Seminar Notes 4.25.08

Attendance: Tory, Brian, Mollie, Michelle, Eric, Maria, Jeremy, and Professor Forester

There will be no Placemaker seminar next week (Slope Day). We will have our final seminar/meeting of the semester on Monday, May 12 at noon to watch the Placemaker group’s EcoVillage video and eat pizza.

Web 2.0 Summit Video (google Web 2.0 Summit)

New Media, Documentary, and the City: A Guide (http://newmediadocumentary.blogspot.com)

• New site, made by Brian, with examples, tutorials, and references of each of the topics that he created on the spreadsheet of connectivity between media (spreadsheet uploaded on this blog previously)
• Everyone can comment, not just people who are registered bloggers

Do more/different for next year: Evaluation of this seminar

• Project earlier in the semester
• clearer description of Placemaker v. Seminar v. Project
• More project-based, interactive
• More guests
• More integration of tutorials
• Different time? Afternoons on Friday are difficult…

Seminar 4.18.08

Attendance: Tory, Ashley, Pete, Eric, Maria, Michelle, Mollie, Jeremy, Professor Forester

Web 2.0 (YouTube)

• Interactive, social networking systems, tagging (folksonomy), advertisers’ paradise, opensource projects, collaboration on the web

• Web 2.0: Googlemaps, flickr, del.icio.us, digg, and technorati

Del.icio.us (http://del.icio.us/): convenient way to bookmark on one webpage, group it all by different tags/topics; you put your favorite websites in one place

• Login, register and add a toolbar: could we use this to organize our websites for this class?

http://digg.com

• If you think something is “cool”, you can DIGG It…based on popularity, sites that are “dug” more are shared on the site

http://www.technorati.com/

• Search engine for blogs

Eric’s Tutorial on GooglePages

• New page: placemakermedia.googlepages.com
• pages.google.com to create your own
• very easy to edit; similar to WordPress (this blog)
• “Add your place on the net with us”: check this out to make sure the site goes on the google site

Difference between Blog (WordPress) and Website (Google): WordPress adds posts one by one after each other, website allows you to make multiple pages; webpage allows you to control every aspect of the pages, WordPress has a format that needs to be there

Seminar: 4.4.08

Eric’s Intro to Final Cut Pro (available in Tjaden Hall computer lab)

Attendance: Eric, Tory, Mollie, Jeremy

Seminar Notes: 3-28-08

Attendance: Mollie, Michelle, Jeremy, Brian, Pete, Maria, Professor Forester, Ashley, Eric

Professor Forester:

• gave a handout—part of the book Documentary by Erik Barnouw, a film studies professor at Columbia University.
• presence of the camera biases/affects what you’re watching
• use camera as a provocation/part of action—leads to new behavior to explore

Michelle:

• streetfilms.org
• movies on different things happening on the streets. one on moving to a new place using only bicycles
• in Bogota, Colombia—promoting bicycle use, they close off streets on Sundays—called Ciclovia
• Website is to promote alternatives to using cars
• we watched a few minutes of the video on the Ciclovia in Bogota
• you don’t need a lot of money to participate, it’s inclusive
• political story of how the Ciclovia came into being?

Maria:

• reportage.org
• black & white photojournalism
• one project on a remote village in Cuba
• Maria likes the black&white—more effective than color. She thinks with color, you’d pay more attention to scenery, b&w you focus more on the people.
• b&w also eliminates color clashes
• itbs.org/facetoface
• digital storytelling
• simple layout, but the website is a little crazy
• “face to face” explores what it means to be American with the face of the enemy

Ashley:

• website about shrinking cities—Cleveland
• cudc.kent.edu/shrink
• shrinkingcities.com—international project
• cities are losing populations, strategies to better utilize resources
• urban agriculture, city gardening, etc
• started out of Dusseldorf, Germany
• Detroit shrinking cities website gives some more info
• on web, search through different cities to find more info
• exhibits around different cities with multimedia info
• good exhibit, bad website design

Jeremy:

• globaloneness.com
• postmodern era where nation-state boundaries are not recognized anymore
• global interconnectedness
• different videos, good setup of website
• quantumshift.tv
• layout similar to youtube
• “about” section is very text-heavy
• power of visual image…inspire people to take action

Pete:

• whitecitystories.org
• University of North Carolina and a university in Arequipa, Peru worked together on stories about the “white city,” Arequipa
• videos on the culture of the white city. ways of life, music, ties to the land, industry, empowerment
• really good layout of website, easy to navigate and looks pretty—kind of like the concept of photosynth
• fun website, but not really useful: flickrvision.com—kind of like combining flickr with google maps. People can upload their own photos.
• photonhead.com
• how-to photography site
• Sim-Cam: has a photo, gives options for different shutter speeds and other settings and shows how the original photo would then look with the different setting.

