Campus readiness for MOOC blending

I'm in Lancaster and have visited the city centre and campus. Only a brief look but I think the campus could work ok with an online resource such as Futurelearn. The Guardian is still featuring negative views ( see Monday editorial page) but I think the MOOC is just one aspect of how the web can change things.​

I went on a WiFi bus that worked just fine. Also the Blackwells bookshop is selling the Nook, and displaying the offer well. Previously Waterstones did stock the Sony Reader but it was almost hidden. ​

More later. I can edit pictures ok with Picasa but still feel more comfortable home in Exeter with desktop. This may change but still more to visit for the rest of the week.​

Analogue to Digital, studio to consumer electronics

I won't be able to attend the Analogue to Digital event this year. The UK is getting warmer and I am heading north.​

But I will try to follow some of the tweets etc. And I want to continue checking out how video fits in with sound production. A couple of years ago Sound on Sound started a feature on video production, much the same level as other articles. Video cameras costing under £2000 were reviewed. But then they dropped it. What I gathered from conversation was that musicians are interested in technology for sound but accept lower production values for video. So camera phones are ok. Also they will do a performance a few times if the video is important.​

What I wonder is a) is anything similar happening with sound recording? Is it getting "good enough" as they used to say about desktop scanners in the prepress world? Can you check the levels on an app? b) will the companies that might offer video get round to it anytime soon? Avid usually turn up but last year I had to ask for any info on video to appear. I saw Roland kit at BETT but again have not seen any at the Phoenix.​

​My guess is that there are similar situations for both sound and video, consumer electronics getting better but still a role for the studio, even if it is changing.

Cloud party monumental art continued

I have put in my proposal, don't think it was too early but time to log off here in the UK.​

Studio suggests to me a radio / video continuity space. I find radio is quick to work with. Video and 3D very difficult. So I use 2D collage as well. Cloud Party space can coexist with a radio show ( Wild Show on Phonic FM Exeter UK Thursday mornings) Space to relate to art in Exeter, this city's centre is an installation for later in the year. There could be a version in Cloud Party. I have also tried out Twinity and links to sound / video. Maybe Cloud Party needs new features, not sure.

In other words I don't know if you can have multiple feeds of sound and vision and a mix and recording. Also this may not be the sort of thing they are expecting. I don't mind lots of graphics and 3D if there is space. ​I think it is ok to spread images through social media. So far I think the phone is ok for stills but not sure how to do video though there is some on YouTube already.

Mode 2, design, science, publishing

More from reading the Guardian. This blog is not in real time but more or less same day at the moment.​

Peter Scott writes about gold and green ways to finance academic journals. There seems no doubt it has to be very expensive so funded somehow. Towards the end he mentions Mode 2 and the book he contributed to - The New Production of Knowledge.​

The main characteristics of Mode 2 knowledge are that it is highly reflexive, socially embedded, embodied in practice, problem-oriented and, crucially for the present discussion, "published" in countless forms.

At one level it is a banal idea. Anyone who has studied creativity or innovation recognises this form of knowledge. But our research policy frameworks have struggled to incorporate this idea, preferring the heroic model of science produced by great men (mostly male) and in great universities.

​Recently I have come across "design science" as a way to describe application. See previous post for links back to the British Journal of Management.

Some of this relates to the post about postgraduate study. Somehow the language changes when mode one might be in sight. I find that journals are hard to understand even when they can be found. I find this even with social media and art curation. Although the mooc seems to be easily dismissed there is still a lot of theory about the web. Maybe more later, I am not going to be more specific without some checking.​ Except for a couple of examples.

Next week I will be in Lancaster and hope to visit the campus. A couple of years ago there was a Recipe Exchange in Exeter , I think connected to theory at Highwire in Lancaster. Also digital literacy is studied somewhere near the Institute for Advanced Studies. This is where I get a bit lost as to what digital literacy is supposed to be. Except for the postcards. There is often a stack of freebies contributing to study of the Edwardian postcard as precursor for the tweet. So I may learn more online but will at least find out a bit about the current scene.​

Then maybe more about Exeter campus when I get back. It may seem strange not to move about Exeter more directly but this is how it seems to work. ​

Both Exeter and Lancaster will contribute to Futurelearn. Not sure how this will work out but see previous posts. This blog is repeating but may get coherent. Something about the mooc is the overlap with public space and practice.​

Monumental work of public cloud art (party)

Email alerts me that there will soon be a competition for a work of art in cloud party, an online world that works through the browser, so it is claimed. More below on Twinity, still my base and that of most avatars I know. ​

Meanwhile I am still thinking about the city. I sometimes check the Leuphana mooc but apart from not being allowed to continue through a lack of colleague feedback I get the impression they are mostly into more buildings as the way to improve a city. Talking about investment in virtual resources is not getting much feedback. Also here in Exeter there is not much scale possible. We explore the minimum real space to have a web connection.​

So even if there is unlimited space in the cloud party I will concentrate on a fairly small radio studio, something that would fit in the basement of the Phoenix Arts Centre. This could be a way to continue waiting for News From The Sun , the current exhibit in real space. Also we could get ready for the next Phonicon assuming there will be one. It was unusual for the Phoenix to arrange the timing so that the art related to the event. The entire building was part of the Phonicon, including the digital kit at the back often restricted to the working week. I contributed a few hours of stewarding in a not very reliable manner as I also wandered off every so often. Mostly I was at the top of the stairs for the basement where there is a print workshop, a recording studio and a radio station. I think there could have been more preparation for the Phonicon. But do you need the public actually in the radio studio? Sometimes I can't cope with the phone. There could be a "studio 2" they could visit. As far ahead as I can tell this would be just imagined in the cloud. The next actual Phonicon is some way off.

Meanewhile Twinity has moved from Berlin to San Francisco. And then not much happens in terms of bringing back the maps data and the streets. Still excellent that it continues of course. The actual cloud party​ is in San Jose, arguably not far away. I hope they meet up somehow.