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Experimenting with Storytelling in Adobe Spark

Media Commons has recently started experimenting with Adobe Spark as a potential supported tool in our arsenal of storytelling technologies and techniques. I knew that if I were to dive into Spark, I’d need to have a real project to complete – but I’ve been struggling with what I would like to build on the platform that would actually be compelling.

As usually is the case, a conversation with an instructor finally prompted me to get moving in one particular direction. I decided to take my last big international trip and turn it into a Spark story in the form of a travelogue.

1500 Miles in México

Using Spark for several hours showed me, first off, that it would be entirely plausible to expect that a student would be able to complete something similar – either with their own media or images/video that they find online (even through the platform itself, in the case of the former) – in a reasonable amount of time. I was expecting, as a web designer, to find that Spark felt overly limited and would leaving me wanting more customization. Happily, I can report that this is not the case: The constraints Spark places around each of the templates and modules you can add there-in are more freeing, if anything. Instead of getting bogged down in the specifics of typography or image sizing and placement, I was able to let the tool (and its designers) take charge knowing that the finished result would look just fine. With that out of the way, I was able to focus much more on the story that I was trying to tell.

The analogy isn’t perfect, but Spark felt a bit like iMovie-izing WordPress. I’m excited to see what happens when I pilot this with 70+ Education majors at Harrisburg in just a few weeks and will report back on what the results end up being.

Back in London: DeL 2015

London, 2015

First off, a note to my future self. If you aren’t me from a point beyond this one in time, please feel free to skip ahead to the actual trip recap. Now that it’s just us, Nick-to-be, please remember that traveling to the other side of the Atlantic for both a conference and to catch up with multiple friends is great. But following it up with a 19+ hour travel day and then four trips to campuses is not really advisable. Not if you want to be coherent during the next week. And you like being coherent.

Reflections

While it was a short affair at just two days, Designs on eLearning offered an extremely rich experience for attendees at the 2015 conference in London. Having attended for the first time last year in San Marcos, Texas (to present on the Palmer Guide project), I was curious to see how DeL would adapt to the decidedly different environment.

I was not disappointed.

Sessions were remarkably well-curated and presentations built nicely off of each other. The inclusion of day-ending student keynotes was stupendous, especially since the students themselves were incredibly adroit and engaging. Conversation, across the board, was thoughtfully skeptical, prompting attendees to ask tough questions about technology access, implementation and necessity both in session and in hallways. And, speaking of hallways, the venue, Central Saint Martins was inspiring in and of itself, all of the above not-withstanding.

Some particular highlights for me included:

  • Kathryn James of Edinburgh Napier University shared her doctoral research which focuses on the adoption of technology in teaching practice. By focusing on understanding the “lifeworld” of each academic involved in her case study, Kathryn was able to get deeper into the day-to-day of faculty in the humanities. What she learned confirmed for me one of my own observations: instructors refer to themselves as “luddites” as a defense mechanism and avoid technology not just because it makes them feel vulnerable, but also because many technologies made mandatory aim to provide an administrative benefit to the institution, not to their teaching. Kathryn has synthesized these findings into a recommendation that ed-tech professionals shift focus towards “discipline enhanced technology” – basically, tools that are chosen and supported for the purpose of furthering an academics’ teaching of their field of expertise. At the same time, recognition of negative feelings caused by experience taking a back seat to familiarity with arbitrary tools needs to be always present when taking part in any conversation around adding tech to a course. This was possibly the best session I’ve attended at any conference – I seriously had to fight the urge to give a standing ovation.
  • Ahead of our presentation in the afternoon of the first day, Ann Luther presented on her own research project called ENTITY MAPPER. A cross-institutional project between UAL and Parsons, ENTITY MAPPER allows users to input coded qualitative data sets and then visually sort them in a fluid online interface. The entire project was created out of Ann’s need for a tool with a better interface for mapping her own data – and a refreshing “I’ll build it myself” attitude towards getting one. I’ve already been talking with Heather about possibly using ENTITY MAPPER to analyze We Listen stories and really think it’s got amazing potential.
  • As mentioned, the student keynotes were all excellent – in fact, possibly better than many paid keynotes I’ve encountered. In particular, Jon Clair’s presentation on the quantum nature of the creation of art in a digital/physical world was both graphically excellent as well as very thought-provoking. The audience definitely seemed to enjoy picking his brain about how to build lab and studio spaces in future. Gabrielle Edlin, on day two, shared a hard-hitting presentation focusing on equality, sexism, gender performance and harassment in the online space and how digital creativity might be used to change the conversation by flooding the multitude of information channels with the right message. I hope these sessions were recorded with the intention of making them broadly accessible as they really show what level of presenting is attainable for students. Our students included.

