As the year’s drawing to a close, I’m delighted to highlight one last effort, this time from the honours students in my iGeneration: Digital Communication and Participatory Culture course.  The course, as in past years, has been a collaborative effort between the students and myself; I’ve provided the framing narrative and opening and closing weeks, while the students, in consultation, have written the central seminars in the course.  Moreover, all course content from the seminars to the curriculum, from the students’ audio podcasts to their amazing remix videos, has been released under a Creative Commons license as both an exemplar of their fine work and an Open Educational Resource which, hopefully, will be something other teachers, students and creative citizens can draw upon for their own purposes. Moreover, given that I first ran iGeneration in 2005, this year’s students already built upon the work of that first cohort, learning from their peers and, hopefully, sharing so future peers can build on this work, too.

I also thought I’d take this opportunity to showcase some of the specific media projects created this year.  The first is a really impressive podcast by Kiri Falls which looked at the Babelswarm art installation in Second Life …

Babelswarm MP3

[Full Sources & Exegesis] [CC BY NC SA]
Kiri’s final project for the unit, this time a remix video, takes quite literally the idea that creativity builds upon the past, with this enjoyable video which mashes together a plenitude of videos and photographs …

[Full Sources & Exegesis] [CC BY NC SA]

The second remix project I wanted to showcase is by Alex Pond; Alex has created a short but very poignant  video which takes issue with the monolith that is copyright law, but celebrates the freedoms which are shared via the Creative Commons …

[Full Sources & Exegesis] [CC BY NC SA]

The final remix I wanted to highlight is a bit different.  This one, by Chris Ardley, includes art and music from creators who’ve explicitly given Chris permission to re-use their work and share it under a CC license.  This animation, created in Flash, explores remix more metaphorically, and tells a tale of worldly creation …

[Full Sources & Exegesis] [CC BY NC SA]

I think all of these projects are quite impressive, and I was delighted at how seriously this year’s students took the idea of remix and how many of them embraced everything that the Creative Commons has to offer, as well as giving back something of their own.  I’ve also finally written iGeneration up as an educational example in the CC Case Studies Wiki, something I’ve been meaning to do for a while!

So, Happy 6th Birthday to the Creative Commons! In the next six years, I hope you’ll consider sharing work under a CC license if you haven’t already, but a shared culture can help us all be a lot more creative.  I know my students have benefitted from the generosity of the Creative Commons, and have, in turn, added a few quite impressive ideas and artefacts back in the creative stream.

[Cross-posted from Tama Leaver dot Net]

As outlined in an article from Electronic Frontiers Australia, the Australian Federal Government’s proposed mandatory internet filtering system in Australia is bad news indeed (via Sky):

Electronic Frontiers Australia (EFA) today expressed alarm at the news that the Government’s “Clean Feed” Internet censorship plan will not allow Australian adults to opt-out. The filter, which will be mandatory for all Australians, was initially touted as a “cyber-safety” measure for homes with children. However, recent comments by experts have revealed the existence of a second, secret black list, that would apply even to homes that managed to opt out of the child-safe filtering scheme. “The news for Australian Internet users just keeps getting worse,” said EFA spokesperson Colin Jacobs. “We have legitimate concerns with the creeping scope of this unprecedented interference in our communications infrastructure. It’s starting to look like nothing less than a comprehensive program of real-time Internet censorship.” … Most worrying of all is the ever-increasing scope of the filtering scheme. “The definition of inappropriate material has never been well defined,” said Jacobs. “With Government-mandated software monitoring each Internet connection, we expect the scope to expand further as time goes by. How will the Government resist pressure by Family First or other special interest groups to permanently block material considered by some to be harmful?” [via Sky]

Thankfully the protests are coming in loud and clear. From the No Internet Censorship for Australia page, here are the six main reasons why “filtering” (ie censoring) the Australian internet en masse is a bad idea:

• Most Australians don’t want the filter. Support for this overly broad policy is virtually non-existent, even from child-protection organisations. A recent survey shows that 51.5% of Australian net user strongly oppose the plan, while only 2.9% strongly support it.⁶
• One size doesn’t fit all. A single filter list can’t deliver results that are appropriate for all parents, teens and children, with no way to modify the filter for your household.
• The protection for children is minor at best, an illusion at worst. The filter does nothing to protect children from real threats like cyber-bullying, online sexual predators, viruses, or the theft of personal information. It may provide a false sense of security to parents, reducing effective monitoring of their children’s online activities.
• The money is better spent elsewhere. The filter will cost tens of millions of dollars to attempt. Yet the Government’s own studies admit education is more effective than filtering in protecting children, and that "content risks" are less dangerous than other risks.⁷
• No other democracy has such a scheme. Comparable systems in Europe only filter a handful of illegal sites, and then only to prevent accidental access. ⁸
• Those that want filtering already have it. The Government already offers filtering software to any home that requests it, free of charge.

