The Art of collaborative storytelling: arts-based representations of narrative contexts”

Draft for: ISA Research Committee on Biography and Society. The author analyses several theories about science and arts converging in a new point of view. Also talks about the functions of storytelling. He starts his work with these phrases: 'Art and science have a common thread - both are fuelled by creativity. Whether writing a paper based on my data or filling a canvas with paint, both processes tell a story' (Taylor 2001) 'Science and art are complementary expressions of the same collective subconscious of society' (Morton 1997:1

Visual communication in urban planning and urban design

This report documents the current status of visual communication in urban design and planning. Visual communication is examined through discussion of standalone and network media, specifically concentrating on visualisation on the World Wide Web(WWW).Firstly, we examine the use of Solid and Geometric Modelling for visualising urban planning and urban design. This report documents and compares examples of the use of Virtual Reality Modelling Language (VRML) and proprietary WWW based Virtual Reality modelling software. Examples include the modelling of Bath and Glasgow using both VRML 1.0 and 2.0. A review is carried out on the use of Virtual Worldsand their role in visualising urban form within multi-user environments. The use of Virtual Worlds is developed into a case study of the possibilities and limitations of Virtual Internet Design Arenas (ViDAs), an initiative undertaken at the Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis, University College London. The use of Virtual Worlds and their development towards ViDAs is seen as one of the most important developments in visual communication for urban planning and urban design since the development plan.Secondly, photorealistic media in the process of communicating plans is examined.The process of creating photorealistic media is documented, examples of the Virtual Streetscape and Wired Whitehall Virtual Urban Interface System are provided. The conclusion is drawn that although the use of photo-realistic media on the WWW provides a way to visually communicate planning information, its use is limited. The merging of photorealistic media and solid geometric modelling is reviewed in the creation of Augmented Reality. Augmented Reality is seen to provide an important step forward in the ability to quickly and easily visualise urban planning and urban design information.Thirdly, the role of visual communication of planning data through GIS is examined interms of desktop, three dimensional and Internet based GIS systems. The evolution to Internet GIS is seen as a critical component in the development of virtual cities which will allow urban planners and urban designers to visualise and model the complexity of the built environment in networked virtual reality.Finally a viewpoint is put forward of the Virtual City, linking Internet GIS with photorealistic multi-user Virtual Worlds. At present there are constraints on how far virtual cities can be developed, but a view is provided on how these networked virtual worlds are developing to aid visual communication in urban planning and urban design

How can I produce a digital video artefact to facilitate greater understanding among youth workers of their own learning-to-learn competence?

In Ireland, youth work is delivered largely in marginalised communities and through non-formal and informal learning methods. Youth workers operate in small isolated organisations without many of the resources and structures to improve practice that is afforded to larger formal educational establishments. Fundamental to youth work practice is the ability to identify and construct learning experiences for young people in non-traditional learning environments. It is therefore necessary for youth workers to develop a clear understanding of their own learning capacity in order to facilitate learning experiences for young people. In the course of this research, I attempted to use technology to enhance and support the awareness among youth workers of their own learning capacity by creating a digital video artifact that explores the concept – learning-to-learn. This study presents my understanding of the learning-to-learn competence as, I sought to improve my practice as a youth service manager and youth work trainer. This study was conducted using an action research approach. I designed and evaluated the digital media artifact – “Lenny’s Quest” in collaboration with staff and trainer colleagues in the course of two cycles of action research, and my research was critiqued and validated throughout this process

The Virtual University and Avatar Technology: E-learning Through Future Technology

E-learning gains increasingly importance in academic education. Beyond present distance learning technologies a new opportunity emerges by the use of advanced avatar technology. Virtual robots acting in an environment of a virtual campus offer opportunities of advanced learning experiences. Human Machine Interaction (HMI) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) can bridge time zones and ease professional constraints of mature students. Undergraduate students may use such technology to build up topics of their studies beyond taught lectures. Objectives of the paper are to research the options, extent and limitations of avatar technology for academic studies in under- and postgraduate courses and to discuss students' potential acceptance or rejection of interaction with AI. The research method is a case study based on Sir Tony Dyson's avatar technology iBot2000. Sir Tony is a worldwide acknowledged robot specialist, creator of Star Wars' R2D2, who developed in recent years the iBot2000 technology, intelligent avatars adaptable to different environments with the availability to speak up to eight different languages and capable to provide logic answers to questions asked. This technology underwent many prototypes with the latest specific goal to offer blended E-learning entering the field of the virtual 3-D university extending Web2.0 to Web3.0 (Dyson. 2009). Sir Tony included his vast experiences gained in his personal (teaching) work with children for which he received his knighthood. The data was mainly collected through interviews with Sir Tony Dyson, which helps discover the inventor’s view on why such technology is of advantage for academic studies. Based on interviews with Sir Tony, this research critically analyses the options, richness and restrictions, which avatar (iBot2000) technology may add to academic studies. The conclusion will discuss the opportunities, which avatar technology may be able to bring to learning and teaching activities, and the foreseeable limitations – the amount of resources required and the complexity to build a fully integrated virtual 3-D campus. Key Words: virtual learning, avatar technology, iBot2000, virtual universit

