Victoria Carrington's bl0g

Going off line for a while

2010-07-21T12:19:00.001+02:00

2010-06-28T16:54:00.003+02:00

dana boyd has just released the draft of Risky Behaviors and Online Safety: A 2010 Literature Review for public feedback. The review was produced for Harvard Berkman Center's Youth and Media Policy Working Group Initiative.

Rather than rely on the rantings of the conservative media or pandering to technoutopianism, this document draws together and synthesizes a large range of recent research focused on youth and online behavior. This is an important publication for those of us interested in digital media, digital literacies and youth online.

More on the Facebook privacy debate

2010-05-25T17:36:00.002+02:00

I've been following the Facebook privacy debate (circa May 2010) pretty closely. I'm kinda interested in issues around privacy, identity and how kids are using social networking and this has coincided with the most recent concerns about the way Facebook treats user information. Moving away from issues of selling information and buying privacy, the most thought-provoking piece i have read to date is this one by Jeff Jarvis on BuzzMachine. I am very interested in his suggestion that Facebook has been at the receiving end of a backlash because it has crossed a particular line. This is the line he has in mind:

In Facebook, we get to create our publics. In Twitter, we decide which publics to join. But neither is the public sphere; neither entails publishing to everyone. Yet Facebook is pushing us more and more to publish to everyone and when it does, we lose control of our publics. That, I think, is the line it crossed.

There is a difference between 'the public' and 'publics'. Nissenbaum's new book Privacy in Context is also interesting in this respect.

London Zine Symposium

2010-05-25T17:24:00.003+02:00

The 2010 London Zine Symposium is on this weekend. Lucky you if you are in London this weekend!

In a celebration of DIY and zine culture, the symposium brings together zones, small press writers, radical press and comic creators.

The pedagogies of disney princesses

2010-05-25T17:21:00.001+02:00

This from Boing Boing

Social Media Revolution

2010-05-25T15:52:00.003+02:00

Socialnomics pulled together a range of interesting information about social media to create this video. Watch it. Go to the website to read the lists of information from a vast range of sources.

Facebook owns you

2010-05-10T12:42:00.005+02:00

Kurt Opsahl, writing for the Electronic Frontiers Foundation, has constructed a timeline of Facebook's privacy policies. He's mapped out the shifts from 2005 to April 2010. He begins with:

Since its incorporation just over five years ago (Vic: can it only be that long?), Facebook has undergone a remarkable transformation. When it started, it was a private space for communication with a group of your choice. Soon, it transformed into a platform where much fo your information is public by default. Today, it has become a platform where you have no choice but to make certain information public, and this public information may be shared by Facebook with its partner websites and used to target ads.

Read "Facebook's Eroding Privacy Policy: A timeline" here. If you're yet feeling slightly meh about what happens to your data when you join Facebook you should read Ryan Singel's Wired article "Facebook's gone rogue" which gives you a more detailed overview of what happens to your profile information.

If any of this alarms you, then go here and read how to opt out of the bits you still can.

For an alternate view, read this. Daniel Castro has a point, "Facebook is neither a right nor a necessity". If don't like it, don't use it.

Zombie chain

2010-04-14T16:25:00.011+02:00

I am a big fan of zombies. There's something appealing about their mindless shuffling and refuse-to-stay-dead attitude. I give you: A chain of zombies!

We begin with Boing Boing (they have some great entries lately) and the Annotated Walking Dead Google Map. It maps the action from the Walking Dead Comic onto a map of the real site.

Then, we move on to Trendhunter and Undead Movie Apparel which includes living and dead movie stars. They call this one 'Zombie at Tiffany's'

Next, armed with our map and t-shirt, we move to literature and the zombie-ification of classic literature at mediabistro.com You will all be familiar with Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (and once you have enjoyed this new classic, you can move on to Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters and Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter).

As we come to the end of our chain, some zombie movie greats:

Shawn of the Dead (2004)

Slither (2006)

Zombieland (2009)

And finally, because you know you want to - a video game: Plants vs Zombies.

We are being overrun with zombies. For dead ghouls, they're surprisingly active.

Why am I so interested in zombies? They are a key theme in a range of Gothic literature and popular culture and this is an area of fascination for me at the moment. The Gothic's engagement with the past, the provisional and slippery notion of the incomplete or fractured self, constructions of the 'other' as monstrous and fearful, its fascination with the grotesque, its attention to the boundaries of life and death, space and place and claustrophobia and control. These themes have resonance.

UPDATE. See Trendhunter for a just posted list of zombie stuff: "Forget werewolves - zombies are for sure the biggest contender against vampires for pop culture domination...the undead have invaded every facet of mainstream life, from lingerie to plush toys".

More mappings

2010-04-14T10:47:00.005+02:00

More on the theme of maps and how we represent the world around us. Boing Boing pointed me towards the brilliant blog Comic Book Cartography.

This stuff is awesome!

Vampire conference in the UK

2010-04-12T13:48:00.005+02:00

The University of Hertfordshire's Dr Sam George is convening the first UK Vampire Conference 'Open Graves, Open Minds: Vampires and the Undead in Modern Culture' (16th & 17th April 2010) in response to the Americanization of contemporary vampire narratives.

Catherine Spooner (whose work i have coincidentally been reading this week - see for example The Routledge Companion to Goth & Contemporary Gothic) - is giving a keynote (yay!!) and the conference themes look spectacular: 'undeed teens', 'politics of the undead', 'undead in the new media', 'appetites of the undead' to name a few.

For more information, contact Sam George.

Feed your inner Goth

2010-04-09T20:53:00.004+02:00

I see you admiring my gothic masterpiece 'untitled'. Make your own deeply gothic poem with The Goth-O-Matic™ Poetry Generator.

It's soooo much fun.

Lots of other Goth stuff to do as well....

Mesofacts

2010-04-09T14:05:00.004+02:00

Remember when Pluto was a planet? Did you grow up being told that dinosaurs were slow, cold-blooded dull lizards (in my own defense, i never believed this one)? Remember when the moon had no water? Name the countries that make up Africa.

The things we know as 'fact' change. Knowledge is not a constant. This is very exciting albeit a little inconvenient for school text book publishers. It is also slightly inconvenient for those amongst us who fondly remember the good old days when schooling was about learning facts and useful stuff that you could demonstrate your mastery over via direct recall.

Samuel Arbesman introduces the concept of the mesofact. In the Boston Globe, he writes: "When people think of knowledge, they generally think of two sorts of facts: facts that don’t change, like the height of Mount Everest or the capital of the United States, and facts that fluctuate constantly, like the temperature or the stock market close. But in between there is a third kind: facts that change slowly. These are facts which we tend to view as fixed, but which shift over the course of a lifetime". Read the article here. Visit mesofacts.org here. I very much like the concept although i'm not sure that his example of a capital city and a mountain are good examples of facts that don't change.

Google's Model Your Town Competition

2010-04-06T12:39:00.002+02:00

Maps, geolocation, studies of place and space are all the rage. The popularity of Google's mapping software, particularly Google Earth and Google Maps (who can live without 'street view'?) are testament to our fascination with where we are in relation to everyone else.

The Google Model Your Town Competition has been running since December 2009. The competition was about creating detailed 3D models of communities (and demonstrating the power and beauty of Google's SketchUp and Building Maker). While all the entries can be seen here, the five finalist towns have been selected (Barranco (Lima, Peru), Braunschweig (Niedersachsen, Germany), Donostia-San Sebastian (Gipuzkoa, Spain), Dursley (Gloucestershire, UK) and West Palm Beach (Florida, USA) and the competition has now opened for public voting. If you're interested and want to vote, voting closes May 1 with the winner announced by May 15.

Women in science & technology

2010-03-30T10:59:00.006+02:00

Ada Lovelace worked with Charles Babbage in the 1800s and between them they laid the foundations of modern computing. Ada, in fact, wrote the world's first ever computer program (October 1842). March 24 has been set aside as Ada Lovelace Day, an international day of blogging to celebrate the achievements of women in technology and science. Ada remains one of our enduring science and technology heroines.

But, just in case you were worried that women are not getting enough acknowledgement for their contributions to science and technology, fear not. The two latest Barbie careers have been released: computer engineer and television host!