Darren Pauli also has a good article in Computerworld about why internet censorship in Australia is a bad move [via]:

Australians will be unable to opt-out of the government’s pending Internet content filtering scheme, and will instead be placed on a watered-down blacklist, experts say. Under the government’s $125.8 million Plan for Cyber-Safety, users can switch between two blacklists which block content inappropriate for children, and a separate list which blocks illegal material. Pundits say consumers have been lulled into believing the opt-out proviso would remove content filtering altogether. … A spokesman for Communications Minister Stephen Conroy said the filters will be mandatory for all Australians. … Internet Service Providers (ISPs) contacted by Computerworld say blanket content filtering will cripple Internet speeds because the technology is not up to scratch. Online libertarians claim the blacklists could be expanded to censor material such as euthanasia, drugs and protest.

And for me, as I watch my 8-day old son sleeping in his pram next to me, I’m certain I want his early experiences of the internet to be ones with his parents.  We’ll help him make informed choices about what to see, and we’ll help him learn the critical skills to evaluate and understand the information out there – good and bad.  We won’t try and tell him everything he needs to know is inside this safe, filtered, contained black box or walled off internet, because if we start down that path where would it really end?  Don’t get me wrong, there’s a lot of things I hope my son doesn’t see during his childhood, but I want to help him choose to avoid certain things, I don’t want him living in a country that takes those choices away even from his parents!

The Digital Media Project is designed to explore the affordances of digital video and media in an online context. Working in teams (the same as your Student News Project team), students will produce a 3-minute short digital video piece which critically explores an idea, concept or area which was discussed in or, or directly provoked by, the ‘Convergence & Transmedia Storytelling’ or ‘Citizen Journalism and Participatory Culture’ lectures, readings and seminars.

This project emphasizes (a) research in the area of digital media, (b) clarity in communicating and sharing a research-informed perspective or argument about part of the digital media landscape; (c) taking an innovative approach to creating digital media; and (d) technical proficiency in creating digital media.

Given that the first half of the unit was largely practical – many were first-time users of digital video cameras, sound equipment and non-linear editing software – I wondered if introducing conceptual material from the likes of Henry Jenkins and Axel Bruns might overwhelm students; on the contrary, I found almost everyone excelled at combining their newfound practical skills with wider issues and concepts.  All 28 projects submitted were of a high quality, and everyone who took this unit should be proud of their work, but a few really did stand out amongst the rest and are well worth highlighting here.

The first project I want to mention is ‘Citizen Journ vs Traditional Journ‘ which mimics the style of the Mac Vs PC advertisements, with a stop-motion twist, to explore the changing relationship between traditional journalists and citizen journalist:

In a similar vein but using a really different technique, ‘Something Old, Something New‘ mixes footage from a 1940s documentary on being a journalist with contemporary footage to examine exactly how far journalism has changed in the face of participatory culture:

Looking at web 2.0 culture more broadly, ‘A Blog’s Life’ is a comical look at the evolution of blogging in the style of a nature documentary:

And in a slightly more academic tone, ‘Transmedia Storytelling and Convergence’ gives a pretty good rundown of some core features of Henry Jenkins’ arguments about transmedia in the digital media landscape:

Finally, ‘Joe Bloggs Presents Web 2.0’ is a laugh out loud satire looking at the average blogger (A LANGUAGE WARNING, though: Joe Bloggs swears like an angry trooper!):

And, yes, I did have what can best be described as an awkward cameo appearance in that the adventures of Web 2.0 there – but it was worth if, if nothing else, for that outstanding end credits song! If you’re inspired so see more, 27 of the digital media projects can be found here.  Also, it’s worth mentioning that the majority of students chose to post their work under a Creative Commons license (not all, I should add, but I’m pleased enough that by the end of the course everyone knew enough to make an informed choice one way or another).

Oh and quick shout out: my partner in crime in teaching Digital Media was Christina Chau who was an excellent tutor and whose own thoughts on the unit can be read here!

[Cross-posted from Tama Leaver dot Net.]

If you squint, it almost looks like a badly drawn map of Australia!   What do your tags look like?

