morning, no less) that they’ve kinda been a dick.  One way or the other, I suppose!

(CNet)

The Mini is a Big Deal

General Entertainment, Technology, Work by

The Media Commons Mobile Media Pilot is now entering into its seventh semester and we have been collecting a lot of great feedback from faculty who have participated and students who have completed their assignments. What has been echoed over and over again is that, while the majority likes working with the iPod touch for its ease of use, light weight and all-in-one shoot-to-publish utility, its small screen and short battery life would be improved upon.

“If only there were some device that cost nearly the same amount of money but offered more visual real estate and juice while still affording the same usability,” we thought. And then Apple’s iPad Mini came along.

While the Mini is a step down in size from the original iPad, it doesn’t lose any of the functionality of the larger device. And, when compared to the iPod touch, it actually becomes quite a step up. So we got a 10-pack and decided to do a pilot within a pilot and roll them out as part of the Mobile Media program this Spring.

iPad Minis

To keep them safe, each iPad has been covered with an i-Blason ArmorBox, which should also prove helpful for video reflections with its built in, landscape-format kickstand. The armored iPads are then packed into a Case Logic netbook shoulder bag which provides room for extra production notes and other odds and ends as well as providing a home for the Lightning cable, power adapter and MC contact card.

Five of these robust little kits will be traveling with one section of Dr. Mary Beth Pinto’s Marketing 344 at Behrend as the students do consumer research in the Erie area. (The other section of the class will be getting iPod touch devices, allowing direct comparison of experiences when we follow up at the end of the semester.) The remaining five will be journeying across the Atlantic as students in the Education Abroad program at New Kensington explore Ireland and complete video assignments that document their trips.

I’m particularly keen on finding out how students like working with the larger form factor – it’s still lightweight, but will it be too big to easily shoot video? And will the expanded iMovie interface on the iPad allow students to create richer videos? It’s going to be an interesting chapter in the Mobile Media Pilot, so stay tuned!