Outline for Phonic on Thursday - City Centre Cafe etc

The storyteller is away again, the festival season is not quite over. So I can cover the drama hour on Phonic FM, 9 -10 Thursday morning following onto the first half hour of the Wild Show. The map is now available for This City's Centre so I can show it to JD and Chris as they arrive. Timings are approximate, maybe just before 10 and about half past. There are some existing sound clips to explain the background. 

I do have some issues to raise. The video at RAMM is just a bit hard to take in. You have to look up and then the sound is only on headphones. Chris helped me to get past the QR codes so I now have the sound files though there are four at 99c. It could be easier if they just said go to CD Baby and search on Blind Ditch. Maybe it is supposed to be like a city where much is hidden or competing for attention with passers by or something else in the same space. 

The short films are also quite hidden. There is no sound in the Imaginary Lounge outside Phoenix Media. Not sure about the Bike Shed Theatre, they will have longer hours in September. The best display is at Gloss Art I think.  The screen is small but it is like most people view when connected to the internet. Definition is very good. Actually a DVD. And you get sound. Could there be some big plasma screens at RAMM or some sort of television style ? Or around the city? Maybe some stores would run some extracts.

I will ask Chris to check the QR codes on the map. He has an excellent iPhone. According to the small print costs can vary depending on the network and contract. Not sure what can be downloaded at home from a desktop or what the costs are. This could be a lot clearer.  

Meanwhile we have a project to explore cafes in Exeter, starting with the Phoenix. There is a sort of map but we don't get far so I am revising the scale and scope. Maybe we just need notes for each week. Stay tuned to the radio. Next week I will be in Lancaster again so continue a comparison. See attached jpeg. The one way system contains a large area for walking and drinking coffee. Most homes are outside it I think. Several phone shops and lots of wifi. There is a wifi bus to the campus with an arts block at one end and an Info Lab at the other. You still need an official ID to use the wifi so I think the Exeter Innovation Centre is better on this point. They will tell you the password if you buy some coffee.

Last time I was in Lancaster I found a book on The Flaneur, published by Routledge about twenty years ago. There is a review by Dusty that suggests an update.

Flâneurie is, it can be argued, timeless (or, at least, our perspective on Baudelaire's "Painter of Modern Life" hasn't changed much in two decades), but when one of the authors starts to write about flâneurie  in the age of the video-cassette, well... I pine for a newer book that takes into account the internet, the smart phone, 9/11, and Barack Obama. The book requires a rewrite!
 

I thought it could be about citizen journalists or content generating users. There is a lot of slippage between flaneurs who happen to be artists and also intellectuals who make sense of random observations. Possibly from a safe distance. 

Also gender roles may have changed. The flaneur was assumed to be male till women visited department stores. There is an article by Janet Wolff on Gwen John, who mostly painted interiors. Not sure how this relates to #thiscityscentre but will try to find out more.

Meanwhile I have started an application for the airspace above Spacex. A balloon could support some network storage and a wifi router for a very secure system of backup. Linked to the surrounding area. The main advantage is that it could store unresolved problems till something changed. For example I want to do a map of a walk to ExCel in time for IPEX but the route for the last part of the River Lee seems unclear.

 

DOCC emphasis on distributed, collaborative

Through Twitter and #nlc2014 I have found a DOCC on “Dialogues on Feminism and Technology” . A DOCC is like a MOOC in some ways but the D is for distributed and the extra C is for collaborative. I think I am allowed to copy the graphic with attribution.  Created by Tony Gamino for Anne Balsamo, 2013. the url is 

http://femtechnet.newschool.edu/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/MOOCvsDOCC_Infographic.jpg

I have also edited out one section on brands. This may help my study of content marketing. As mentioned previously I am trying to identify an explicit theory on this to understand what is happening and also make it easier to report on content when possible. I am also interested in public relations for creative commons events. so far my offers to talk about this not much accepted as I can't claim to know much. But a workshop would identify something. that would help citizen journalists from getting into dodgy copyright situations.

Anyway, back on topic this is clearly something different to a MOOC though they can vary. I have found a channel on Vimeo so will look out for more through December. I can see why the Networked Learning conference is interested in this. The DOCC is also a positive project, there is practice as well as critique. See previous post for where I find Peter Scott and others in the Guardian seeming to be just negative about anything using current tech.   