Of course, the real reason I was there was presenting with Heather Hughes on our work with We Listen and specifically the early programming in Pittsburgh at the Penn State Center. (If you’re just tuning in on this topic, you can start here and work your way forward through this post and then this one to get caught up.) First off, thank you to Ann for ending just a bit early while presenting on ENTITY MAPPER and to Charlotte for being a benevolent timekeeper: those extra minutes let us get through all of our video examples, of which there were many. Heather really did yeoman’s work laying out the history of the program and unpacking its ethos and implementation trajectory. Jumping in at the Pittsburgh portion, I had the pleasure of talking the attendees through the summer LArch internships and the fantastic projects Jeff and Emily put together (entirely without being mandatory, I did not fail to stress). We had fantastic questions from the audience and then many conversations with lots and lots of great feedback – from a chat with fellow Penn Stater, Rose Cameron straight through to dinner at LASSCO Ropewalk that evening.

Download the Presentation

Tourist Time

Getting back to London for something like my fifth or sixth time was pretty wonderful, especially since I finally felt confident completely in getting around. With an Oyster card in hand and not nearly enough hours to spare, I stormed through 25-30,000 steps a day worth of exploration. Heather and I started out with lunch at Inn the Park, my favorite spot and one I’ve been to on each visit followed by a stroll around St James’s and Green Parks. We also got in a visit to the Tate Modern and tracked down fish and chips before hitting the town in Soho with a new friend from Texas State University, Maia Wright.

Naturally, I also relished in the opportunity to catch up with my friends Ben and Andy, transitioning to staying at their newly renovated flat at the end of the conference visit. They graciously took me out to see Pomona at the National Theatre followed up with a requisite late dinner at Ben’s favorite, Joe Allen. And, since my time in town just happened to coincide with the arrival transplantation of yet another friend, Susan, I was able to get in a daytime visit and dinner out with her, as well.

The only downside to all of this is, of course, desperately wanting to go back – or at least get caught up again on both email and sleep. Until next time, London…

Following Up: Summer Programming at the Penn State Center

Well, somehow it’s the first day of classes for the Fall term already. Though I’m not in any way sure where the Summer went, I do know that a large part of mine was spent impatiently awaiting the opportunity to write up this blog post because it signals the (very!) successful completion of major milestones in the programming I’d established with the Penn State Center in Pittsburgh.

Preparing to Show and Listen

Intern Orientation - tailored presentation on documenting engaged scholarship projects in Pittsburgh

click the title slide to view the presentation

As mentioned in my previous post detailing the start of this Summer’s engagement with the interns who would be calling the Center headquarters, an orientation session and training kicked things off on May 26th. Since video documentation had never been part of the Landscape Architecture internships the Center had hosted in the past, I wanted to provide students with an example of what would be feasible but also very professional without a lot of technical investment. Eventually, I settled on:

By next breaking down the video into its component parts, I explained to the interns exactly what kinds of materials they’d need to collect – and why – while in the field.  We also discussed sources of additional, legal media, getting consent from interview subjects, using the Mobile Media Kits provided for their work and other related topics before breaking into a more project-specific Q&A.

After receiving a very enthusiastic response towards story documentation from all of the interns (not just the two Northside interns I’d been expecting to work with were in attendance) and their coordinators, I returned with Heather Hughes to offer a follow up workshop based on the We Listen programming on which we had been collaborating.  We Listen aims to raise awareness of difference by applying intentional listening to recording the stories of those in a given community. It also presents a natural fit for these interns as they found themselves working on projects that respond to the needs of city neighborhoods and their residents.

Turning It All Loose – and Waiting

Honestly, after training (and attending the Northside interns’ orientation session with GTECH Strategies so they could learn about their summer projects more in-depth), my main role became that of just-in-time support for the students as they worked through gathering twelve weeks of materials for their projects.

