Podcast

Recently the NMC shared the news that we was awarded a a three-year $955,000 National Leadership Grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Sciences (IMLS) that provides another opportunity to partner with museums on an innovative software development project. For the grant, Steve in Action: Social Tagging Tools and Methods Applied, NMC will coordinate a project to further develop the Steve tagging application, a tool that simplifies the navigation of online museum collections by allowing viewers to tag an image with descriptive terms.

After a full day of brainstorming and discussion to generate the first short list of topics for the first Horizon.au report, participants gathered at the University of Melbourne for an evening reception. We took the opportunity to ask several participants what they thought were highlights of the day, which you can hear in this podcast.

We also hade made a version of this as an enhanced podcast with pictures of the participants who spoke to us - you can watch/listen in iTune:
http://media.nmc.org/2008/07/horizon-au-reflections.m4a

The 2008 NMC Summer Conference, hosted at Princeton University, is coming up soon, so we thought it was a good time to have an NMC conversation with conference host, David Hopkins, Manager of the New Media Center at Princeton. In our conversation, David has shared what this experience means for Princeton and an overview of what the “Conference Task Force” has been up to. Nancy Reeves, Director of Member Services for NMC also joined our conversation. She let us know that registrations were on pace to set a record (this week we passed 500) and shared some details of the special events taking place at this year's conference. Larry Johnson described a special feature just added - a pre-conference workshop on digital SLR photography with Sports Illustrated photographer Bill Frakes and Don Henderson, our NMC Board member from Apple. Inc.

NMC CEO Larry Johnson was one of four leaders who presented testimony on the nature and state of virtual worlds Tuesday, April 1, before the House Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet. Also presenting at the same hearing is Phillip Rosedale, founder of Linden Lab and the inventor of Second Life. For more information see Mr Pixel Goes to Washington and continue the conversation in our CommentPress published version of Larry's presented remarks. The video recording is now available: http://energycommerce.house.gov/cmte_mtgs/110-ti-hrg.040108.VirtualWorld...

NMC's Larry Johnson, Rachel Smith, and Alan Levine were interviewed recently for a podcast now available on the Panlibus site. Speaking via telephone with Paul Miller in the UK, they shared the process and outcomes for the 2008 NMC Horizon Report .

NMC is quite honored, particularly since Miller's previous interviewee was Sir Tim Berners-Lee- what an act to follow!

Listen to the hour long podcast for the entire conversation.

Presentation from the 2007 NMC Symposium on Evolution of Communication

Many older learners still struggle to transition from traditional learning contexts to online environments that are becoming increasing prevalent in lifelong learning. Using technology to enrich online communication, educators are now better equipped to facilitate learner success by providing means for dialog, praxis, and visualization of ideas. This discussion will explore how advances in communication and social networking help bring essential elements of shared learning into online environments.

Assembling content for an online database project regarding hurricanes Katrina and Rita provides daily opportunities to assess personal and community losses throughout the Gulf Coast. It also puts one into contact with the vast array of documentation efforts flourishing along the coast, particularly New Orleans, which serves as this catastrophe’s “Ground Zero.” Each individual’s story constitutes one invaluable piece in the immense debris field stretching from Texas to Alabama. New Media drives the documentation of the tragedies and ongoing recoveries; similarly, New Media must assist in making these invaluable materials accessible to both web surfers and scholars.

Just back from New Orleans, Larry, Rachel, and Alan share their reflections on the 2007 New Orleans Regional NMC Conference at Tulane including reviews of the keynote sessions, their highlights from the program sessions, and memories of the special events, especially the Second Line parade. Mostly, this conference wove together cohesive themes of the power of digital storytelling, music, creativity, community, the capacity of human potential especially in face of events such as the post Katrina flooding of the city.

In a conference devoted to the wide and dazzling array of new media in relationship to intimate community life in New Orleans and elsewhere, much of what may be extended in the classroom, broadcast or global networks comes from original human forms of expression. The implications of which are: pre-modern forms of artistic communication still speak to us, old modern forms like radio offer time-tested models of extending oral tradition and traditional aesthetics, and new media at their best often aim to recreate and create anew community experiences that we may feel are lost when the market-drivenrush to new technology values form and efficiency over content.