Once the projects are completed, part of the feedback process is not just comments from myself or Christina (who is tutoring half of the classes, I’m tutoring the other half) – although we do give a fair bit of written feedback – but we also have a reflective seminar where the projects completed by the groups in these seminars (there are 4 groups in each seminar) are viewed and the other members of the seminar offer written and verbal feedback. I find this is always a very rewarding process, as students often engage more directly with peer feedback. To top it off, at the end of each seminar (there are 8 ) each seminar votes and the best project, along with the top from the other seminars, become those which make up the Best of Student News screening. While I am a little hesitant to place too much weight on the ‘best’ projects – learning is, after all, not a competition – students nevertheless respond well to this voting process. I suspect the idea of them deciding the best projects rather than the course staff is very appealing! Then, in the Best of Student News screening, the students get to vote once more and select their choice for the Best Student News Project of the year.

I have to say, I think the level at which students produced their projects this year has been outstanding. Even though most of them have learnt their media production skills over 4 one and a half hour workshops, many of these projects can stand up against the work of professionals who’ve had 3 year of training. The Best Project for the year, as selected by their peers, shows that humour – when used properly – really is one of the universally appealing elements of media. So, without any further ado, this year’s Best Student Project takes a comical look at the role of community radio in the era of media conglomeration.

Community Radio

At the screening, there is also a Staff Award given the the project which got the highest overall mark. This award went to the group behind a technically outstanding project which explored whether Australia’s young Olympians are adequately prepared to be thrust into the media spotlight at the Beijing Olympics.

Young Olympians and the Media Spotlight?

There are two other projects from the screening I wanted share: one takes a look at the proposed redevelopment of the Perth inner city foreshore, and the other asks to what extent Earth Hour is a genuine attempt at ecological change.

Perth Foreshore Redevelopment

Earth Hour 2008

One other noteworthy aspect of these projects, and of many others students created for the course, is that after our discussions on copyright, each of the projects above has selected to place their finished work under a Creative Commons license. Among other things, this suggests that far from the end of the conversation, some of these student projects may, indeed, have an interesting life being screened and remixed in different settings.

The students in this unit are now working hard on their second project, which is explores more specifically the affordances of digital video on the web, and I have to say, having just heard their Pitches for these projects, I’m really exciting to see the next projects as they’re completed!

[Cross-posted from my main blog.]

Even though creativity is often associated with the romantic ideal of the lone creative genius, one of the contradictions I’ve been quite aware of, and something that has come up in both units, is that both individual and group creativity is often meaningfully enhanced and provoked when students are thinking about the audience that might ultimately view/experience/interact with their creative work. This really shouldn’t come as a surprise since over the last 4 years I’ve often encouraged (and occasionally mandated) that students blog their work for just that reason. In so many cases, when the potential audience for a work – written, audio, video or whatever else – stops being just the marker or examiner and starts being a potentially global community, students tend to push themselves to work that little bit harder. Occasionally one or two students have suggested this is unnecessarily stressful, but 99% of the time when students are faced with the large potential audience that the internet provides, they step up to the challenge.  There are other clear advantages of getting students to create in the public sphere, too, such as those outlined by Jason Mittell:

One of my pet peeves about teaching is that often you get wonderful student work that is, by design, written for an audience of one, and has no lingering presence beyond the semester. By asking students to blog, share, and otherwise publish their work, it both raises the bar for their own sense of engaging a community with their ideas, as well as offers an opportunity for faculty to publicize their excellent work.

Mittell has written a series of posts showcasing some of the impressive work students have made as part of his Media Technology course this past semester.  They range from podcasts which interrogate something specific about audio, to video-games based shorts (sort of machinima, but not in the Red Vs Blue sense – more videos which mix and match game footage in different ways to highlight a particular critical or creative point).  One assignment I particularly liked was the use of video remixes, or mashups, which included one student effort which remixed current blockbuster trailers – and a ubiquitous iPhone ad – to create an overhyped trailer for technological convergence itself:

Another student collaboration I’ve come across recently is Shake Girl, The Graphic Novel.  This graphic novel was a collaboration between 17 Stanford creative writing, art and design students who’ve produced a moving and provocative story which ultimately ends up being a heart-wrenching tale highlighting the terrible phenomenon of acid attacks on women in Cambodia.  This is no two-dimensional moral rant, though: it’s a thoroughly engaging story, with sophisticated characterisation which envelops the reader in the story only to shock them with the protagonist’s fate.  In their About section, one note rang particularly true for me, regarding the challenges but also the substantial rewards which come from successful creative collaborations between students:

The process of collaboration – we think all of our students will agree – was both one of the most frustrating and exciting experiences of our lives. A lot of the first in the first two weeks, much of the second in the last four. Those of us writing the script seemed to trip over one another in the early stages. We wrote, researched, rewrote, tossed drafts aside, argued, yelled sometimes, tossed our hands up in the air, and then started over. The illustrators waited patiently, until patience ran out, and we were finally left with this mission statement: 1. We want to get this project completed, and 2. We want to make everyone moderately happy.