This became the very long wait. And a period of anxious curiosity. (Offset by some really great press via the University-wide news, though.)

I learned that I didn’t need to be worried in the least, though, as the last week of the summer experience arrived and I got to see what had been created by Jeff and Emily during their time with the Community Asset Mapping project in my neighborhood.

And you can, too:

These two both did an amazing job for first-time documentarians and story listeners, especially given they worked with nothing more than iPad minis and their own iPhones. I couldn’t be more proud of the work they put together.

Stories Go Trans-Atlantic

Perhaps it was a bit of a gamble, but Heather and I felt very confident about the potential for We Listen principles and practices at the Penn State Center, especially as it pertained to being piloted in these neighborhood-based engagements for summer. So we submitted a proposal to talk about the experience in London at the Designs on eLearning conference. We must have gotten that confidence across, as well as some of our excitement because we were accepted and will be departing in mid-September to present at Central Saint Martins (!).

We Listen in Pittsburgh

As before, this work at the Center is still developing – as are our slides for DeL. So keep an eye out for not just the full presentation when its finished but also updates on everything going on here in Pittsburgh in the weeks to come.

Montréal (or “my weight in poutine”)

Much like this time last year, I’ve just returned from the EdMedia World Conference, held in Montréal, Québec (providing me an opportunity to use accented characters frequently). Unlike the 2014 conference, though, I was not only an attendee this time but also a presenter since the brief paper Heather Hughes and I submitted was accepted and published in the proceedings. So, my favorite conference, my first published paper and my first trip to Montréal all in one go?

Most excellent.

For 2015, the conference was compressed (rather suddenly) to three days from four which lent a feeling of urgency to the schedule. Though they were intense days, they were also chock full of interesting sessions from presenters representing institutions around the globe.  Some highlights:

  • A different keynote speaker kicked off each morning and my favorite was certainly Tuesday’s: Jennifer Howell from Curtin University in Australia.  Her presentation focused on the sense of self one both creates and interacts with while navigating many different curated “selves” in digital spaces.  She raised the very good point that we become increasingly disconnected from our true selves as we spend all of our time tending to “best possible selves” across social media platforms and beyond. But she also called for recognition of this trend and the overarching reality of total inundation in media – both our own and others’ –  in our teaching and learning.  Her call to action for the attendees was to shift towards transmediated learning which she defined as “the convergence of popular culture, media, cultural studies, socially mediated connections, networks, technology and learning”.
  • An interesting trend across several conference sessions was commentary on working with indigenous populations. In fact, Monday’s keynote from Norman Vaughn (Mount Royal University in Canada) casually mentioned “A lot of you work with indigenous peoples…”. Another session attended was one on respectful research practices when dealing with these communities presented by a Canadian working in Australia with the Maori. There were more on the schedule, as well. While my initial reaction in the morning was “Do we?”, I actually took a lot away from that later session (presented by Michelle Eady from University of Wollongong) on research practices and realized that, yes, in fact we do something fairly similar when interacting with the diverse communities that make up the campuses and their surrounding regions.  I have a feeling the notes taken here will be called upon several times more.
  • I also really enjoyed learning about mobile and augmented reality tools in a session presented by New Zealand-based educational technology lecturer, Thom Cochrane. His was more a demonstration of the tools that have worked in his own teaching experiences – including examples of student work and hands-on opportunities – than a dry reading of a paper and was a great way to get things kicked off on Monday. I have plans to check out Wikitude for place-based projects with the Penn State Center and hope to find the right instructors at some campuses to try similar tools alongside travel abroad opportunities as they develop, especially for repeating campus trips (setting up past students’ AR map overlays would be a great resource for first time student travelers).

Oh, and that presentation. After getting used to presenting in 50-75 minute class periods, the reality of a 20 minute time slot is that it’s now so short. That is to say, the presenting was done before it even really felt like Heather and I had started. Lucking into a post-coffee break afternoon timeslot was a fantastic boon and the room was nicely filled-out and attendees were attentive. My favorite keynote speaker was even in attendance, which was a very nice surprise. Though time for questions was limited with the next brief paper presenters needing to set up while we tore down, a few good ones came our way from those in the audience and we hope to get more emailed to us once people have a chance to unpack what they learned last week (I know I’ve barely had time to do this just yet).

