Globally Engaged, Digitally Enabled

Noah Wittman and Rick Jaffe to lead Social Media and Networking session from 1:15 to 3:30 pm on Thursday, June 9, at the New Media Consoritum conference in Monterey, California.

Title: Globally Engaged, Digitally Enabled:  Harnessing Web-based technologies for Service Learning and Scholarly Networking

Session Description:  How can new web-based technologies be leveraged to support learning, collaboration and scholarly networking? The presenters team with students and practitioners in the Global Poverty and Practice minor at the University of California, Berkeley to provide an online environment that goes beyond traditional learning management systems. As the minor reinvents the classroom in a globally connected society, this project explores the possibilities of the emerging network form for engaged scholarship among educators and students.

Conference Website:
http://www.nmc.org/node/6356

More Info About Project:
http://okapi.wordpress.com/projects/blum-social-networking-platform/

New Collaboration with Blum Center for Developing Economies

We are working the the Blum Center for Developing Economies to develop  a web-based platform for reflective learning, project collaboration, and social networking for scholars and practitioners associated with the Global Poverty and Practice (GPP) minor at the University of California, Berkeley.  The goal of our platform is to enhance and extend the reach and impact of the GPP curriculum by providing a student-empowering online environment more closely fitted to the needs of the minor than the traditional top-down, instructor-centered learning management system.

The GPP minor is transforming undergraduate curriculum to support service learning, social entrepreneurship, and most importantly, the opportunity for learners to creatively and critically reflect upon their experience.  Students in the program engage with global poverty through hands-on projects in developing regions of the world and in their local communities.  The GPP Minor’s approach helps students better understand their place in the world, their role as global citizens, and the contribution they can make in grappling with poverty and inequalities whether they become development practitioners, lawyers, architects or engineers.

Implemented using free and open-source software, our platform provides student portfolio tools and a social networking and communications hub that stays with the students as they progress through their undergraduate education and out into the world.  Features include Facebook-like social networking, blogs and wiki-like writing tools, file storage and sharing, discussion and messaging channels, and access to personal collections and communications maintained on web-based services (e.g., YouTube, Flickr, Twitter) across the Internet.  Mzuri connects students with an interactive network of peers, mentors, and colleagues essential to supporting their development and reflection.  It creates an intellectual commons for continued connection after graduation, which will allow alumni to serve as mentors to the students who succeed them in the minor.

The GPP minor is reinventing the classroom in an increasingly globally networked society.  Our platform explores, with educators and students, both the limits and possibilities of the emerging network form for engaged scholarship.  Our platform addresses not just the technological but the social, cultural, pedagogical and political dimensions of this transformation; it represents not just a one-time tool development effort but a commitment to fostering and sustaining a community of scholars and practitioners.

Link to Working Prototype:

http://gppminor.dreamhosters.com/hub/

Project Website:
http://okapi.wordpress.com/projects/blum-social-networking-platform/

OKAPI Island to Host iSummit Keynote Webcasts

OKAPI Island in Second Life will Webcast the live keynotes from the global iCommons Summit, which will take place in Kyoto, Japan, from July 30 (July 29 PST) to August 1 (July 31 PST), 2008. The iSummit brings together free culture communities from around the world. Visit OKAPI Island at times indicated below to participate in live events. Please note time zones!

Location of Okapi Island in Second Life:
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Okapi/128/128/0

More about iSummit ‘08:
http://www.icommonssummit.org

Schedule Day 1 (July 30)

July 29 at 5pm Pacific Standard Time (July 30, 9 am Japan Standard Time): The Future of the Global Commons
An introduction to the commons, the iSummit and how you can help by Heather Ford

5:20 pm Pacific Standard Time  (9:20 am Japan Standard Time): The Future of Open Search by Jimmy Wales
Watch Jimmy broadcasting from Second Life

5: 40 pm Pacific Standard Time  (9:40 am Japan Standard Time): The Status of the Commons by Joi Ito