One quibble. There is no obvious university brand here, just a new set of initials and jargon potential. Could be just as instrumental for publishing etc. Hope the language stays possible to follow.  

 

Timeline for learning in virtual worlds

I looked at Grainne Conole's timeline for a recent presentation and tweeted about the place of virtual worlds in learning as 2005.  See slides on Slideshare . She has tweeted back that this will be revised but this post is to expand on the tweet.

Timelines are always more complex than appears but I think virtual worlds are a particular case. There was a lot of publicity around 2005 but I don't think there was much actual activity. Then there was  a slide away from it I think. The demands of bandwidth are too much for most locations within education or most organisations. Equipment at home intended for games can work but I don't think it has been used for formal learning. 

I have lost track of dates but think my interest in Twinity started about three or four years ago. Twinity appears to track the real world starting with Berlin. I have spent a lot of time in various cities but the maps have now gone. I think the data cost too much. a lot of people were mostly into music and dance moves. The coding is no longer in Berlin, it was sold to Exit Reality in San Francisco. I still look at it every so often but somehow the way I think about cities has changed. Maybe the web has caught up with Exeter or else mixing in browsing has become more natural everywhere. There must be some explanation of why virtual worlds come and go. 

Recently I tried out Cloud Party. This is still in development so needs more skill than I have, but it is written for HTML 5 so there is no software to download. this makes quitye a difference I think. It may be used much more widely. 

Later I will try to work out better dates and find the photos. I am still in summer drift mode. Precise dates are not really a priority. But here is a link to video from last year. Virtual worlds keep coming back. 

some balance on Futurelearn, MOOCs

Some tweets are too short to include all the background. I have been positive about Futurelearn partly because the Guardian seems to be mostly publishing negative views. I do think Futurelearn will be a major event for the UK and it should start with some support. 

The MOOC term is not perfect. I don't know how open the material will be. there are rumors about copyright in some cases. But I think the trend is for open content, at least most material is available in some form. They have not arrived suddenly out of nowhere. There is a long development of similar ideas. I don't think they have to be massive. They are more to do with marketing than first appears. Maybe it is accepted that many people who sign up will just check out the material without completing the course. 

Recently I think UK universities have paid less attention to making content widely available for general interest. The MOOC is one way of doing this. I notice in the UK that Oxford and Cambridge are not part of Futurelearn but both have university presses that publish books for a wide audience. I wonder what form the book will take in future. this could be an overlap with how MOOCs are used.  The people who are critical of MOOCs as too commercial and/or a threat to existing practice could come up with alternatives. There are many ways of publishing online.

I imagine many people will include checking out what is available and include it in with other interests. There may be local groups that study together or are formed somehow. There are problems in a lack of discussion and feedback that are part of normal courses but I think this can be worked on.

One thing has changed already. I thought the Futurelearn launch was much too UK orientated. Now there are at least two universities from outside the UK. So things can change. Suggest general support and let them know about issues. 

Natural Luddites, Guardian, MOOC

On Saturday there was a two page spread in the Guardian Review on how F .R. Leavis made a case against C. P. Snow.

I am looking for a bit of balance here. Since the Thursday computer geek section was done away with the Guardian seems to concentrate resource on the Saturday. The literary aspect may be a coincidence of how topics were first allocated. I still think weekdays in print may not continue. Still on topic just about because this means that the scope of Saturday could be expanded. 

Within the two pages there is very little on what C. P. Snow had to say.  A few words turn up in quote marks-

The particular piece of Snow's hackneyed wisdom on which Leavis fastens at this point is the assertion that members of the scientific culture "have the future in their bones", together with its companion claim that members of the "traditional culture" are "natural Luddites".

Maybe he has a point though. This could relate to discussion on MOOCs and other aspects of the web. Time will tell, starting with the next few months. Meanwhile I will try to find out a bit more what was happening with the Ministry of Technology and the start of the Open University. As memory serves there was doubt about the methods being used. Then came VHS tape and late night television. What was said about VHS?  Not sure of the dates.

I don't thin k the Guardian will bring back computers on a Thursday.
But maybe on a Tuesday soon there could be a guide to the techniques in use around a MOOC, including the social media that attempt some sort of conversation.