Download the Paper

Download the Presentation


More photos, as usual, on Flickr
 
Of course, I did get to spend some time out and about exploring Montréal, too. I kicked off a week of walking everywhere by strolling 7 miles out to Habitat 67, an amazing residential development leftover from Expo 67 (and still inhabited today).  From there, I made my first visit to Old Port and took in the life in the square in front of Notre-Dame Basilica – as well as taking in caffeine at the totally excellent Tommy café. On other outings, I found myself walking 400 steps up to the top of Mount Royal for the spectacular view, hiking a few miles over to Café Venosa, a new cat adoption center and vegan coffeeshop (that might be my favorite discovery) and eating my way through all of the poutine the city had to offer. (I can definitely say I now know where to find a three poutine “flight”, for instance…) Montréal was far more sophisticated and way more inviting than I ever imagined and I’m happy to have learned of yet another North American city that I wasn’t giving enough credit (the first being México City). Always good to know what’s in your own backyard…
 

Developing summer programming with the Penn State Center

Penn State Center

The new entrance to the Energy Innovation Center

It’s hard to believe that both Summer term is here and that it’s been nine months already since my first tour of the Penn State Center in Pittsburgh. In that time, an entire academic year has gone by, I’ve brought several colleagues out to Pittsburgh to learn more about this space, its mission and its history and have been refining initial ideas for collaboration between Media Commons (most specifically) and TLT (more broadly) and the Center with its leadership.

Just as the city has started to burst into activity after the long winter, programming opportunities are starting to take some very distinct shape for the weeks ahead. After a really productive set of visits with Shivaani Selvaraj (from Harrisburg’s campus/Philadelphia) and Heather Hughes (from ETS learning design), a focus on two lines of interaction has been established: summer internships via Landscape Architecture and We Listen critical incidence storylistening.  And now that the Center has been able to move into their brand new space at the Energy Innovation Center, it’s high time to get rolling on both.

LArch Internships + Media Commons

The Penn State Center has had a longstanding relationship with Landscape Architecture, bringing students from the University Park-based program to Pittsburgh to put their education into practice via a number of community projects.

This summer, two Penn State undergrad interns will join graduate students from Chatham and Carnegie Mellon on the Northside (my neighborhood). The team will be developing community access paths and green spaces that will connect the larger area for the first time in years. This project is an arm of the Buhl Foundation’s One Northside initiative and will be coordinated by GTECH Strategies on the ground, with the Center providing support, as well.

Documenting Engagement

Media Commons will be supporting Penn State’s interns in documenting their experiences as they work with residents, project stakeholders and others in the field on the Northside. Starting with a media production bootcamp on May 26th at the Center and continuing through developing a recording/fieldwork schedule with the students at a larger project orientation on May 27th at GTECH’s offices. Students will be provided not just tips for producing videos, recording interviews, capturing high quality audio and planning for using these materials in an effective story, but also both training on working with media production kits that include:

Media Production Kits

  • iPad mini 2 (32 GB)
  • Native Union GRIPSTER case for handheld shooting
  • iStabilizer tabMount and smartMount adapters for using iPads and phones on tripods
  • Sunpak tripods in traditional and tabletop sizes
  • Røde smartLav+ microphone for interviewing
  • SD card and HDMI Lightning adapters for capture and displaying media
  • CaseLogic tablet attaché bag for keeping devices safe and easy to transport

Use of these media kits is a really great chance to put into practice lessons learned over the years with the development, deployment and reflection upon the Mobile Media Pilot, an initiative in which I was heavily involved. In addition to this up-front training, Media Commons will also be on hand for in-the-field assistance during the summer and follow up editing support in Pittsburgh as well as at University Park in the Fall, upon students’ return to pick up work in-studio.

Ultimately, it is hoped that videos produced during this engaged scholarship opportunity are able to become powerful artifacts for inclusion in student portfolios, very clearly showing skills developed while interacting with a diverse community on a complex and unique project.  Further, the video examples will go some distance in showing the rich opportunities offered by the Center in Pittsburgh as it extends invitations for interaction to regional groups and campuses.

