Recently in Multimedia Category

How different are the "races" really? According to the graphic on http://www.understandingrace.org/humvar/race_humvar.html not that much.

This is a great Flash demo that shows that while there is a relatively large amount of diversity in Africa, the home of homo sapiens (at least beneath the skin), it's much smaller in Europe and Asia. In fact, it's so small that the Asian and European circles are almost right on top of each other. That's a lot of people with a lot of common DNA!

Way back on Aug 3, I wrote a piece on the technical challenges of creating an academic video that could have the same function as a written thesis. However, I think there's an even bigger challenge in that compelling video is typically NOT the same thing as a compelling research.

Compelling Video

For many classroom video projects, the goal has been to encourage students to be creative, to develop a rich narrative or even arouse the sense or emotions. Successful projects have included hip-hop videos, mini dramas, slide shows, or readings of family memoirs.

What they have NOT been are research papers. In fact, when one instructor reported that students read content over a series of bullet points, his comment was "the content of that film was actually excellent...but it was tortuous to watch".

As a culture, we generally have the expectation that a video is going to somehow engage us beyond the mere data. Either the images/music will be dynamic, or there will be some sort of "plot" or "parody" or there will be a "story" behind the history. This can be a good goal, but it's not the goal of research.

Compelling Research

There are many types of research methodologies, but most of them actually involve placing data over emotion or plot. A NASA researcher may count ring bands in Saturn, an anthropologist may observe behavior in unusual groups (maybe even watchers of reality TV) without passing judgment or a linguist may collect data from sources ranging from epic poetry to the most obscene pieces of graffiti - again without passing literary judgment.

Boring? Maybe. Critical? Yes. Because at some point, we may draw a hypothesis (maybe) on what we think is going on. But for many researchers, I think there's always a background concept that any conclusion may be overturned at any time by new data. Maybe a satellite will get closer to Saturn, or yet another piece of ancient prose will emerge from the dirt or they will find a better way of observing TV viewers. Some findings may seem definite, but really it could be reinterpreted in the context of a new finding later on. In other words, there is really no ending - only a series of ongoing chapters.

Why the emphasis on lack of judgment? Because many disciplines know the dangers that emotion and a predetermined conclusion can lead to. Archaeology is full of stories of governments using "data" (or lack thereof) in a constant game of historic one-upmanship. Similarly, linguists know that many people have used data on language origins to reinforce old ethnic tensions. We can all tell a compelling "story", but is it the right one? Is it the one we meant to tell?

I don't know, but one thing I can say is that a lot of good research it is really bad video. Interestingly, my "favorite" pieces of research are raw data points. It may be a map of data points, a chart of numbers, or a word list pulled from a dictionary. I may have an interpretation, but really, it is beneficial if multiple researchers can examine the same data and draw their own conclusions. Not only is this bad video, but it's probably bad PowerPoint too!

Back to Video

Now that I've taken a side trip to the researcher's ivory tower, I'm going to come back to earth and say I do believe that the narrative video does have a place in the academic curriculum. As much as I may love words lists, I also know that most non-linguists find it gibberish (much as I would an astronomical table).

At some point, the scientific community has to find a way to disseminate key findings to the public, and video is a great way to do that. Thus far, most academics have left it to others to do the task of dissemination - whether it be journalists, video producers, free lance writers or Star Trek writers. Now I will say that these folks have produced some fine work, but in a lot of cases, the results seem a little dubious.

Perhaps the lesson of video is that academics need to find a way to take what they have learned and repackage it in a way that is compelling to the average educated adult, yet accurate enough to be useful. Because a better informed society just makes better decisions. On on a more personal level...although this skill might not help a researcher get the next NSF grant, it may make more NSF grants possible in the future.

And Back to Rigor in Video

Before I could press the "Submit" button, I realized that there is an ethical component to consider. There are actually are academics who have mastered this skill of presenting academic information to the public, but sometimes it can be presenting disinformation to the public. I think this is where academic rigor is important in video - it just isn't the same role as in an written thesis. Maybe responsible videos will include a written component for video projects. It works for PBS.

One of the grad students Teaching with Technology Certificate portfolios has a good example of using tagging in Flickr to organize photos that he's taken which can be used in a course. Jason Brooks from Classics and Ancient Mediterranean Studies department uses a Flickr Stream to not only post his phoots, but to organize them into sets for different themes or different museums/sites.

I don't know how the course is structured, but I can imagine that he can go to one set on a particular session to show the students the images. Having them organized by topics could also allow the students to go back and review the images by topic (presuming that they are aware of this site). Definitely a good shocase of Flickr for teaching.