Mollie:

• newurbanism.org
• sustainable, walkable, urban centers

Two weeks from today Eric will give a short (15 min) tutorial on getting started with google pages.

Seminar Notes: 3.14.08

Attendance: Tory, Brian, Eric, Mollie, Pete, Ashley, Maria, Professor Forester

Jumpcut.com [Professor Forester]

• very simple video editor, free
• Tory is going to create an audio slideshow about Dragon Day (which was today)
• Professor Forester shared some of his “experiments” with Jumpcut

Regional Equity ‘08 Conference [Brian]

• Presented his audio clips (interviews of people affected by New Orleans disaster): actual photographs of people with CD players that played the audio
• Most of the stuff at the conference was on a lower level of technology use, which was a little disappointing, but it is also exciting since our seminar is working on a high level it seems
• Will make copies of a few pages of a report
• Audio/photo hybrid: very accessible for the public online, best way to present this kind of information. Don’t just do something through the internet, because that limits the access of the project. Conference was really useful to get the word out about his internet site. Use print publications and exhibits as well as internet websites.
• What really struck people at the conference [Forester] about the audio and the photos? Brian: people see the photographs and the CD player but they don’t really see the connection between the photo with the CD player. People got very excited once they learned (from Brian) what the exhibit was all about. Organizations don’t have lots of money for hands-on exhibits, so the internet might be more useful/resourceful for them.
• Like the interactivity; people can switch, control the pace on their own. (Rather than having a slideshow on a projector)

Cornell University: Solar Decathhlon, http://cusd.cornell.edu/cusd/web/index.php [Pete]

• Informational site; eloquent, nicely designed site about the project
• Diagrams, pictures, text
• Maybe people to talk to for the EcoVillage/Sustainability project
• Maybe these will be people who could contribute to Placemaker in the next few years?

EcoVillage Project: http://www.ecovillage.ithaca.ny.us/

• Maria, Tory, Mollie, and Eric will be working on this project for Placemaker
• Home Green Home (on the Commons) lives there [someone to interview, Ashley knows him]
• Maybe ask them “what they are in 2008″ rather than their “history” [Professor Forester]
• Dept. Chair of LA: Peter Trowbridge lives next to EcoVillage [someone to interview, suggested by Pete]

Digital Journalist ‘magazine’, http://digitaljournalist.org/ [Eric]

• about photography rather than displaying photography projects
• How do you create movement within maps? GIS doesn’t do that…

Flight Patterns (YouTube): shows airplane flight patterns using moving vectors [Eric]

Highly Skilled Air Traffic Controller (YouTube): discussion of using music, what music is appropriate? [Eric]

What is Kevin’s Gearbag: hotzone.yahoo.com [Professor Forester]

• Kevin had a short interview on NPR: Yahoo News, said that they need flexible, adaptable technology devices to get information back to news sources quickly

Chart: everybody come in with 5 examples for each seminar for the chart so that we have a large compilation of examples for these documents

• Comments: Tory thinks there should be a row of tutorials (how to do something) in addition to examples (things that have been done)

Have a great Spring Break!

Media Hybrids and Types

In Microsoft Word format, Brian Rosa’s creations for the seminar. We’re going to review and update these charts with examples of these media types. Please comment with suggestions on how to improve the charts if you can.

Spreadsheet of Media Hybrids

Spreadsheet of Media Types

Seminar Notes 3-7-08

Attendance: Mollie, Pete, Jeremy, Maria, Prof. Forester, Ashley, Michelle, Eric

 Ashley:

• oberlin.edu—model for a good online source for sustainability on college campus
• Campus Resource Monitoring System tells what’s going on in terms of energy use in buildings on campus.
• Provides direct information and feedback on energy use in dorms in real time
• Site links to sustainability projects, reports, info
• LEED green buildings well monitored, building systems, interactive features
• Int. features such as energy, with animations. Shows how energy is produced and used on campus, such as solar.
• Has a webcam, links to media on what’s going on with this.
• Accessible website with tabbing, well designed

 Michelle:

• thehighline.org
• Converting a railway line into a park
• NYC raised railway line to become a park—west side of Manhattan from downtown meat-packing district to 30^th-ish street
• Design competition for the park. The website shows design finalist representations
• One in Paris is already completed
• Not open yet…damn
• Also a blog: blog.highline.org
• Links to similar projects, one in Atlanta (beltline.org), pictures of the one in Paris, something in Philly, Germany, Chicago…
• Many of these projects aren’t built yet
• The websites don’t mention what people think about these projects, such as local businesses, how it will affect the surrounding neighborhood, etc.
• Too much text on the beltline website, says Pete..gets “muddy” after homepage.
• “Less is more?” Pete likes things clear and simple. Thinks text will detract from images
• Eric mentioned barackobama.com  –likes the layout.
• first image, first sentence must grab people, keep them interested!!
• Someone in marketing told Pete that if the person can’t get to a piece of info in three clicks, it’s too confusing and you can lose the person’s interest.