With thanks to Naghmeh for pointing out the computer engineer Barbie!

Urbanisation is unstoppable

2010-03-29T17:58:00.007+02:00

This is the Urban Age.

This ...

The newly released UN report "State of the World's Cities 2008/2009: Harmonious Cities". Its preamble: "Half of humanity now lives in cities, and within two decades, nearly 60% of the world's people will be urban dwellers. Urban growth is most rapid in the developing world, where cities gain an average of 5 million residents every month. As cities grow in size and population, harmony among the spatial, social and environmental aspects of a city and between their inhabitants becomes of paramount importance. This harmony hinges on two key pillars: equity and sustainability"

leads to this ...

Justin McQuirk's design focused blog in The Guardian outlining the role that designers must play in creating livable urban spaces. He writes, "By 2050, three quarters of us are expected to be urbanites. But here's the scary part: most of this growth is happening in places where millions of people already live in slums: Mumbai, Delhi, Karachi, Shanghai, São Paolo, Kinshasa: these are the fastest-growing cities in the world, most of them destined to have populations of more than 20 million by 2025". In additional already large cities will over-run each other, becoming 'mega-regions'. Some of these will swell across national borders. The endless city.

leads to this ...

Meanwhile, an article by Simon Romero for the NYTimes draws us back to the scene of a large-scale urban crisis: the aftermath of the Haiti earthquake. He describes the chasm between wealth and absolute poverty that has been exacerbated since the earthquake. He writes of the "surreal contrasts along the streets above Port-au-Prince's central districts. People in tent camps reeking of sewage are living in areas where prosperous Haitians, foreign aid workers and diplomats cone to spend their money and unwind. Often, just a gate and a private guard armed with a 12-gauge shotgun separate the newly homeless from establishments like Les Galeries Rivoli, a boutique where wealthy Haitians and foreigners shop for Raymond Weil watches and Izod shirts".

Equity and sustainability?

I use 'The google'

2010-03-26T14:30:00.002+01:00

Interesting, funny, slightly scary You Tube video called 'What is a browser' filmed by a Google employee.

If you find it a little worrisome that so many of us don't actually know how we get online and stay there, reading Adam Engst's TidBITS Opinion piece "Have we entered a post-literate technological age?" will make you shudder. I am as guilty as anyone. I just want stuff to work!

Identity jigsaws

2010-03-24T21:29:00.004+01:00

According to the NYT's Steve Lohr, "Services like Facebook, Twitter and Flickr are oceans of personal minutiae - birthday greetings sent and received, school and work gossip, photos of family vacations, and movies watched. Computer scientists and policy experts say that such seemingly innocuous bits of self-revelation can increasingly be collected and reassembled by computers to help create a picture of a person's identity, sometimes down to the Social Security number".

Given how many of my colleagues, relatives and young people have close online relationships mediated via Facebook this is fascinating. Read the complete article here.

Goodbye Margaret Moth

2010-03-22T09:48:00.003+01:00

Margaret Moth died yesterday. The world is smaller.

Go here to start watching "Fearless: The Margaret Moth Story" and here to read Jessica Ravitz's moving piece remembering her.

2009-01-15T02:41:00.002+01:00

World of Goo Trailer 2 Director's Cut
by 2dboy

Lately I've been really interested in some of the games coming out from indie developers. World of Goo is one example, in the tradition of games such as Lemmings or even The Lost Vikings, but with its own unique twists. I played it compulsively for a few days and could only stop once I had completed it. It's the kind of game that reminds me of Nintendo's approach to game development: it has a strong emphasis on simple yet engrossing gameplay rather than all the extras that are often packaged into a game, especially when this central element is missing. In recent months I've found Boing Boing sister blog Offworld to be a good place to keep up with the indie game scene...

5 minute interview with Dr Jennifer Rowsell

2008-12-15T22:04:00.005+01:00

The latest in our series of mini interviews with key researchers in the New Literacy Studies: Dr Jennifer Rowsell from Rutgers Graduate School of Education. Jennifer is an Assistant Professor of Literacy Education at Rutgers where she teachers undergraduate and graduate courses in multimodality, multiliteracies, and New Literacy Studies. She is all-round fabulous.

What digital technologies do you have in your handbag/satchel?
I always have my blackberry and a tape recorder just in case I suddenly have to interview someone (which has never happened incidentally).

Which one/s can't you live without and why?
Clearly, I can live without the tape recorder, but I love my blackberry.

What's your current favourite blog/website/virtual world?
I really like YouTube. I go to it often when I miss big events like Obama's Acceptance Speech or Tina Fey impersonating Sarah Palin. Also, I go onto YouTube with our daughter when we want to look up goofy things like Funny Animal Videos or Funny Fart Animal Videos.

What are you finding fascinating in relation to technology/literacy/text at the moment?
When I think about technology and literacy these days, I focus on production and such questions as (currently): how do digital spaces create communities and communities of practice? For example, what happens when CNN develops a partnership with another digital space such as YouTube - especially given that CNN is quite conservative and YouTube is quite liberal. Or, Facebook developing a partnership with Vonage or Sprint - how do these partnerships shift the content of a website? How do partnerships impact users? Or, a war videogame partnering up with The History Channel?

What do you predict will be a key issue/s in digital technologies/literacy over the next 5 years?
1. New writing pedagogy - that accounts for multiple genres and using different modes to create these genres (and maping out what goes into our thinking).
2. New reading pedagogy - that accounts for reading multiple texts at once and closing the gap between reading and writing (because there is less of a gap between reading and writing when working online).
3. Assessing what modes best fit a text and having students explain their preferred choice of mode. In other words, how do we assess what goes when we use 'new literacies'?
4. An account of the material and artifactual nature of meaning-making instead of a focus on written accounts or more traditional technologies.
5. Looking outside of education broadly and literacy education particularly to explain what it means to make meaning with contemporary communicational systems (because the marketplace creates texts, practices, and digital environments).
6. Being greedy I will do a sixth point because I believe that there is a need to understand networks of information as well so that we have far more meta-knowledge of discourses and ideologies when we make meaning with texts (this will involve geosemiotics and multimodal-discursive understandings).

Mobile-based health education

2008-12-02T03:00:00.007+01:00

I stumbled across a description of Project Masiluleke in the World Aids Day supplement of this weeks The Guardian Weekly. According to Pop!Tech, one of the funding partners, Project Masiluleke:

is a path-breaking effort that harnesses the power of mobile technology to address one of the world’s gravest public health crises. This ambitious initiative will leverage the ubiquity of mobile devices in South Africa to help fight the country’s crippling HIV/AIDS and TB epidemics.

Because nearly every South African has access to mobile phones they have become a most effective method of private mass communication. There is more detail about the project and the confluence of community health and mobile technology at The Praekelt Foundation...

5 minute interview with Professor Jackie Marsh

2008-11-20T00:18:00.006+01:00

The second of our 5 minute interviews with key people in the field of digital literacies. Meet Professor Jackie Marsh. If you haven't read Jackie's work, you need to.

Jackie is Professor of Education at the University of Sheffield, UK, where she is involved in research exploring the relationship between young children's use of popular culture, media and new technologies and their literacy practices both in- and out-of-school. Her blog is:
http://digitalbeginnings.blogspot.com

What digital technologies do you have in your handbag/satchel?
iPhone
USB pen drive
Digital voice recorder
Creative Vado Pocket Camcorder

Which one/s can't you live without and why?
iPhone - music, email, web access, maps with GPS, alarm clock, phone, voicemail and txt messages all in one piece of Apple-produced hardware - need I say more? I only wish it made tea...

What's your current favourite blog/website/virtual world?
Second Life - I find it a creative environment for teaching, research and, increasingly, art.

What are you finding fascinating in relation to technology/literacy/text at the moment?
I am currently researching young children's use of virtual worlds (Club Penguin and Barbie Girls) and I am fascinated by the integration of literacy, identity and play in the children's use of the worlds. This combination is of course important in 'RL' also, but the affordances of virtual worlds do enable the creation of potentially interesting texts e.g. machinima, which not only combine modes in skilful ways but serve as a key identity work and are used ritualistically to promote social cohesion in-world.