And with that, we made the jump to light speed. How many late-night hours did we draw, redraw, rewrite, design, redesign, and mostly… really enjoy each others company, efforts, and camaraderie?

All I can say is that Shake Girl definitely highlights an impressively successful student collaboration! [Via BBoing]

This graphic novel also reminds me on one idea for a small-scale creative project I’ve always wanted to do especially with a large first-year class.  Many of you will recall the fabulous Theory.org.uk Theorist Trading Cards, which were essentially bubblegum cards featuring well-known cultural theorists.  In a large first-year class where new theorists, ideas and concepts are introduced for the first time, I suspect that if students generated their own cards as part of tutorial presentations, this would be a great way to creatively get them reading and thinking about the main features, and differences, between the writers and works they encounter.  As an added bonus, these trading cards could be collated online and serve, to some extent, as useful prompts when students are revising for exams.

For a few more examples of engaging creative work, Siva Vaidhyanathan has posted two nifty videos created by students in his Introduction to Digital Media course: Restricted Knowledge? University Bandwidth Regulation and Facebook World.

Along a similar line, this week my Digital Media students are presenting a pitch, outlining an idea for a short video which will critically explore some aspect of digital culture loosely based on arguments about either convergence or citizen journalism, so I hope I’ll be able to post a few of the results in a few weeks time.

Until then, I wanted to end this post by pointing to the very cool and very virally popular video Apple Mac Music Video by Dennis Liu.  While not really student work (Lui has just finished formal education, but has been working professionally for a while; read an interview here) this is video is inspirational.  It’s a brilliant reminder that under the hood of an Apple Mac (or even a decent PC) is more than enough power to make some truly inspiring and amazing creative work …

[Cross-posted from my main blog.]

To explore, expand and expound upon the emerging Australasian Commons, the Creative Commons Australia team have organised a free one-day symposium which investigates a range of activities, programme and philosophies driving open access and the cultural commons across Australia, New Zealand and South-East Asia.  I’ll be there, participating in a panel on the Creative Commons and Education, as well joining the team facilitating a workshop on ‘Building Knowledge: Open Education Resources (OER) and Research Materials’.  Here are all the details:

… are proud to announce that registration is now officially open for the Creative Commons ‘Building an Australasian Commons’ Conference. The conference will be held on Tuesday 24th June 2008 from 8.30am – 5pm at the State Library of Queensland, South Brisbane, and is proudly supported by Creative Commons Australia (http://creativecommons.org.au), the ARC Centre of Excellence for Creative Industries and Innovation (http://www.cci.edu.aau), and the State Library of Queensland (http://www.slq.qld.gov.au).
This event provides an opportunity for those interested in the free internet to come together to exchange ideas, information and inspiration. It brings together experts from Australasia to discuss the latest developments and implementations of Creative Commons in the region. The conference aims to be an open forum where anyone can voice their thoughts on issues relating to furthering the commons worldwide.
The current programme detailing the array of presentations, workshops and round table discussions can be found at http://creativecommons.org.au/australasiancommons. Attendance is free and open to all comers. However, places are limited, so if you’re interested in attending please register ASAP. Registration closes 9  June 2008. You can download the registration form at http://creativecommons.org.au/materials/ccauconf08/
australasian_commons_conference_registration.pdf and return it via email to Elliott@creativecommons.org.au.
The conference will be followed on the day at 6pm by the second CCau ccSalon, a showcase of Creative Commons music, art, film and text from Australia and the region.  This will be a great opportunity to mingle and relax after the day’s events while experiencing CC works in action. We look forward to welcoming you at ‘Building an Australasian Commons’.

Keep in mind, it’s a completely free event, so if you’re interested and can be in sunny Brisbane on 24 June, I’ll see you there!