Content Accessibility of Web documents. Principles and Recommendations

The paper is an overview of issues related to the accessibility of Web sites, of European initiatives and recommendations in the field, of future solutions, such as developing Web 2.0 accessible applications with WAI-ARIA. As part of the Pro-Inclusiv project was included a set of accessibility recommendations to design web sites, recommendations presented in the paper.Web accessibility, users with disabilities, standards and recommendations

Recent Methodological Opportunities in Online Hypermedia – a Case Study of Photojournalism in Singapore

This methodological paper reviews the recent work done by photojournalists in Singapore who have leveraged on the use of multimedia to create meaning-rich narratives of the social situations they investigate. Using an online multimedia project recently launched by journalists and photojournalists in Singapore, I will show how photographers'/photojournalists' expertise, knowledge and combination of text and photographs serve to exemplify the opportunities that hypermedia affords to sociologists, and argue that hypermedia presentations are particularly useful in extending auto/biographical narratives, encouraging collaborative research, as well as interrogating the everyday social lives of our informants.Visual Sociology, Hypermedia, Online Methods, Singapore, Photojournalism, Visual Methods, Photography

Reflections on the use of Project Wonderland as a mixed-reality environment for teaching and learning

This paper reflects on the lessons learnt from MiRTLE?a collaborative research project to create a ?mixed reality teaching and learning environment? that enables teachers and students participating in real-time mixed and online classes to interact with avatar representations of each other. The key hypothesis of the project is that avatar representations of teachers and students can help create a sense of shared presence, engendering a greater sense of community and improving student engagement in online lessons. This paper explores the technology that underpins such environments by presenting work on the use of a massively multi-user game server, based on Sun?s Project Darkstar and Project Wonderland tools, to create a shared teaching environment, illustrating the process by describing the creation of a virtual classroom. It is planned that the MiRTLE platform will be used in several trial applications ? which are described in the paper. These example applications are then used to explore some of the research issues arising from the use of virtual environments within an education environment. The research discussion initially focuses on the plans to assess this within the MiRTLE project. This includes some of the issues of designing virtual environments for teaching and learning, and how supporting pedagogical and social theories can inform this process

Building capacity in climate change policy analysis and negotiation: methods and technologies

Capacity building is often cited as the reason “we cannot just pour money into developing countries” and why so many development projects fail because their design does not address local conditions. It is therefore a key technical and political concept in international development. Some of the poorest countries in the world are also some of the most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. Their vulnerability is in part due to a lack of capacity to plan and anticipate the effects of climate change on crops, water resources, urban electricity demand etc. What capacities do these countries lack to deal with climate change? How will they cope? What steps can they take to reduce their vulnerability? This innovative and high-profile research project was part of a larger project (called C3D) and conducted with non-governmental organisations in Senegal, South Africa and Sri Lanka. The research involved several participatory workshops and a questionnaire to all three research centres

Leisure Is Hard Work: Digital Practices and Future Competencies

Part of the Volume on Youth, Identity, and Digital Media This chapter is based on two claims, namely that digital media are fundamental in nurturing human competencies for the future and that children's leisured media practices are critical catalysts in that process. These claims are documented by results from a recent case study on children's content creation of digital animation. Based on these results, the chapter discusses some of the fundamental challenges posed to educational institutions if they are to nurture future-directed competences for all pupils. These challenges include pupils' understanding of knowledge, their attitudes to learning resources and contexts of use, and the distribution of power relations. Like 300 million other kids around the globe, every Dane under the age of 20 knows that the protagonist of The Little Mermaid is Ariel, a fiesty redhead who manages to shape her fate and fortune. This fact is noteworthy only because Danish author Hans Christian Andersen, the author of the orignal fairy tale, composed a tragic tale of loss and redemption. The narrative and experiential discrepancies raise fundamental questions about the ways in which global and local media products frame children's everyday culture and the ways in which media operate as identity markers in a variety of sociocultural contexts. Moreover, Disney's figures, like many other media elements, are routinely appropriated by children in their own, increasingly digitized, media productions, from simple drawings to blogs, screen dumps, and home pages. These practices raise important issues about the role played by digital forms of media production for children vis a vis the more conventional and widespread forms of media reception