What do you predict will be key issues in digital technologies/literacies over the next five years?
This is an interesting question for me at the moment as I have been involved in writing a paper on this with Victoria Carrington for the Futurelab/DCSF 'Beyond Current Horizons' project. In the paper, we have predicted the following as being key issues: ubiquity (which can mean access to texts at point of need); convergence (leading to new kinds of texts); personalisation (intensifyng the focus on identity and self-representation in textual practices); mobility (enabling meaningful textual engagement across formal/informal learning spaces). In my own area of interest, early childhood literacy, I think a key issue will be the acceleration of the blurring of boundaries across online and offline, 'real' and 'virtual' spaces - this is already occurring with, for example, the use of 'clickable' technologies linked to virtual worlds such as 'Pixie Hollow'. There are many implications for early literacy in the development and I look forward to exploring them.

Game review: Ninja Gaiden II

2008-11-17T08:11:00.007+01:00

Game Reviewed by Tom

− Title: Ninja Gaiden II
− Platform: Xbox 360
− Creator: Team Ninja
− Company: Tempco
− Genre: Action/Adventure
− Players: 1
− Rating: 4/5

“In this action packed sequel to Ninja Gaiden you are Ryu Hayabusa, the ultimate ninja action hero. Destroy everything in your path as you embark on a quest to avenge your clan and prevent the destruction of the human race from a brutal and relentless enemy.” Doesn't that just say it all...

When you first turn on you 360 and pick up your controller you find yourself entering the life of Ryu Hyabusa, quite literally a modern day super ninja, while playing you are directed through a miriad of visually appealing levels, each with their own intrigue and dangers... Venice and Rome have become home to lycanthropes whilst Tokyo has become infested with black spiders and New York with fiends, so I guess you could say that it's your responsibility as a ninja to remove these threats to humanity. The combat control system in NGII (Ninja Gaiden II) is quite simple and thus allows the player to perform spectacular combos that blur your blade, send showers of blood and sparks through the air and leave you foes twitching and almost always limbless. And as if the intense fighting isn't enough to create suspense and drama throughout the plot, music is integrated so very well, offering much and aiding in the creation of a quickened pace and pulse. The visual quality of the movie sequence's is quite impressive with each one bringing I guess a break to the fighting, a moment to reflect on the story and some time rest your thumbs and be amazed at the detail of NGII's character design. Where would a ninja be without the teachings of ancient scrolls? In short... lost, you are constantly presented with the opportunity to read further into the plot and characters whilst progressing though the story. This information takes the form of scrolls and is quite interesting and helpful. Patience is a virtue as throughout the game levels become longer, enemies become harder, bosses become craftier and stronger and just plain cool. More often than not you will find yourself overwhelmed by copious quantities of foes, sometimes you will succeed, sometimes you will be devestated by them, however patience and reasoning will aid you well in your quest.

Anyway NGII with its flashy effects, intense fighting, impressive movie sequence's and enticing story gets a 4/5 from me... Great game.

5 minute interview with Dr Julia Davies

2008-11-17T05:00:00.004+01:00

Sam and I are conducting 5 minute interviews with interesting and famous people working in the world of digital literacies. Our first interview is with the wonderful Dr Julia Davies from the University of Sheffield.

For more, visit her blog:
http://digital-literacies.blogspot.com/

What digital technologies do you have in your handbag/satchel/pocket?
1. Flip video camera
2. Sony cybershot
3. Mobile phone – has camera and mp3 palyer built in
4. Ipod touch– wireless connection; music player. Dvd player; stores images
5. Palm pilot – has diary, addresses, camera, note book & memo pad
6. 2 USB memory sticks

This is just in my handbag – I also always take my laptop to and from work.

Which one/s can't you live without and why?

This is VERY difficult as different ones are more important at different times. But on balance, it is the least technologically advanced item, and also the oldest. It is my palm pilot – because this is my diary and tells me what to do, where to be all the time. I can take a picture with it if I have not got my camera – but would rarely use it for this. I would rather use the ipod touch for my diary– but I cannot synchronise that diary software with the one work uses and so I stick with the Palm pilot. (My University likes to keep track of our whereabouts at all times and they do this through an electronic calendar – I suppose that actually tagging us might seem a wee bit too invasive of privacy). So the diary is not just a personal technology it is also about networking – people being able to book my time.

What's your current favourite blog/website/virtual world?

I am glad you specify ‘current’ as it changes a lot … but at the moment I love YouTube as I like to see the wide variety of people using this space for so many different reasons. To me it seems to house the most diverse set of users – and that is without even seeing the probably even greater diversity of those who merely view rather than upload or comment.

What are you finding fascinating in relation to technology/literacy/ text at the moment?

Hmmm difficult to pick out the MOST fascinating – but I am thinking a lot about what motivates people to participate online and am interested in how more and more groups of people as seeing it as including them – there is much less of a notion that there are those who do and those who don’t go online. People are beginning to incorporate the web into their lives and seeing it as part of what they do normally – whether it is ebay, instant messaging, facebook stuff or Youtube. People are seeing it as a social resource and as a channel of communication. In relation to this I am staggered at how often speak out against the dangers of our use of the Internet – so that whole more and more people are realising the usefulness of the Internet as a way of facilitating normal activities, this is triggering fears around social change. I think it is odd as in fact people seem to be using the Internet really to make what they normally do more efficient. I see all these issues as revolving around ideas about literacy as a social practice and about identity.

What do you predict will be a key issues in (digital technologies/literacy/) over the next 5 years?
I think issues are likely to include:

The need to educate people for critical literacy – managing vast amounts of data and being able to wade through it and read it carefully;
Convincing schools that the above is the case;
I think that more and more publishing companies will supply schools with software that can be run separately from the Internet and provide a ‘safe arena’ – equivalent to reading schemes of the past – these may not be all bad, but are not the best way forward in my view;
The Internet is getting increasingly ‘busy’ - different spaces will increasingly acquire social meanings that will attract different types of people to them – and which will have ways of gatekeeping to ensure that the ‘right people’ get in – I think we will see this increase and a different kind of digital divide happening online – to do with social and cultural capital; We will need to educate for this. What do I mean? I see that for example, Bebo and Facebook attracts different demographies – these are usually based on local ‘real world’ social groupings – such as who at my school uses facebook – who do I want to be with? This influences choice of software and then locks you into groups – unless you decide to keep up a range of gateways into your wider social frame. As these networks grow (and as the young Bebo users grow up) these I think will translate and transfer into career groupings and so on. Probably class based? At the moment you can already choose to pay to use software that is also available free through other providers – e.g. you can have a free blog, or pay for one. Obviously paying is a simple form of gatekeeping. I think this will be one way of gatekeeping, but then there will also be password protected spaces that will be powerful to belong to. This is different to the utopia some have described, seeing the internet as a great leveller and as a way of hiding identities and so on.

International Conference on Popular Culture and Education in Asia

2008-09-17T14:25:00.005+02:00

Go if you can. It will be major.

The First International Conference on Popular Culture and Education in Asia will be held at the Hong Kong Institute of Education 11-13 December 2008.

The conference will bring together researchers from a variety of disciplines to focus on the implications of intra-regional flows of popular culture in East and Southeast Asia for educational practices and youth development. We welcome papers that elucidate changing patterns in Asian popular culture as well as papers that explore implications and applications of youth engagement with popular culture inside and outside the classroom.

We welcome researchers and scholars from Sociology, Cultural Studies, Media Studies, Anthropology, Language and Literacy, Music, Visual Studies, Asian Studies, Education and other disciplines that take popular culture seriously to join us in this event.

What are you doing?

2008-09-17T14:07:00.007+02:00

A number of interesting articles/blogs about the social web and the details of daily life lately. Clive Thompson writes in the NY Times about the 'Brave new world of digital intimacy' and the ambient awareness provided by microblogging services like Twitter (what are you doing?) His articles describes the process where "each little update — each individual bit of social information — is insignificant on its own, even supremely mundane. But taken together, over time, the little snippets coalesce into a surprisingly sophisticated portrait of your friends’ and family members’ lives, like thousands of dots making a pointillist painting."