Pete:

• http://ubu.com/aspen/intro.html
• aspen magazine–multimedia magazine that was originally mailed out in a box before internet
• essay, images and text, films, phonograph recordings…
• from about aspen section on the website: “This is a web version of Aspen, a multimedia magazine of the arts published by Phyllis Johnson from 1965 to 1971. Each issue came in a customized box filled with booklets, phonograph recordings, posters, postcards — one issue even included a spool of Super-8 movie film. It’s all here.”

 

Eric:

• had a webpage in which he posted links for series of videos/episodes he created.
• Using it as a hook to grab people to come back after they’ve seen his work already
• Tried to build a network of fans so they would follow his work from one project to another
• Can relate this to Placemaker if we wanted to do something similar
• Google page creator —pages.google.com

 

Prof. Forester:

• Web 2.0—about interacting
• “The Machine is Using Us (Final Version)” on youtube
• Done by an anthro prof at Kansas studying the web and how it is connecting people.

 For next week think about your own ideas, how they’re evolving and what you want to create. What you like/dislike about webpage

Jumpcut: free site for slideshows with audio

Check out http://www.jumpcut.com/

Thanks, Professor Forester, for finding this. You can use Audacity to create sound files and then upload them to the Jumpcut site with pictures as a slideshow. Very, very cool, and it looks pretty easy to do too!

-Tory

Embedding Videos and Podcasts on WordPress

For those of you looking to post podcasts and videos directly to the blog, here are two useful sites:

‘Video, Music, Podcasts, Audio, and Multimedia WordPress Plugins‘ on Lorelle on WordPress

‘Audio Player WordPress plugin‘ on 1PixelOut. The plugin is already on WordPress, so just copy the code from the ‘Usage’ section and paste it in you post.

Seminar Notes 2.29.08

Attendance: Michelle, Ashley, Eric, Mollie, Brian, Maria, Pete, Tory, Professor Forester

Welcome Ashley to the group!!

Maria’s Interview using Audacity! Interviewed Professor Jack Elliot (DEA) about his sustainability interests

• Maria was looking for a 5-10 minute interview and it turned into 30 minutes! Did some editing, shared 4 min clip with us
• Questions Maria asked him: What is his definition of “redesign”; what made him passionate about sustainability, how he promotes it in the classroom? How does he use the classroom?
• Can hear passion, emotions in his voice
• Next steps: can we bring pictures into the audio?
• Maria’s Expectations: thought it would be informative but kind of boring? thought it would be a short interview –> instead, it went really well, not boring at all!
• Software, Audacity: manageable, easy to use; likes the way it turned out
• Ashley: read a study about how students can determine if they like a professor within 5 minutes of listening to the professor (audio or within a classroom)
• hearing the author read their book over someone else; interpretation, tone
• Next steps: put it on the blog, maybe put some pictures on it

Brian’s Charts of Multimedia

• Will put it on the blog; please comment on them
• Add column “Reference Materials” with tutorials, articles, information about the media
• At the end of the semester, we’d like to have a comprehensive chart with examples and reference materials
• Look over websites and send Brian sources for the chart to make it more complete

Eric’s Ideas

• http://jahshaka.org/Tutorials/p2_articleid/75 : open source video editing software, cross-platform
• http://www.adobe.com/designcenter/ : tutorials for Adobe products (InDesign, Photoshop, etc.)
• http://www.adobe.com/designcenter/video_workshop/about.html : Flash tutorials, great for educational methods and education for younger kids
• Ideas for Format for Placemaker Online Magazine: newspaper with moving images embedded (New York Times Website with Photosynth application; instead of clicking on links, everything would be on one page but we can zoom in on the “articles” which would be in very very tiny font with the multimedia at normal size next to it)

www.arch2.rice.edu/bayou

• “Catch” the words to click on links, keep clicking on pages…you almost get lost! awesome timeline and maps that give you a good idea of the area
• Click (bottom left): M=maps, T=timelin, G=Gallery
• very artistic, lots of pictures

Rochester ArtWalk Project

• ArtWalk’s Website: http://www.rochesterartwalk.org/
• Who’s interested in doing a project? Mollie, Eric, Maria, Tory, Ashley
• Tory will get in contact with Stephen Miller for ArtWalk contact info to see what we can feasibly do from Cornell for the ArtWalk group
• For future reference: Barett Lane and Karry Quinn (doing interviews in CRP 201 with ArtWalk people)