An ongoing discussion we've been having in terms of digital literacy is how video can be made to have same quality (and status) as a traditional research paper. This is an interesting question to explore for many reasons, one of which is to contemplate why the "traditional" method is what it is and compare it to video.

As I think we all know, the traditional medium for academic discourse is text with a few images included as required. One of the advantages of this system is that it's relatively cheap to create and reproduce text and images. Consider that until the invention of the late 19th century, it was virtually impossible to record and play back sound. In the modern era thought, the cost factor is being reduced due to access to cheap hardware and software.

However, there are other factors which make translating a research paper more difficult than it might appear on the surface.

This is going to be a long discussion, so let's dive right in...

Video as Artifact

First, it's important to note that video and audio in academic research has been around for several decades - but as an "artifact" embedded in a text-based document. For instance, an ethnographer may record an interview and transcribe it later. Or a lab experiment may be video taped and still images incorporated into a document (perhaps with a link to a video snippet).

However, I don't think that's the issue on the table. The challenge I think we have been discussing is how to create a video presentation that is considered as valid as a text-based research paper, master's thesis or dissertation.

Citations & Data Tables in Academic Prose

If we are to truly substitute a video file (or set of video files) for an equivalent academic piece, one challenge that will have to be overcome is how to include items such as citations, bibliographies, footnotes and data tables.

On a simplistic level we can just embedded tables and citations within a video and include footnotes and a bibliography in the final credits. In fact, several Gen Ed video projects, such as the ones done for Econ 2 already require a bibliography in the credits.

For Econ 2, this is sufficient for the assignment at hand - create a fun but informational education module. For me though this assignment, while pedagogically sound, is not the really the equivalent of a research paper but more of creating a lesson plan, textbook learning module or educational pamphlet.

A textbook may or may not include citations and a bibliography, but even if it does that bibliography is not a core component of the text. The content in a textbook is generally something that has been pre-screened and "accepted" by an academic community. Its function is basically convey that information to students (or new members of a community of practice).

Similarly, the function of an educational pamphlet is to convey information from a body of experts to a larger non-expert audience. Again, although citations and a bibliography (or further reading) may be given, it is not considered essential to the piece.

In academic prose, on the other hand, citations are critical and often carefully examined by the reader. The presumption is generally that a paper (at least by the master's thesis) is an original piece of work that must be defended to the academic community (aka the thesis committee).

Citations serve an important role here because it 1) introduces the reader to the background of the issue (and is a credential check) 2) is a chance to similar data if it exists and 3) generally shows what assumption the author is making and if they are valid. As such, they are carefully perused by the reader. When a skeptical reader wonders where that crazy idea/fact came from - the answer should be in the citations.

A similar role is served by data tables. When an author is presenting a new analysis, it is usually based on original data as well as data from other sources. Again, the reader tends to examine these pieces of data carefully and, indeed actively. It's not uncommon for key data points to be highlighted and notes scribbled in the margin.

Compare this experience to watching a video on PBS or the History Channel. Even though the videos may be based on meticulous research, the assumption is that the audience is in a more passive mode. A few key sources or researchers may be mentioned, but rarely is an extensive "bibliography" given. The important data may be presented (often graphically), but rarely an entire table. A viewer who is interested may, ironically, need to visit the text-based Web site to find the information.

Academic Prose As Hypertext?

Again, it is possible to include this information in a video in the appropriate location, but there is a bookmarking or indexing issue to consider. Suppose you want to find a particular table or topic in a textbook or academic book, what would happen? The table of contents is fine, but in a lot of cases, the reader may refer to the more detailed index.

Similarly, if research paper refers to a citation or another section of the paper, the reader will next begin flipping pages until the correct reference is reached (then flip back). In other words, most academic prose is built on a hypertext model in which the text refers to different portions within the same document (internal links) as well external documents in the bibliography (external)

The genius of hypertext with linking is that tedious page flipping is replaced by the click of a mouse button. It's no accident that Web 1.0 was invented at a major research facility (i.e. CERN). Academics have been dying for links for decades. I can very easily imagine constructing a thesis on a wiki or content management system.

What about video though? I would say that video is generally a sequential which is (currently) not easily searchable unless bookmarks are manually inserted or unless a text transcript is included.

Recommendations

So where are we? I would say that if if video is to replace the traditional research papers, I would ask my students for the following

• Bookmarks for each section (not just chapter, but chapter and subsection)
• Index for tables, and maybe even for keywords (linked to time cues naturally). A separate text transcript could also be very useful here.
• Bibliography in the credits of course but also a way to display embedded citations and footnotes...perhaps in a separate track.

FYI - I'm not envisioning that students would need to hunt down time marks, but rather that it would become common place to annotate video at the appropriate locations.

Is this doable? I think so, but I think there is another challenge to overcome and that is differentiating academic discourse from "digital storytelling". But that will have to wait for another blog entry...