Joe Krauss of Google has also been blogging about the future of the social web, observing that it makes it "easy to share the small stuff -- to make it effortless and rebuild that feeling of connectedness that comes from knowing the details".

Interesting stuff.

Five pedagogies, a thousand possibilities

2008-09-11T03:44:00.004+02:00

Ignorance is not a concept usually associated with the work of teachers (or at least with teachers that want to stay in work). But as the philosophy of Jacques Ranciere (see The Ignorant Schoolmaster: Five lessons in intellectual emancipation) and Emmanuel Levinas has been increasingly taken up in critical pedagogy debates, ignorance and unknowing have become concepts of increasing theoretical interest. To my mind, unknowing, nonknowledge, or ignorance are essential concepts for theorising pedagogy in our current moment. That's why I've been enjoying Five pedagogies, a thousand possibilities by Michalinos Zembylas, which begins with an accessible and insightful meditation upon pedagogy and unknowing, before moving on to consider other themes such as silence, passion, desire, forgiveness, and reconciliation. It's well worth checking out...

Commoncraft: Explanations in Plain English

2008-08-24T18:26:00.004+02:00

Commoncraft create short and simple videos that make "complex ideas easy to understand". They use a whiteboard and paper cut-outs to demonstrate how things work. The site includes a guide to the US presidential elections, surviving a zombie attack and how to use Twitter.

The guide to wikis (Wikis for dummies) is very useful. See it here.

War on Terror board game

2008-08-16T08:26:00.005+02:00

So much to analyze, so little time.

The Zombie Survival Guide

2008-08-12T13:42:00.005+02:00

This has got to be one of the BEST book websites I've ever come across. Go and have a look because..

1. Zombies are way cool! 2. The site is brilliant. 3. Did i mention that zombies are cool?

The book is The Zombie Survival Guide: Complete protection from the undead by Max Brooks and it has spawned a range of fan creativity and merchandising.

Well played Random House!

Red the Robot

2008-08-12T08:33:00.002+02:00

This article in The Guardian directed me to Red the Robot.

I grew up with the fantasy of robots who would become an integral part of our daily lives: The Jetsons, Astro Boy (aka Tetsuwan Atomu), the robot in 'Lost in Space'. I remember reading 'I, Robot' when i was a teenager.

In none of my fantasies did the robot sit down and teach me phonics. Robots were making lives safer, guiding young adventurers through the galaxy, forcing me to reconsider the moral code of my culture.

...i'm just saying...

2008-08-06T02:24:00.003+02:00

I've been following the work of Genevieve Bell of late. Brilliant stuff. Genevieve is a cultural anthropologist working for Intel. I've been particularly interested to hear about her research across 100 households in 19 cities in seven countries in Asia and the Pacific focused on how people in these diverse geographic and cultural locations use technology. Emerging technologies allow both greater connection to a broader community and an increased localization across distances - an interesting complexity that has implications for rapidly diversifying nations and communities.

If you're working with digital technologies, new literacies/media and haven't already checked out her work, you should have a look. My favorite podcast with her is located here. Links to further Genevieve Bell resources can be found here and if you're in New York in mid-September you can hear her speak here.

Digital Futures: The internet in Australia

2008-08-06T02:16:00.004+02:00

The ARC Centre for Excellence for Creative Industries and Innovation has released a new report on the use of the internet in Australia. The report captures a snapshot of how the internet is being used, where and by whom. Important reading.

Download it here.

Schooling and virtual worlds

2008-08-04T09:04:00.002+02:00

An interesting story unfolded on Paul Verhoeven's blog last week, which he also related on Triple J's breakfast show (the story starts two thirds of the way through the mp3).

Basically, a secondary school student playing World of Warcraft stole an item from his 'guild' (a group of players who work together within the game). Many of the players in the guild were adults that play the game very seriously, and they took exception to the theft of the rare and valuable 'Warglaive of Azzinoth' (pictured). So much so, in fact, that one of the guild members wrote a letter to the principal of the student's school, asking that the student be held to account for his actions. The letter drew analogies to the action that would be taken if the student, as representative of the school, were caught stealing in the 'real' world. Allegedly, the principal took action, the parents of the student were contacted, and the item was returned.

To my mind, this is an interesting response from the school: in this instance virtual worlds were considered to be a legitimate space of social interaction, with which the school should be concerned, and not 'just a game'. While student behaviour in virtual worlds may already be a subject of curricular and pedagogical focus in some places (especially in terms of online safety), this seems like a different kind of 'whole school' recognition, which frames these worlds not just as spaces in which students are vulnerable, but ones in which they must also be responsible and accountable.

Feeling your way through urban space

2008-07-30T06:48:00.006+02:00

Erik Conrad's 'Palpable City' project allows you to 'feel' your way through space, by augmenting our optical sense with tactile stimulation:

"Palpable City is a site specific installation that transforms an everyday walk through the city into an exploration of a new tactile landscape. Participants wear a vest outfitted with a GPS, some custom hardware and software, and an array of vibrotactile actuators (vibrating pager motors) that are sewn into the vest. As they walk, they encounter varying vibrotactile patterns--changes in rhythm, location or intensity--dependent upon their location. The tactile 'textures' change in relation to the spatial form of their immediate environment. As they walk, and the shape of the 'empty' space around them changes, participants experience new rhythms of the city as tactile sensations generated by the vest."

Erik has designed a system that maps the tactile sensations produced as you walk through a space. His Palpable City page has a range of different maps that represent these sensations, including an interactive one which can be used to follow a particular walk through a cityscape, and to track the optical and tactile perspectives produced by this space.

New lecture from Manuel DeLanda

2008-07-25T05:15:00.005+02:00

The European Graduate School (EGS) posts a great range of lectures, seminars, and interviews on YouTube. I've just noticed that a new lecture from one of my favourite thinkers, Manuel DeLanda, has been posted. The talk is titled 'Materialism, Experience and Philosophy', and while I haven't had a chance to watch all of it yet, DeLanda is always worth listening to for his engaging discussions, and further development, of themes found in the work of Gilles Deleuze.

More lectures and seminars from the EGS (and the further 11 parts of this one) can be found here.

ALEA 2008 Presentation

2008-07-19T09:33:00.004+02:00

The 2008 ALEA/ATEA National Conference was held in Adelaide last week. I was privileged to be invited to give a presentation on my work around digital literacies. I spoke mostly about research I've done on social networking sites and the kinds of practices with text associated with them.

Here are the slides

Alea2008

view presentation (tags: literacy digital text)

2008-07-08T07:46:00.004+02:00

Mark Iwinski's photography is featured in the first volume of new the online journal inflexions. It offers an interesting perspective on changing urban landscapes.

"[Mark's] current work entitled This Was Now and the ghost buildings in Terrains of Absence use a photo-performative version of ana-photography. They reveal losses to the architectural fabric of our cites through urban renewal and create a spectral slippage between the past and our current sense of time and place."

More photos here.

Jackie Marsh @ UniSA in June

2008-06-28T06:42:00.004+02:00

The fabulous Jackie Marsh is presenting a seminar at UniSA. Come if you can.

Professor Jackie Marsh
Her research interests include the role and nature of popular culture, media and new technologies in young children’s early literacy development, both in and outside school. She has conducted research projects exploring children’s access to new technologies and their emergent literacy skills, knowledge and understanding, and has also examined the way parents/carers support their engagement with media and technologies. A recent project was Digital Beginnings, a national survey of 0-6 year olds in the UK and their ruse of popular culture, media and new technologies in the home and early years settings. Professor Marsh has conducted a number of research projects that have explored how creative and innovative teachers have responded to the challenges of the media age, and has written a number of papers considering the way in which access to and use of media and technologies in the early years are gendered in nature. She is also interested in the interaction between digital literacy, gender and identity, and has examined the digital literacy practices of young girls.

Ulrich Beck in the Guardian

2008-05-28T06:32:00.001+02:00

For those of you interested in the work of Ulrich Beck, you might be interested in this article in The Guardian.

Nation-state politics can only fail the problems of the modern world

Europe is Europe's last remaining realistic political utopia. But Europe remains to be understood and conceptualised. This historically uniqueform of international community cannot be explained in terms of the traditional concepts of politics and the state, which remain trapped in the straitjacket of methodological nationalism. If we are to understand cosmopolitan Europe, we must radically rethink the conventional categories of social and political analysis.