6:00 pm Pacific Standard Time  (10:00 am Japan Standard Time): The Commons in the Corporation: The challenge of raising awareness within media corporations by Mohamed Nanabhay

6:20 pm Pacific Standard Time (10:20 am Japan Standard Time): Housekeeping by James Cairns

7 pm Pacific Standard Time (11 am Japan Standard Time): Fun and engaging: Labs promote their sessions to participants by Lanon Prigge

July 30 at 2am Pacific Standard Time (Jul 30, 6pm Japan Standard Time): Ready to Share: Fashion and the Commons by Johanna Blakley

2: 20 am Pacific Standard Time ( 6:20 pm Japan Standard Time): Expanding Boundaries Of Fair Use Protection Under U.S. Copyright Law by Anthony Falzone

2: 40 am Pacific Standard Time (6:40 pm Japan Standard Time): Language as a Commons by Erin McKean

3 am Pacific Standard Time (7:00 am Japan Standard Time): Housekeeping by James Cairns

Schedule Day 2 (July 31)
July 30 at 6 pm Pacific Standard Time (July 31, 10 am Japan Standard Time): No License for these territories by Jamie King

6:20 pm Pacific Standard Time (10:20 am Japan Standard Time): Social Movements on the Commons by David Bollier

6:40 pm Pacific Standard Time (10:40 am Japan Standard Time): Collaborative Creativity -How innovation together has stood the test of time by Rishab Ghosh

July 31 at 3 am Pacific Standard Time  (July 31, 7pm Japan Standard Time): Free Culture and Free Speech- Why strong and vibrant free culture communities are important for freedom of expression by Rebecca MacKinnon

3:20 am Pacific Standard Time (7:20 pm Japan Standard Time): Enclosing the commons – for dummies- Creativity, Citizenship and Media Ownership by Adam Haupt

3:40 am Pacific Standard Time (7:40 pm Japan Standard Time): The Literacy Project- Encouraging Best-Practice Sharing in the Non-Profit Community by Jessica Powell

Schedule Day 3 (August 1)

July 31 at 6 pm Pacific Standard Time (August 1, 10 am Japan Standard Time): Keynote by Hiroaki Kitano by James Cairns

6:20 pm Pacific Standard Time (10:20 am Japan Standard Time): Collecting Societies- Mars Landing by Paul Keller

6:40 pm Pacific Standard Time (10:40 am Japan Standard Time): Open Content: The first decade by David Wiley

10:40 pm Pacific Standard Time (2:40 pm Japan Standard Time): Closing event- Farewell remarks and group photograph, with light refreshments by Kerryn McKay

More Keynote Information
http://icommonssummit.org/programme/keynote.html

Article in California Magazine notes the importance of “events” in Second Life

There’s an interesting article by Hubert Dreyfus in this month’s California magazine about Second Life. They never mention the educational aspects of Second Life – strange since it’s in a university magazine. But they do make one point about the role of Second Life in bringing together people and creating community for specific events. This resonates with what we are thinking for Okapi island. I’m not overly thrilled with the article, but I need to read it again more carefully

Remixing Catalhoyuk Day

Remixing Catalhoyuk Day (watch the movie of the event)
9AM to 6PM Pacific Standard Time (5PM to 2AM GMT or Universal Time)
November 28, 2007
Location: Okapi Island
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Okapi/128/128/0
(You must have the free Second Life browser)

Join us for Remixing Catalhoyuk Day, a public program sponsored by OKAPI and the Berkeley Archaeologists at Catalhoyuk. Visit OKAPI Island in the 3-D virtual environment of Second Life (see Getting Started below) and explore the past and present of Catalhoyuk, a 9000-year-old village located in present-day Turkey. OKAPI Island features virtual reconstructions of the excavation site and multimedia exhibits of research data. The Island was constructed by a team of undegraduate research apprentices during the Spring and Fall 2007 semester. The Remixing Catalhoyuk program includes lectures, guided tours, games, and much more. Mark your calendars!