This is an entry in which I finally realize why Dave was having a rant about Flash CS4. Adobe CS4 has some annoying new "features" in which Adobe seems to be hoping that Mac users will see the beauty of the Windows style document interface and mainstream ourselves (not bloody likely - I want windows, not tabs). It's a good thing that Adobe left us with Classic mode and Preferences to disable the new features (thank you Adobe).

However, there is still a serious problem in Flash CS4. On the Mac, the little red button in most applications means Close Document (Command-W) but leave the application running...except in Flash CS4. There, Flash thinks it's in Windows and quits and closes all at once (Arggh!)

There are solutions to avoid this issue if you don't like the Flash red button. Mine is Command-W to close and Command-Q to quit. Dave's is Command-H to hide. In any case DON'T CLICK THE RED BUTTON until it's time to leave for the day...unless you feel like grabbing a soda while the application reboots for your second document.

FYI - Most Windows apps also include the Control+W command for closing a document, but not quitting the application. This is handy if your life is too short to watch IE boot up AGAIN .... just because you closed a window after visiting a Web site.

Google announced recently that they are making photos from Life Magazine (and actually Time-Life) available to the public. You can search the archive itself or you can go to the Google Image search page and add "source:life" to your search string. There usually lots of hits and each has excellent meta-data on who took the picture and when.

Although I am excited to see what photos from historic events will be available, I think I am more excited at the possibilities of being able to find legal images of celebrities, and maybe classic covers like the 1970s Time cover of the actresses from Charlie's Angels (it's there under "charlie's angels source:life". As odd as it sounds there are several course projects in which celebrity photos is a plus.

There was one multimedia quiz from African American history that we never released in the MTO archives because we could not efficiently clear celebrity images (e.g. James Brown, Tracy Chapman). Now, we could get many more legal images quickly. In addition, many foreign language classes use celebrity photos as a talking point (American and non-American).

There are other photos in the archive including the explosion of the Hindeberg, the taking of Iwo Jima (including the flag image), the various Olympics and many cultural touchstones from the 20th century.

All in all, it's a great complement to the news photo archives available from the University Libraries.

We had another good conversation in our Faculty Fellow meeting and at one point we talked about video documentation. We know from focus groups that faculty find video projects intimidating, but actually I kind of do also. We've identified lack of skills and lack of rubrics as a possible source of anxiety, but I wonder if storyboarding is another skill.

The truth is that structuring a video is a skill I am not sure about yet. I know how to write a piece of text document and design a decent graphic, but video somewhat eludes me. What angle should I use? What shots will I need? How do I pull it all together?

If I have a set of clips available I am confident I can create a narrative similar to Five Card Nancy - but what if I have nothing? Granted there are a few genres I can replicate such as a grassroots video or a basic screen capture, but I am not sure how to create a compelling docu-drama with multiple shots. It's very new territory for me.

At some point, I probably will pull it all together, but for now it's somewhat of a mystery because it's not a genre I have mastered yet. Ultimately, this is why I would hesitate to assign a video project...although it's a good idea. I'm still more comfortable with a term paper or PowerPoint slide show.

I'm hoping that the case studies will help me with this issue, but I suspect I am not the only one with this dilemma. Stuart commented that few technical writing classes cover video even though it is increasingly a media writers will be asked to produce content for.

I just used the Mod Book (like a Tablet PC, but on a Mac) for a meeting, so I thought would write up a few notes before I forgot. Dave has been using his modbook as a sketchpad and has gotten some excellent results, but since I'm not an artist, I thought I would use it as an engineer might to take some notes and add sketches.

Today I took it to a Breeze meeting, and it works fine, but there were some gotchas.

Encryption and Keyboard

The modbook is encrypted with PGP, but PGP needs password input from a keyboard...so a keyboard I requested. My desktop keyboard is too bulky to travel. According to Chris Demcheck PGP requires a keyboard with a USB connection.

In some ways, this is a benefit in disguise because I like being able to switch between Typing (e.g. URLs, passwords) and other modes. However it means that I have to go through an extra step to activate the pen.

FYI - If you don't have a plugin keyboard and you do have an unencrypted Modbook, then you can use the Axiotronic virtual keyboard utility. It puts you in iPhone mode where you tap one letter at a time. Not bad, but it is nice for me to have the working keyboard too since I can type fairly quickly.

Unicode (Of Course)

There is standard Mac OS X Unicode support on the Mod Book. What this means is that if you activate the Greek keyboard then 1) any plugged in keyboard will function as it does on other Macs but 2) the Axiotronic keyboard actually SHOWS you the Greek letters. I'm tempted to see if I can install it on my main Mac as a main reference. I'm not sure how it handles Chinese and other complex scripts, but it's a great start.