Just as the Peace of Westphalia brought the religious civil wars of the 17th century to an end through the separation of church and state, so too the separation of state and nation represents the appropriate response to the horrors of the 20th century. And just as the secular state makes the exercise of different religions possible, so too must cosmopolitan Europe guarantee the coexistence of different ethnic, religious and political forms of life across national borders based on the principle of cosmopolitan tolerance. More here....

Virtual Worlds Conference

2008-04-28T06:21:00.002+02:00

April was a great month. I got to go to NYC to the Virtual Worlds Conference. Fabulous!

I was looking to learn new stuff and hear new people and this is precisely what i got. Really interesting presentations from a range of perspectives about new and emerging virtual worlds directed at kids. The kids' vw market is astronomical and growing.

They're a traveling feast - next one is in LA in early September. Highly recommended.

Meet Squidley...

2008-01-23T09:39:00.000+01:00

...my new KinderGoth from Bleeding Edge. Squidley likes bed bugs and dust mites (keeps them as pets), practical jokes, salt water taffey and surround sound. Dislikes being ignored (when on a blind date), meatloaf and rocky road ice cream.

What's not to like??

Transliteracy

2008-01-21T06:28:00.000+01:00

First Monday (one of the first open access, peer-reviewed, online journals devoted to the internet) has published a paper on the concept of 'transliteracy'. Written by Sue Thomas, Chris Joseph, Less Laccettti, Bruce Mason, Simon Mills, Simon Perril and Kate Pullinger the abstract notes:

Transliteracy might provide a unifying perspective on what it means to be literate in the twenty–first century. It is not a new behavior but has only been identified as a working concept since the Internet generated new ways of thinking about human communication. This article defines transliteracy as “the ability to read, write and interact across a range of platforms, tools and media from signing and orality through handwriting, print, TV, radio and film, to digital social networks” and opens the debate with examples from history, orality, philosophy, literature, and ethnography.

Read the full paper 'Transliteracy: Crossing divides' here - Vol 12, Number 12, December 3 2007.

Move over 'digital literacies'!

Google Maps Mania

2008-01-20T06:13:00.000+01:00

Mike Pegg runs this cool blog. It keeps an eye on new mashups and tools using googlemaps : "An unofficial googlemaps blog tracking the websites, mashups and tools being influenced by googlemaps".

Some are more serious than others.

Map e-cards

2008-01-19T05:31:00.000+01:00

Like pretty much everyone i know, i am obsessed by maps (which is interesting given that i get lost everywhere i go and can't follow a street directory to save myself - but that's another story).

I have found these e-cards based on maps at World of Experience. How cool! Admire, if you will, 'I hate you' and 'I want you'. There are a range of others designed to capture less polarizing moments, but i have to admit to loving the frozen wastelands of hate and despair.

If you're interested, you can create your own, customized map online.

Body Tattoos

2008-01-17T04:19:00.000+01:00

There's an article in the Sydney Morning Herald this week about 'mummy tattoos'. When middle class mothers start wandering en masse into tattoo parlors you know something is going on.

What is this trend to permanently ink your body about?

I wonder, as I do, if it's movement into the mainstream is in some way linked to the increasing trend towards DIY biographies and reflexive self-narratives argued by Anthony Giddens and Ulrich Beck? Are we incorporating our material bodies into our self-constructed narratives? I've just written a paper about reading graffiti in terms of the construction of self-narratives in urban sites and now the connection between place-based narrative and writing onto our bodies is increasingly fascinating.

For more pix of the Beckham's various tattoos - go here.

2007 Horizons Report

2008-01-16T04:07:00.000+01:00

The Horizons 2007 Report (New Media Consortium & Educause Learning Initiative) has been released. If you haven't already seen it, you might find it useful to have a look.

Among other things, it reports on six areas of emerging technology that it predicts will have significance for higher education over the next one to five years (read the report to see what they are!). It also identifies six key trends for higher education:

The environment of higher education is changing rapidly (duh..)
Increasing globalization is changing the way we work, collaborate and communicate (again...duh)
Information literacy increasingly should not be taken as a given (getting more interesting now)
Academic review and faculty rewards are increasingly out of sync with new forms of scholarship (now we're talking)
The notions of collective intelligence and mass amateurization are pushing the boundaries of scholarship (yes....!!)
Students' views of what is/not technology are increasingly different from those of faculty (Yes, yes!! How long have i been saying this??)

Download the pdf here

Ulrich Beck in The Guardian

2008-01-16T03:48:00.000+01:00

Ulrich Beck has written a piece for The Guardian. Reflecting the arguments of his recent book "The Cosmopolitan Vision",
the article begins:

Europe is Europe's last remaining realistic political utopia. But Europe remains to be understood and conceptualised. This historically unique form of international community cannot be explained in terms of the traditional concepts of politics and the state, which remain trapped in the straitjacket of methodological nationalism. If we are to understand cosmopolitan Europe, we must radically rethink the conventional categories of social and political analysis.

Follow the link to The Guardian to continue reading.

2007-12-22T05:07:00.001+01:00

Merry Christmas and best wishes for a fabulous 2008 and may the cubby guy in the red suit bring you joy (as well as some cool gadgets)!

Times of the signs

2007-12-09T05:55:00.000+01:00

Reading - and loving - this new book by Eric Sadin. In it he outlines his work on "the nature and impact of the sudden contemporary transformation of our relationships to text and to signs, brought about notably through the dual expansion of digital and telecommunication networks".

Visually stunning, carried out mainly in Kyoto ... it is stunning. If you are interested in photography, digital communication, urban theory, semiotics and information this is a must-read.

Go here for an interview with Eric Sadin.

Paul Carter and Julian Sefton-Green seminar

2007-11-15T09:27:00.000+01:00

We're establishing an international seminar series called Place, space, text based in the Hawke Research Institute for Sustainable Societies and the Centre for Literacy, Policy and Learning Cultures (University of South Australia).

The first seminar (December 3, 2007) features Professor Paul Carter from the University of Melbourne and A/Professor Julian Sefton-Green, an independent educational consultant based in the UK.

Come if you can. Will be an excellent event.

I'm making a list and checking it twice...

2007-11-13T07:54:00.000+01:00

How many literacies does it take to suck all the meaning from the term??

Let's start to count:

digital literacy, technological literacy, computer literacy, financial literacy, emotional literacy, economic literacy, social literacy, mathematical literacy (huh?), religious literacy, spiritual literacy, cultural literacy, dance literacy, water literacy, environmental literacy, science literacy, engineering literacy, health literacy, consumer literacy, physical literacy, psychological literacy, agricultural literacy, safety literacy, medical literacy, media literacy, music literacy, drug literacy.

Any more? How about knitting literacy??

Monstro...the menace from the murky depths

2007-11-13T07:44:00.000+01:00

Go here to read more. These are absolute classics from the late 1950s and very early 1960s. From 'I was face-to-face with the creature from Planet X' to 'I am Robot X', the works of Jack Kirby (who went on to create Captain America, the X-Men, Fantastic Four and the Hulk) are fabulous. Each one is a gem.

i told you so...

2007-11-12T13:14:00.000+01:00

...the PC is dead (well, ailing, anyway).

Sydney Morning Herald (November 5, 2007) reports:
Masaya Igarashi wants $US200 headphones for his new iPod Touch, and he's torn between Nintendo's Wii and Sony's PlayStation 3 game consoles. When he has saved up again, he plans to splurge on a digital camera or flat-screen TV. There's one conspicuous omission from the college student's shopping list: a new computer. The PC's role in Japanese homes is diminishing, as its once-awesome monopoly on processing power is encroached by gadgets such as smart phones that act like pocket-size computers, advanced internet-connected game consoles, and digital video recorders with terabytes of memory.

PC sales are sliding, mobile phones and other mobile devices are increasingly embedded in our everyday lives.

I don't have a desktop anymore (and haven't for over 7 years). Do you?

i LOVE this

2007-11-06T07:21:00.000+01:00

Graffiti Archaeology is amazing. We are all interested in space, place and time these days. My own interests are also focused on graffiti at the moment.