We Listen + Pittsburgh

Starting as a single-campus program at the Penn State Harrisburg campus (and a Mobile Media Pilot project, too), the We Listen initiative has evolved into a multi-campus program which is designed to reflect and support the unique qualities and needs of each partner community.  We Listen offers participants a chance to share their own backgrounds with others, and exposes through appropriate critical incidence prompts, the places where their experiences intersect and interact with their work at the institution.

We Listen Website

Visit the We Listen website for more information

Through the Penn State Center in Pittsburgh, Heather Hughes and I hope to leverage We Listen and learning design resources to capture the engaged scholarship moments taking place in this unique urban environment. Beginning with bringing We Listen training and principles to the LArch internships, and then continuing into further partnerships, programs and interactions, Heather aims to make storylistening and story capture key components of the Center experience.

This particular area of programming has also become the basis for a work-in-progress presentation that has been submitted to the Designs on eLearning conference committee for (hopeful) inclusion in their Fall 2015 conference, hosted at University of the Arts London.

Moving Forward

In the coming days, I will be welcoming TLT’s new senior director, Jennifer Sparrow as well as Rick Coons, senior director of information technology for Commonwealth campuses and Ryan Wetzel, manager of Media Commons to the region and a tour of the Penn State Center, graciously provided (again) by its director, Deno De Ciantis will be a large part of the visit.  Progress on the Center’s own One Button Studio installation will be a topic of conversation as well as, I hope, brainstorming for other learning space design opportunities, points of collaboration and ideas for further programming.  To say I’m excited would be a massive understatement.  (Much) more soon, I anticipate…

SimCity turns 25

One of the most influential things I did as a child was spending time on my aunt’s Mac when I’d visit in the summers.  That little LC series machine in the early 90s was my window to a lot of things that would later become a huge part of my adult life (including my current career).  But one thing that stands out as particularly memorable was a packet of 3.5″ disks that contained a game that would shape my entire worldview.  Yes, I’m talking about SimCity, the little black & white game that infected my brain starting around the age of seven – and hasn’t stopped.

SimCity 5

one of my most recent cities – because, yes, I’m still playing

Doug Bierend sat down with SimCity’s creator, the venerable Will Wright, over at the re:form collection on Medium to discuss his games and their enduring legacy on the 25th anniversary of the Sim game that started everything.  I’ve pulled a few quotes that do a really good job summing up my love for the Sim games, but the entire piece “SimCity That I Used to Know” is well worth the read.

Wright’s games—if you can call them that—were uniquely influential for a generation of kids with access to computers in the 90s. […] An imaginative player could weave their own stories […]

These toys were especially effective for kids who were at an age when the real and the imaginary seem less distinct. Watching as the little cities exhibited behavior in reaction to the player’s actions created a link between us [and] the game.

“I think that play, in a more general sense, is fundamentally one of the ways that we understand the world, the real world,” says Wright, “as is storytelling. I think the two are both kind of educational technologies, and that’s the part that interests me […]”

“Players right off the bat were forced to sit down and in fact pick their goals,” Wright says. […] “At that point, they’re also having to clarify their internal model of the way a city operates…all of a sudden your assumptions become clear to you.”

I certainly emerged from my hunched sessions with my pet cities carrying a new appreciation for the world around me.

Touring the Energy Innovation Center

View from the Penn State Center

view from the soon-to-be Penn State Center offices

I had the pleasure and good fortune to be invited along today on a tour of the Energy Innovation Center led by the incredibly informative Thomas Bartnik. My invite was proffered by Deno De Ciantis, director of the Penn State Center, a partner in the project that has been transforming the former Connelly School into a new hub for all things sustainable, forward thinking and transformative in the region. The Penn State Center will be moving offices to a wholly renovated, 11,000 square foot space in what had been teaching work shops for trade students – giving them ample room for their growing menu of programming and community outreach. As you can see above, the views are pretty great, too.

Penn State Center offices

long view of the Penn State Center offices

I was joined on my tour by two instructors from Greater Allegheny’s campus and a dozen STEM program summer students as well as representatives from another local organization interested in sustainable practices. Hard hats were required, as were reflective vests and protective eyewear, so we definitely looked the part as we made our way through a very active construction site. The entire project got started just 18 months ago and, considering the Connelly School covers 180,000 square feet, is moving at a staggering clip. So fast, in fact, that the Penn State Center expects to take control of its space in just a few more weeks.