The other issue is handwriting recognition. We know that English is possible, but according to InkBook the only other options are French and German (not even Spanish). It's still a young tech.

Inkbook

For note taking, I am using the Inbook app which the company advertises as "Perfect companion for your ModBook". It opens in a format similar to a looseleaf notebook. You can add tabs for pages or section (and color code). The file can be printed as a PDF or saved as text/RTF (I will have to play with that next week).

For note taking, something like InkBook can be useful if your notes are full of weird symbols. Since you are basically handwriting notes, you can write just about anything from graphs and equations to Old Norse runes. Preference wise, I found I liked the calligraphic pen over the regular pencil. I think it forced me to print more clearly, and a little larger.

Quirk wise, I did notice that there was some glare issues with the monitor. I dimmed the lights in 210B (dark on my side) so I could see the monitor. I also propped the modbook on my sweater so i could use the speaker phone and write at the same time.

In terms of workflow, I decided to save my notes as a PDF for this round. I don't have Inkbook installed on my main machine (although you can use it on a normal Mac as long as you also have a Wacom tabler), so the notes do need to be in a format they can use. But at least they're electronic now.

Some Screencaps

I bet you were wondering if I would post any! Here's a portion of my notes with a weird upside down triangle dot symbol (∵) for "because". As you can see my handwriting is not the best, but at least I can read it.

Caption: Notes are trying to convey that engineering students at Abington have 4 exams today (Friday before last week of class) so they can be squeezed before the final week of classes when exams are NOT supposed to happen.

And here's some Old Norse Runes. As you can see, you can change colors of your pens. The top is in the calligraphic pen, but the signature is the regular pencil

My mother lives in State College now, but missed listening to Baltimore news on the radio. Plus reception in the mountains has never been reliable (her house in NE Pa had cable decades before HBO because of reception.

She got something called a "wireless radio" which is a cool new technology, but not one which has yet crossed my Generation X radar. The "wireless" part refers to the fact that the radio can pull stations through an Internet connection, either wireless or Ethernet. We have a wireless network in the house through Verizon DSL, so we hoped it would work.

The interface for the set up was a little odd until I figured out that the "dial" is a device to scroll through menu selections, or the keyboard. Pressing the dial is like hitting the Return key. It's ironic because the Onion had a parody of the iPod "keyboard" which basically replicates the function of this dial. Who knew.

In any case, the radio first scans for the network. Press dial to enter network, then press to enter WEP. Then spin the dial to the write password characters (ASCII only, but it does distinguish upper and lower case). Then find the End key, then press enter, and you're in.

Now comes the fun part - selecting radio stations. You can choose by genre or location, and the list is huge. Genre's include standard music decades as well as Bollywood, Christian and many others (never got much past the C's). Locations are literally world wide including Armenia, Australia, Britain (hello BBC), the Czech Republic, the Middle East, Latin America and so on. Great for foreign language teaching. We were able to find the Baltimore stations under USA-W stations.

Connection times may vary with distance, but once you're there, the sound is fantastic. Even though it's a relatively small unit, it's almost like listening to NPR on my aunt's deluxe audio console. Sweet. The manual also says that it will also play songs for your Mac/PC's music library (if the files are in the right place and available for sharing). I'll have to experiment with that later.

The radio is from C Crane, and this model is under $200. It's really like having satellite radio without having to pay for extra subscription fees. Maybe it's good that wireless radio is still under the radar...

I just wanted to share an example of a partcularly effective museum Flash viewer from the Boston Museum of Fine Arts (MFA). The exhibition is on European Decorative Arts focusing on the 17th-18th centuries.

If you're familiar with furniture from that era, you'll know that the pieces were very detailed. You really need to get in close to appreciate the artistry - which would require a fairly high resolution image (which would then take up a lot of downloading time and screen real estate). However the MFA uses a nifty Flash viewer to get around the bandwidth and screen problem.

If you click on the Tour button, the Flash viewer opens and it has the standard thumbnails of items to view at the bottom. Click on one to see a closeup. Unlike other museum Flash viewers, this one has two levels of zoom, and you really need them both. Another nice feature is that the thumbnail remains in place but has a red rectangle which you can use to pan to different areas of the close up.

I've seen similar viewers before but this one is particularly well executed. The zooms are really high quality so you can see a lot of detail (check out either the clock or cabinet), and I was amazed at how much detail I could really see. Plus I loved being able to zoom anywhere on the object. Most zooms seem more restricted.

In order to save on bandwidth, I notice that the images pixelate while you're zooming around much like Second Life. I think this really speeds up the movement process so that it's in real time. I feel so totally in control. Sometimes it is the small details that make a difference.