Put these things together and then find Cassidy Curtis' Graffiti Archaeology - a project developed to map graffiti-covered walls as they change over time.

The site creates a collage of photos taken of the same place by multiple photographers. It creates a visual time line of each site.

It's pretty wonderful.

Would the world be a different place if Washington DC had been called Feili Neivul

2007-11-04T05:36:00.000+01:00

In the 19th century, Stedman Whitwell was "deeply troubled by the will-nilly way that cities and towns were named in America". It seems that the plague of Washingtons and Springfields was too much to bear. He proposed a "Rational Geographical Nomenclature".

In contemporary USA there are apparently Springfields in 34 different states (5 of them are cities with populations over 50,000).

More here.

Also at MapRoom.

A minor history of giant spheres

2007-11-04T05:23:00.000+01:00

Cabinet magazine contains some fabulous, quirky stuff. A minor history of giant spheres by Joshua Foer has just been published in the Fall 2007 edition. The 'minor history' begins in 1664 with the world's first modern planetarium and ends with an ode to the Star Wars Death Star constructed in the United Arab Emirates.

The magazine itself is a joy. If you don't already read it regularly, you should treat yourself.

This from the New York World's Trade Fair in 1939. It contained a Utopian garden city of the future called "Democracity". Makes me feel quite melancholy.

Forgive me blogger-god for I have sinned...

2007-10-27T06:32:00.002+02:00

...it has been a long time since I have blogged.

Instead of blogging, I have been in Canada visiting with the University of Alberta. My visit was hosted by the Faculty of Education Technology Council and was arranged by the wondrous Joyce Bainbridge. I got to hang out with people like Mike Carbonaro and Margaret Mackey, give some (well, a lot..) of talks, see Jasper National Park (and sundry wild life), go to ice hockey, talk to teachers and administrators. Totally brilliant!

My thanks to the kind and generous admin, IT and academic staff across all the departments that make up the Faculty of Education @ UoA. Very special place, very special people.

Photo is of Margaret Mackey and Joyce Bainbridge taking a moment to admire the glorious scenery of Angel Glacier in Jasper National Park.

The secret life of poster boards II

2007-10-27T06:25:00.000+02:00

And then there were none. Where do all the flyers go? Who decides when the board is too full?

Veeeery intereeesting...

Imagined geographies and graffiti

2007-09-17T13:14:00.000+02:00

For the first time in human history more of us now live in urban sites than rural, amid growing diversity and struggle for access to diminishing resources and political power. Henri Lefebvre noted that,

The urban space of the street is a place for talk, given over as much to the exchange of words and signs as it is to the exchange of things. A place where speech becomes writing. A place where speech can become ‘savage’ and, by escaping rules and institutions, inscribe itself on walls.

It seems to me that the autobiographical writings, the scrawled messages, and the more ambitious art projects written on the spaces of the urban are important, albeit often unsanctioned, texts. I'm finding graffiti in all its forms very interesting, particularly in relation to issues of public space and Said's notion of imagined geographies.

The secret life of poster boards

2007-08-17T08:04:00.000+02:00

One week, they're sad and empty

and the next they're bustling and overcrowded.

Where do all the flyers come from? Where do they go?

State of Play V: Building the metaverse

2007-08-17T06:46:00.000+02:00

A collaboration by Harvard Law School, Yale Law School, New York Law School, Trinity University and Nanyang Technical University is presenting the 2007 State of Play Conference.

According to the conference blurb:

The popularity of virtual worlds in Asia is phenomenal. From Thailand and Malaysia to Indonesia and the Philippines, the Asia Pacific region's on-line gaming market generated approximately $1.4 billion in annual revenues last year – a figure that is expected to reach $3.6 billion by the end of the decade. Much of this growth will be propelled by 180 million Chinese Internet users, the majority of whom will play on-line games.

It is being held at Marina Mandarin, Singapore - August 19-22.

Take note.

Missing in action

2007-08-15T10:48:00.000+02:00

I've been missing-in-action for a few weeks. I've been going to various events. One of the most interesting was hosted by the Gippsland campus of Monash University (and most particularly Margaret Somerville). The one day symposium Landscapes and Learning brought together a cross-disciplinary audience and featured presentations by, amongst others, my colleagues Barbara Comber, Helen Nixon (pictured here preparing for their seminar), Debra Hayes and Alan Mayne as well as well-known scholar and artist Paul Carter. An interesting day. Lots to think about. Look out for the edited collection that will follow.

I've also been reading this fabulous and intensely thought provoking book by Paul Gilroy.

Street Art Film Festival in New Jersey

2007-08-15T07:48:00.000+02:00

Trenton, NJ is hosting the Street Art Film Festival celebrating public art from around the world. The work of the artists showcased is challenging ideas about who owns public spaces and what they can be used for.

Find it here:

Strange Maps

2007-07-17T04:01:00.000+02:00

Increasingly fascinated (like everyone else) by notions of place, I have been really enjoying You are here: Personal geographies and other maps of the imagination (Katherine Harmon, 2004).

Those very personal mappings and a growing appreciation of the beauty of maps led me to these (a 1570 Swiss map of Europe as a Queen and an 1838 map showing how Australia might have been partitioned) and a whole range of other fascinating and Strange Maps.

I was hit # 2,091,183 so I don't think the site is much of a secret. Well worth a visit if you haven't already been there.

Not everything is digital

2007-07-14T21:35:00.000+02:00

Not everything is digital, nor does it need to be.

Scott Carney has reported for Wired on The Musalman. Established in 1927, the paper is hand-written in Urdu and circulated in the city of Chennai, India.

India has 45974 newspapers (circa 2001). While the majority are published in Hindi, 5364 newspapers are published in over 100 languages. The Musalman, with its beautiful calligraphy, is part of the vast array of newsprint published and distributed across India.

The diversity of textual practices across location, times, purposes, technologies and cultural contexts is pretty exciting!

Urban intersections

2007-07-14T14:00:00.000+02:00

Its exciting when stuff you're randomly reading intersects in interesting and unexpected ways.

Currently I'm reading Paris: The secret history (Andrew Hussey), City Reading: Written words and public spaces in antebellum New York (David Henkin) and now the website Citygraphy. From diverse perspectives, each source is tracing the development of public culture in urban sites. The roles of written and visual texts as well as architecture and the development of public spaces are taken up in interesting ways. Really interesting stuff and decidedly related to the emerging shift towards looking more specifically at place, space and time in relation to textual practice.

Ah, when men were men and women wore nice aprons and the world was a better place

2007-07-14T07:20:00.000+02:00

This is hilarious (but not).

I don't think that I look this happy when I'm in the kitchen washing up while the men are in the living room playing a 'family' board game. However, as my partner suggests, the men may well have cooked dinner. Yeah, right!

From http://flickr.com/photos/sepultura/800379286/

2007 UKLA digital literacy SIG symposium

2007-07-13T21:40:00.000+02:00

Swansea University campus

Our digital literacies SIG hosted a symposium of PGR students at the UKLA (United Kingdom Literacy Association) International Conference held at Swansea University last week.

Great papers were presented by Cathy Burnett (Shifting identities within initial teacher education), Naomi Hamer (Playing across print and digital texts) and Becky Parry (Reading and rereading 'Shrek'). Each presentation showed their diverse and sophisticated takes on issues linked to a range of literate practices. In the two years since the SIG started it has been exciting to see the way the digital literacies field has morphed into something exciting and full of diversity. Keep an eye out for these women - they're doing fabulous stuff!

Photo of Becky and Naomi preparing for the session.

2007 Lubetkin Prize for architecture

2007-07-13T21:25:00.000+02:00

We are increasingly interested in the design and uses of urban space. The Lubetkin Prize is awarded to the most outstanding architectural work constructed outside the UK by an RIBA (Royal Institute of British Architects) member.

This year the prize has been awarded to Southern Cross Station in Melbourne. While the structure is essentially a big, undulating shed roof, according to the judges "its vocation is as a civic structure. It is a point of entry to the city and, critically, it makes a space connecting the new and old parts of the town". The blend of structural integrity and beauty is stunning. Congratulations to the architects, Grimshaw, and to Melbourne!