My own interest in the Penn State Center is two-fold. Many Media Commons projects across the Commonwealth see students taking on service learning-type projects with local community groups. Having a strong ally in the Center would allow for Media Commons to connect faculty assigning these projects with non-profits and other organizations in and around Pittsburgh to create great educational opportunities. Additionally, the Center itself would be a spectacular spot to bring together the campus and wider communities for training, research and traditional teaching – while, at the same time, putting our media production resources in front of a much larger audience.

And this is just from my sphere. Other spaces and amenities coming online will include a 750+ seat auditorium, shared 100+ person conference center, workshare spaces in the PGH Green Innovators offices, sustainable systems teaching opportunities (with exposed, color coded infrastructure) and flexible events spaces throughout. The potential impact of the Penn State Center in Pittsburgh on all areas of Penn State’s mission of bringing education to the Commonwealth is absolutely thrilling.

Check out the rest of the tour photos here and stay tuned for more developments:

Suomi and back

Well, it cost me an entire suitcase full of my belongings*, but I’ve now experienced the absolutely beautiful country of Finland over an eight day stay around the 2014 edition of the EdMedia conference.

To business first:  the conference itself was pretty informative, despite having a K-12 focus that, I’ve been told, was much more prominent than in other years. “Chalk that up to the enviable Finnish education system” seemed to be the consensus:  everyone wants to learn what they’re doing so right. Sessions covered everything from collaborative flow research in educational games (probably my favorite, to be honest) to the viability of traditional assessment models in increasingly un-traditional classrooms and beyond. Other notable discussions centered on self-publishing tools and resources, 3D printing in Canadian schools and a MOOC platform that protects user data and makes all content openly retrievable and accessible. Another perk of the conference setting: seeing learning space design at the University of Tampere (the spaceport building in my travelogue is Pinni B on campus, where we had our proceedings).

 
There are, of course, a bunch more photos on Flickr, if that’s your thing.

And to pleasure: it was one being in Tampere. The city itself is smaller than Pittsburgh and infinitely walkable, a fact I exploited extensively to quickly make a mental map which served for much exploration. An interesting – and only-in-Europe – mix of old factory town architecture and modern/futuristic construction made turning each corner an unexpected but aesthetically stimulating experience. And the proximity to water gave the entire thing a coastal vibe that, when coupled with the 30ºF lower temperatures than home, added to the sense of retreat. My PSU colleagues and I even braved driving in “big animal” (as they refer to moose, elk and reindeer) country to head up to Rauma, a living, breathing medieval village full of adorably painted wooden houses.

Having visited during Midsummer – the longest days of the year – made sleeping a challenge an exercise in futility but was ideal for being a tourist with conference obligations during the days. Really, day and night are pretty artificial concepts when the sun’s just getting around to setting at about 1:00. Going in with the idea that I’d likely never see Finland again, I can definitely say I was wholly wrong: I want to go back as soon as I can and travel around even more of Scandinavia, too.

* About that suitcase: the only downside to the entire trip was having my bag “removed” from the Tampere – Helsinki train the day before flying out.  Could have done without that turn of events and the hours of phone calls, forms and fretting that followed.  I take solace in the dumbfounded looks on Finnish faces as I told my tale – a very uncommon one in a country so safe that their largest city’s police station closes up shop at 18:00 on a Friday night. 

Watch: “Do Digital Natives Exist?”

I can’t tell you the number of times that faculty (or my mother) have told me that they just don’t understand computers in the way that I do because they didn’t have them around for their entire lives.  I certainly understand the sentiment, but it really falls apart on closer inspection.  The first computer that I used (an Apple IIe) bears very little resemblance to the iPad mini I use to browse the web for videos like this one.  Those that are considered “digital natives” are forced to adapt just as much as those born before computers existed.  And they also need training and support on tools that they are unfamiliar with, just like anyone else.  So you can imagine my moment of “right on-ness” with this latest Idea Channel transmission.  What do you think?

Missing the Point Much?

From Engadget:

The Turkish Prime Minister, Recep Erdogan, has condemned social media as a “the worst menace to society” following a weekend of anti-government demonstrations across his country. He singled out the “scourge” of Twitter in particular, since protestors have been using that platform to share information and vent anger at the government.

Well, it’ll be interesting to see how long the menacing scourge needs to topple this out of touch government, won’t it?