Remixing Çatalhöyük Day Activities

(10-10:30 AM)
Guided Tour of OKAPI Island. Tours will be conducted by Ruth Tringham (Professor of Anthropology, UC Berkeley, and Principal Investigator of Berkeley Archaeologists at Çatalhöyük) and the Remixing Çatalhöyük team.

(1 – 2 PM PST)
Lecture: “Cultural Heritage Interpretive Videowalks: Moving Through Present Past Places Physically and Virtually” Presented by Ruth Tringham to the UC Berkeley Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning Colloquium and simulcast in Second Life.

(2 – 4 PM PST)
Turkish Music Mix. Visit OKAPI Island, learn about Çatalhöyük and build your own remixes in the OKAPI Island Sandbox while listening to DJ (and UCB Anthro grad) Burcu’s eclectic mix of classical and contemporary Turkish music.

(3-3:30 PM PST)
Guided Tour of OKAPI Island. Tours will be conducted by Ruth Tringham (Professor of Anthropology, UC Berkeley, and Principal Investigator of Berkeley Archaeologists at Çatalhöyük) and the Remixing Çatalhöyük team.

(4-5 PM PST)
Remixing Çatalhöyük Video Festival. Nine video producers will share videos about Çatalhöyük. The Video Festival will be hosted by VJ (and UCB Anthro grad) Colleen Morgan.

(5 – 5:30 PM PST)
Remix Competition. The public is invited to use the OKAPI Island Sandbox or Graffiti Cube to build and share reconstructions of Catalhoyuk or “remixes” of archaeological research data. At 5pm PST, the Berkeley Archaeologists at Catalhoyuk team will review and select top entries for virtual awards and exhibition on OKAPI Island.

What is Second Life?
Second Life is a 3-D virtual world created entirely by its residents. Okapi Island is owned and build by the OKAPI team (that’s us below!) and the Berkeley Archaeologists at Catalhoyuk.

Getting Started
To visit Okapi Island, you will need to create a user account and download the client software–both free.

To create an account, visit www.secondlife.com, click on Join (in the upper right corner) and follow the instructions. Note: You do not need a premium account to use Second Life or visit Okapi Island.

Next, download and install the Second Life client for your computer:
http://secondlife.com/community/downloads.php

Launch the Second Life client and enter your password. You will likely begin in Orientation Island. To visit Okapi Island, click Map, enter “Okapi” in search field and click Search. Alternatively, you can click on the following slurl (second life url) in your browser, and you will be transported there:

SLURL:
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Okapi/128/128/0
See you there!

Archaeoblender and ccHost

We recently selected ccHost software to support multimedia publishing and remixing as part of the Scholar’s Box project. Developed by a team at the Creative Commons, ccHost is open-source software for facilitating sharing and remixing of multimedia content in much the same way that blogs and rss feeds do for text. The Creative Commons is a nonprofit organization that promotes flexible copyright licensing for authors and artists.

ccHost is the engine behind ccMixter, an online community for sharing and remixing music. To get a sense of how this online community functions, we suggest visiting the recent remix contest with Mali recording artist Vieux Farka Touré. Contestants remixed numerous vocal and instrumental tracks provided by Farka Touré with spectacular results.

Our vision is to employ ccHost for remixing the social sciences. Archaeoblender (our working title) will allow faculty, students, K-12 educators and the public to upload and share their own multimedia content or remixes, including works derrived from the more than 50,000 photos and videos from archaeological excavations that we will be publishing later this year. We believe that Archaeoblender will be a useful and empowering platform for sharing student multimedia projects, lesson plans, presentations and other multimedia resources that currently have no home.

Right now, we are working with ccHost lead developer Victor Stone to define requirements and plan for next stage of project development. Archaeoblender will launch on June 30, 2007.