Face your pockets project

2007-06-27T11:09:00.000+02:00

Flickr has a photo pool called 'what's in your bag?' This group has almost 4000 photos in it (and growing). If you would like to do something a little different, Timur Akhmetov and Yulia Yakushova are encouraging you to scan your face alongside whatever happens to be in your pockets.

I have no idea why.

But it's really interesting to see what and how and wonder why.

In the 1990s, before James Gee began to think about video games and learning he wrote about Discourse (with a big D), describing it as an identity kit. With that in mind, it is fascinating to see what people keep in their pockets and/or what they want us to think they keep in their pockets and how they choose to arrange it all.

There's something really interesting here about the notion of making the very personal and private, public. The communal nature of the activity is also quite fascinating.

Don't forget to close your eyes when you do your own entry (or wear goggles).

Public Diplomacy Island event

2007-06-19T10:52:00.000+02:00

The University of Southern California's Annenberg Public Diplomacy Island is hosting an international virtual event in Second Life on the 22nd June from 9.00 SLT. Second Life CEO Philip Roseday and MacArthur Foundation's President Jonathan Fanton will discuss philanthropy in virtual worlds. Grab your avatar and turn up!

Bookmooch

2007-06-16T09:35:00.000+02:00

Mooch: to obtain something without paying for it.

BookMooch is about giving and receiving books. Every time you give a book, you receive a point and can in turn get a book you want from someone else registered on BookMooch. You can also choose to give your points to identified charities.

Cool idea.

Beyond the digital divide - Futurelab at work

2007-06-13T04:37:00.000+02:00

If you've never been to the Futurelab website, you should go. As their website says, they really are passionate about changing the ways in which people learn and exploring the ways in which technologies and learning intersect and they do some funky, important stuff.

One of the most exciting sections on the website is (for me, at least) the commissioned literature reviews - all cutting edge and written by key people in relevant fields. In the last couple of weeks a great paper on the digital divide has been released. Really clear outline of key issues that points to the complexity of the notion and identifies a set of questions to which we must attend in order to move beyond the divide.

2007-06-08T07:07:00.000+02:00

I have been reading designobserver. Apparently we are currently publishing a book every 30 seconds - which means that by 2052 there will be more people writing and publishing books than people reading them. This poses interesting challenges for publishers and authors.

Alice Twemlow asks:

Why keep on with the work of traditional publishing when the Internet would seem to provide a much more efficient means for reaching the people? What is is about the book, pamphlet and magazine formats that continue to lure publishers onto the rocks of insolvency?

Perhaps it's the level of control that books afford. They are created from the top down: completed and finessed before their release, they provide few entry points for unpredictable reader contributions. Books are statements, serene and imperturbable.

This issue of control and sense of completion is interesting, particularly when contrasted against the more fluid and eternally incomplete nature of many digital texts. Different technologies, different social purposes, different functions.

Flickr photo 'Pile of books' by hawkexpress.

Google maps Street View

2007-06-04T09:01:00.000+02:00

Wow!! I love Google's new Street View. I do a lot of research where I collect photographs of textual landscapes in urban sites. The ability to cruise around urban sites from the comfort of my office is cool (don't get me wrong - it doesn't replace the need to be on site). The top photo is a street scape shot of a random street in San Francisco (878 Haight Street); the second photo is zoomed in on the poster board (in the top right hand corner of the street scene).

The collision of geography and technology with my own interests is really exciting.

If you want to learn about Street View, there's a cute tutorial here.

On the privacy issue raised in relation to Street View: I've been living in the UK where I appeared on CCTV an average of 300 times a day. If you're in the US and you are one of the 100 million people who shop at Wal-mart you are contributing to the more than 460 terabytes of personal data (your social security and drivers license number, where you live, which colour lipstick you buy, what snack foods you like, when you are having a dinner party).

GeoCommons

2007-06-03T16:16:00.000+02:00

The GeoCommons site was officially launched on the 28th May at the Web 2.0 Conference in San Jose.

The aim of GeoCommons is "to make the world of detailed geospatial data on everything from crime statistics to meteorite strikes at your finger tips". This is amazingly cool.

The heatmap pictured here is "The hippest place to live in San Francisco". The brighter the heat spot, the greater the concentration of particular categories. In this case, SeaGor (who created the map) chose popular bars, low crime rate, density of tech workers, newer homes and female motorbikers as indicators of 'hip' and overlaid them accordingly. Interesting choice of categories.

See the blog as well.

Homework - love it or hate it

2007-05-30T04:11:00.000+02:00

Homework: 'schoolwork that a student is required to do at home'. Makes it sounds so easy. Doesn't capture the emotional stress, missed sleep, arguments, tears, uncertainty, frustration (and that's just what parents experience). Homework is, and should be, the topic of hot debate these days.

If you're interested in the issues surrounding homework, you might want to read The case against homework: how homework is hurting our children and what we can do about it
or have a look at stophomework.com

Another well-known homework themed book is Alfie Kohn's The Homework Myth. Stirred more responses on the Amazon page than i have ever seen.

Even if you're a huge fan of homework, there are some interesting issues flagged.

See also Cory Doctorow's comments on boingboing

8 myths about video games debunked

2007-05-24T05:41:00.000+02:00

Next time you're at dinner and because you foolishly listed computer/video games amongst your interests you are being asked all those questions about the decline of civilization, youth alienation, violence, blah blah, it may be useful to have read Henry Jenkins' response to 8 myths about video games.

His comments were part of a PBS focus on the "video game revolution".

They should provide some useful armour.

Picture of Henry Jenkins from his MIT staff site.

The decisive moment

2007-05-23T07:12:00.000+02:00

Henri Cartier-Bresson was one of the most influential photographers of the 20th century.
His 1952 book "The Decisive Moment" changed the face of photography as it captured the instant, the 'decisive moment' where event, organization of forms and photographer (and via him/her, technology) intersect.

Simon Cherpitol has kindly put the entire book online here for us to admire and learn from. The images are exquisite and many are haunting.

Net filtering

2007-05-19T08:08:00.000+02:00

A report in the BBC News outlines the growing volume of state-led censorship of the internet. Since 2002 the number of states actively filtering access to the internet has grown from a couple to at least 25.

There’s a lot being written about the potential of the internet for the growth of citizen journalism and the dissemination of information across national and international boundaries. The OpenNetInitiative has accumulated data for government level censorship around categories such as political, social and security. Not all censorship is bad. However, as the report notes “In a growing number of states around the world, internet filtering has huge implications for how connected citizens will be to the events unfolding around them, to their own cultures, and to other cultures and shared knowledge around the world”.

To view the summary of Australia’s internet restrictions, click here.

The first virtual war?

2007-05-19T06:40:00.000+02:00

In 2000, Estonia declared internet access a fundamental human right of its citizens. Free wireless abounds, citizens have digital identity cards and do much of their banking and other activities online.

It is also the site of what has been described as the world's first virtual war. Since April, Estonia's computer networks have experienced waves of sustained attack causing servers to crash and bringing many services to a stand still.

In an era where we are putting more and more of our public service information online and creating civic access pathways that pivot on internet access, 'denial of service' and other attacks move from annoying to dangerous. If I couldn't access my online banking or get into my email, life would get pretty ugly pretty fast.

How to work better

2007-05-16T09:15:00.000+02:00

A4 photocopy of Peter Fischli and David Weiss's
How to work better (1991), as photographed by the author in his studio
Photograph: Ryan Gander © the artists

Ruby pseudo wants a word

2007-05-16T08:20:00.000+02:00

We're always trying to write about kids and what's going on with them. What kinds of digital technologies do they use in their daily lives? What are they thinking? What aren't they thinking? Is Prensky right? Are they 'digital natives'? I can't count how many times i've lain awake at night worrying about all this...

Ruby Pseudo just goes and asks them! Here's her amazing blog. Highly recommended!

Scratch

2007-05-15T04:59:00.000+02:00

If you're interested in creating interactive stories, videos or art, this might be the software for you. Developed at MIT's Media Lab, Scratch is a new programming language that makes it easy to create cool stuff without having to have a preexisting grasp of programming language.

Download it here for free and have fun.