[Image based on Them colors... by jurek d CC BY] [X Post]

• Tenured Faculty and Industry Scholars: Publish only in open-access journals. Unlike younger scholars, you don’t need the status markers because you’re tenured or in industry. Use that privilege to help build new journals that are not strapped to broken business models. Help build the reputations of new endeavors so that they can be viable publishing venues for future scholars. Publish in open-access journals, build a personal webpage and add your article there. You will get much more visibility, especially from younger scholars who turn to Google before they go to the library. I understand that a lot of you prefer to flout the rules of these journals and publish your articles on your website anyhow, even when you’re not allowed. The problem is that you’re not helping change the system for future generations.
• Disciplinary associations: Help open-access journals gain traction. Encourage your members to publish in them. Run competitions for best open-access publications and have senior scholars write committee letters for younger scholars whose articles are stupendous but published in non-traditional venues.
• Tenure committees: Recognize alternate venues and help the universities follow. Younger scholars can’t afford to publish in alternate venues until you begin recognizing the value of these publications. Help that process along and encourage your schools to do the same.
• Young punk scholars: Publish only in open-access journals in protest, especially if you’re in a new field. This may cost you advancement or tenure, but you know it’s the right thing to do. If you’re an interdisciplinary scholar or in a new field, there aren’t “respected” journals in your space and so you’re going to have to defend yourself anyhow. You might as well use this opportunity to make the valued journals the open-access ones.
• More conservative young scholars: publish what you need to get tenure and then stop publishing in closed venues immediately upon acquiring tenure. I understand why you feel the need to follow the rules. This is fine, but make a point by stopping this practice the moment you don’t need it.
• All scholars: Start reviewing for open-access journals. Help make them respected. Guest edit to increase the quality. Build their reputations through your involvement. Make these your priority so that the closed journals are the ones struggling to get quality reviewers.
• Libraries: Begin subscribing to open-access journals and adding them to your catalogue. Many of you do this, but not all. Open-access journals are free. Adding them to databases does costs money but it helps scholarship and will help you ween off of expensive journals in the long run.
• Universities: Support your faculty in creating open-access journals on your domains. You are respected institutions. The bandwidth cost of hosting a journal would be much less than allowing your undergrads access YouTube. Support your faculty in creating university-branded journals and work with them to run conferences and do other activities to help build the reputation of such nascent publications. If it goes well, your brand will gain status too.
• Academic publishers: Wake up or get out. Silencing the voices of academics is unacceptable. You’re not helping scholarship or scholars. Find a new business model or leave the journal publishing world. You may be making money now, but your profits will not continue to grow using this current approach. Furthermore, I’d bank on academics shunning you within two generations. If you think more than a quarter ahead, you know that it’s the right thing to do for business as well as for the future of knowledge.

(Read more here.) Personally, I commend boyd for her position.  I must admit, as an early career researcher, I’d be hard pressed to turn down an opportunity to publish in a well-respected journal, even a very locked-down one; academic careers are that hard to build and maintain that lost opportunities are costly.  However, I’d be delighted when we get to the stage that the most respected journals are open-access.  In the meantime, I really hope that boyd’s call is heard by our research leaders – I believe the push for open-access has to be top-led to be successful – and where I have any choice in the matter, open-access will be the way to go for me.

What do you think?  Does open-access matter to you?

Insight #4:The unconference model only works when all the participants have a strong sense of what they are intending to pull apart or critique in advance. If half of a conference is populated by people trying to get a basic understanding of something – in this case Web 2.0 – then the unconference model of primarily relying on informed participants leading all the conference sessions themselves, directed by their conversations and thinking, to the exclusion of traditional papers or presentations, is doomed to disappoint a lot of people attending that form of conference. (This, incidentally, is not a personal gripe, but a clearly articulated sense from a number of my fellow conference delegates).

[Cross-posted from my main blog.]

Insight #1: There is a reasonable amount of critical distance in terms of the ‘digital natives/digital immigrants’ rhetoric, but the same critical perspective doesn’t stretch to critiquing the idea of ‘web 2.0’.  Whereas ideas which supposedly encompass an entire generation are easy enough to pull apart, many educators seem wary of software and claims made about software as they acutely feel that this is one of the few areas in which students know more about this area than they do.  I suspect that if the same educators were dipping their toes in a little more they’d realise something commonsensical which seems to have entirely escaped these kind of conversations: that while there are many types of web 2.0 software, there are generic skills to be found in using these tools and platforms.  The reason that people can move from Friendster to MySpace to Facebook so easily, for example, is that at a basic level there is a lot of similarity between the way these platforms operate and the skills needed to use them.  Sure, the rate of new names of software can be overwhelming, but if we remember that a large section of the skills learnt using one social software platform are viable for the next, super-duper, upcoming must-have web 2.0 tool are transferable, that makes taking the time to learn and teach them a whole lot more important and palatable.  And social software platforms are just one example; skills in blogging, using wikis and many other forms of ‘web 2.0’ tools are similarly transferable and, at some level, generic.  Perhaps we should be focusing more on what those skills are.

Insight #2: Often the people in the driving position for educational policy aren’t confident to make decisions about ICT – nor should they be!

[Cross-posted from my main blog.]