Share 2.0: Open Knowledge for the Public Interest in a Web 2.0 World

Share 2.0: Open Knowledge for the Public Interest in a Web 2.0 World
Presentation at FIPSE Annual Directors Meeting
Fairmont Hotel, Washington, DC. Tuesday, February 13, 2007
[pdf of presentation coming soon]

Description: This presentation will look at the general question of how we can help scholars to share their knowledge and digital resources in support of research, teaching, and public service (especially for K-12) using the new practices and technologies of the developing second-generation web. We will build from the work of the UC Berkeley Scholar’s Box FIPSE project to the look at the following broad themes:

• How we can lower the barriers for faculty and graduate students to create digital scholarly collections that both add value to the campus and can be shared for re-use by the public.
• The last several years have witnessed the growth of a major evolution in the web infrastructure and social software that is available for all citizens to create their own social media, to access and re-mix digital cultural heritage materials, and to participate in the public sphere. What are some of the key characteristics of this “web 2.0” world. And how can universities use and guide these new public technologies and social practices to support digital scholarship that benefits the public.
• How can we put in place a core foundation of public licensing, digital preservation, and archiving to enable the sharing and re-use of digital scholarly collections.
• How do we design digital collections that higher education and K-12 faculty can use to support inquiry based learning and knowledge creation by their students.

Presenters:

David A. Greenbaum, Director, FIPSE Scholar’s Box Project; Director, Data Services, Information Services and Technology, UC Berkeley

Michael Ashley, Anthropology Department; New Program Manager, Office of the Chief Information Officer, UC Berkeley

Noah Wittman, Program Manager, FIPSE Scholar’s Box Project, UC Berkeley

Scholar’s Box: The Next Six Months

I’m pleased to announce our plans for the next six months of the Scholar’s Box project.

SUMMARY
We will carry out three major activities in the next six months. The Scholar’s Web will pilot tools and services to help faculty integrate digital resources into their teaching. The Curiosity Box will solicit resources and feedback on services from a broad range of faculty across the UC Berkeley campus. Remixing Çatalhöyük will provide a model for engaging students in inquiry-based learning and educational outreach.

THE SCHOLAR’S WEB
Making it easy to create, use and share online teaching collections
We will pilot technologies and services to help faculty integrate digital resources into their teaching. We will work closely with the UC Berkeley Anthropology department and IT services (CIO, IST, ETS) in testing a drag-n’drop web publishing system and comprehensive digitization and digital asset management services.

THE CURIOSITY BOX
Gathering prized resources and feedback from diverse scholars
We will ask dozens of campus scholars from across campus to share with the public a prized research or teaching resource under open creative commons licensing. This exercise will introduce faculty to our services and provide us with valuable feedback. We will mount a web exhibition featuring all contributions.

REMIXING ÇATALHÖYÜK
Providing an innovative model for teaching with digital collections
We will work closely with Anthropology professor Ruth Tringham to construct a teaching collection from her vast archive of research materials documenting the remains of a 9000 year-old Neolithic human settlement located in modern-day Turkey. Remixing Çatalhöyük will feature themed collections and an archive of student “remixes.” This resource will serve as a national model for inquiry-based teaching and engaging students and campus scholars in outreach and education efforts.

For more information on each of the above projects, please visit the Scholar’s Box project page.

OKAPI Playlist

Don’t miss the OKAPI Playlist, which contains links to organizations, articles, and web resources supporting university faculty and students in using digital technologies for public knowledge sharing:

http://h2obeta.law.harvard.edu/104036

Welcome to Okapi!

Welcome to the OKAPI blog!

Open Knowledge and the Public Interest (OKAPI) is a team of creative and technical professionals and UC Berkeley faculty who are focused on bringing together people, tools and ideas to improve public scholarship on the UC Berkeley campus. Learn more about OKAPI.

This blog is intentended for colleagues near and far who have an interest in our work. We will be posting weekly announcements and encourage you to subscribe to our feed, share your comments, or email us your thoughts. We greatly appreciate your feedback.

The OKAPI team (Noah, Michael, Liz, & Lizzy)