There's a video tutorial so easy to follow that i made an animated movie while i watched.

nmc 2007 Summer Conference

2007-05-15T03:23:00.000+02:00

The 2007 nmc summer conference is coming up soon - June 6 - 9 in Indianapolis:

"The NMC Summer Conference is a one-of-a-kind event, attracting an audience of highly skilled campus professionals who are very knowledgeable about and interested in the integration of emerging technologies into teaching, learning, and creative expression".

Very exciting to see Scott Pagano on the programme!

His official biography:

As filmmaker, motion designer, and spatial reconstructionist, Scott Pagano creates moving image content utilizing shards of architecture, disfunction, and futurism. With influences ranging from minimal painting to cinema, his work offers a re-envisioned perspective on the graphic stratas that saturate our visual perception. His meticulously constructed abstract artworks push the boundaries of audio-visual composition and process using a dynamic mix of cinematographic and synthetic imagery.

Citizenship education - literacy

2007-05-14T11:21:00.000+02:00

A couple of weekends ago I went to the 2007 Citized International Conference on Citizenship Education held at The Centre for Research and Teaching in Civics at the University of Sydney. Loads in interesting people, including Dr. Libby Tudball from Monash University brought together around the theme of citenship eduation. Audrey Osler gave a really interesting and, for some, challenging presentation on cosmopolitan citizenship. Sir Bernard Crick, credited with the construction of the UK's humanist citizenship curriculum, gave a spirited account of the development of the curriculum.

Listening and watching the range of presentations brought it home to me how important a discussion of literacy, texts and textual practices is for any concept of an active and participatory citizenry.

A lot of us are thinking through issues of narratives of the self in local and global sites. This book by Katharine Harmon has been helping me think through these issues from a fresh perspective. It is a beautiful book, both visually and in what it allows me to think about.

Another 'you are here' project is here. It uses surveillance cameras to track pathways through a public space. This one is "You are Here, 2004", created from "Six networked firewire video cameras, flat-panel display, PC computer, custom software".

It's on again!

2007-05-14T04:46:00.000+02:00

The United Kingdom Literacy Association's (UKLA) Annual International Conference is looming once again - 6th to 8th July 2007. This year it is being held in Swansea. In a time when we are increasingly aware of the pace of change and the almost timeless nature of the challenges we face as educators, the theme of 'reflexivity, renewal and regeneration' is timely.

The UKLA's SIG around Digital Literacies is hosting a PGR student symposium foregrounding cutting edge work in the field by new academics. More information on this to come.

Brian26's flickr site for this and more photos of Swansea.

It's been a while

2007-05-13T13:00:00.000+02:00

It's been a while since I've blogged.

While not blogging, I have moved continents and universities - from the UK to Australia; from University of Plymouth to University of South Australia.

More to come...

wikipedia and barbie

2006-09-13T11:58:00.000+02:00

Wikipedia is continuing to grow exponentially, both challenging and exciting us. I have just been reading about Barbie. If you haven't had a look, you should. An amazingly comprehensive overview of her development, evolutions and make-overs and her cultural impact. Did you know, for instance, that she has been both a palentologist and tourist in her time (as well as, of course, astronaut, vet, rock star and firefighter)??

There's a lot to be said for the power of wikis to enable collaborative work across space and place.

And a further note on Barbie - the amazing Simon Tyszko has Suicide Bomber Barbie depicted on his site - more evidence of the way this iconic doll is hijacked as a mechanism to critically reflect on key contemporary issues.

Project Gutenburg

2006-09-13T01:33:00.000+02:00

Project Gutenburg was the "first and largest single collection of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today". While there are issues about copyright and public domain (you might have noticed that most of the material available could be described as 'classic') it provides an amazing resource of print and audio.

A sample:
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes adventure, The Valley of Fear, is available as an audio file as well as text. Listen and enjoy.

If you are really excited by the prospect of this growing public collection of classic works and want to contribute in some way, you can volunteer to become a proof reader.

UKLA digital literacies symposium

2006-06-26T11:30:00.000+02:00

There's going to be a fabulous symposium at this year's UKLA conference in Nottingham. The UKLA Digital Literacy SIG is presenting a symposium which outlines some of the interesting research that's taking place among the group members. A highlight!

Here's part of the abstract:

This symposium will explore the early work of the Digital Literacies SIG which began in October 2005. The research day at UKLA 2005 showed just how significant the field of digital literacies has become and how far we are all influenced in our everyday literacy practices by digital cultures. For children, however, there is an increasing gap between the worlds they encounter in and out of the classroom. At home they segue seamlessly between media to make meaning and interact with others’ meanings; in school, all too often, the digital territory they inhabit at home is unwelcome or corralled into a clearly designated space with little impact on literacy practices.

Presenters will include Muriel Robinson, Rebekah Willett, Guy Merchant, Clare Dowdall and Julia Davies! All brilliant and engaging. These people are also members of the ESRC seminar series on play, creativity and digital cultures

My Happy iDog

2006-06-03T21:50:00.000+02:00

Just back from Japan (more on that next time). I'm involved in an ESRC seminar series around play, creativity and digital cultures (next seminar is on the 5th July in Lincoln) and this little guy fits right in. He's the blue 'Happy Version' and I found him in Tokyo. He dances and demands attention and is generally very cute! I wanted one for xmas but it was worth the wait.

I also personalized my BlackBerry while I was there -- the lure of the racks and racks of phone decorations was too much to ignore! Also, one of the attractions of personal technologies is that we can personalize them. We add stickers, glitter, soft toys to mark them as unique and make them our own. It's an interesting phenomenon and one not to be ignored by researchers.

Christian - if you're reading this.....hello!

Spell with flickr

2006-04-15T23:27:00.000+02:00

You can now use images from flickr to spell out words! How cool!

Lollipop Street

2006-04-09T18:36:00.000+02:00

Drawahouse.com is fab. Although, as you can see, I am a minimalist with limited talent, it is fun. I am fascinated by the ability to create a street. If you want to draw a house and add it to Lollipop Street, this is the link. We can create a neighbourhood! I wonder if we will have street parties and drop by for afternoon tea?

An online neighbourhood drawn in (aspirational) 2D in a multidimensional online space by people sitting in offline spaces located in houses and neighbourhoods. Ouch, makes my head hurt!

Inside Barbie

2006-03-28T17:29:00.000+02:00

I have no good reason for this post (other than i have spent 11 hours in front of my keyboard trying to be profound and write about the construction of cohesive self-narratives...blah...yes, i know!). So, if you're ever wondered what is inside that Barbie you have hidden in that box under your bed labelled 'research projects', look no further. Under biohazard laboratory conditions, the Visible Barbie Project has come to your rescue!

My faith in the great modernist narrative of science is hereby restored.

2006-03-19T00:31:00.000+01:00

Another brilliant set of photos from Ezprezzo.com -- street art. But not just plain, ordinary street art (if such a thing exists) -- 3D street art!

As I said in a previous post, I have been collecting pictures of street art, graffiti and other text for a long time but I have never come across 3D work. The set displayed on Ezprezzo.com are amazing and demonstrate how vibrant, unexpected and transient urban streetscapes can be.

Viva Barbie

2006-03-19T00:11:00.000+01:00

I have posted in relation to the iconic Barbie on and off. Anyone who thinks about popular culture and consumer culture will no doubt share my interest. She is both awe inspiring and horrifying and while her sales figures are starting to slip, she is about as famous as you can get. Her fame is hard-won and well-deserved. She is no pop starlet, here today and gone tomorrow. She has ridden the wave of rapidly changing times and reflected ourselves back (with all our prejudices, vanities and frailties) in ways that made us take note.

This picture from the brilliant Ezprezzo.com is one of many gorgeous Barbie pix. At least we now know how she has kept her complexion so milky and soft for all these years...

The Visual Dictionary

2006-03-17T22:10:00.000+01:00

I have a vast collection of signs, text and street art from all around the world, including these from San Francisco

However, my collection pales in comparison to this brilliant collection by The Visual Dictionary:

The Visual Dictionary is a collection of words in the real world. Photographs of signage, graffiti, advertising, tattoos, you name it, we're trying to catalogue it

Go, look and contribute.