I am Jade and I did things...

So, life happens, even when one is a doctoral student.  And life can be overwhelming, something it has gone out of its way to do.  Little things make it worthwhile though.  Friday was a worthwhile night for me.  The Echo Park Film Center is on their tour this summer with the Film Mobile and on Friday, they stopped in Chapel Hill.  I was so happy to be able to share them with my entire family.  The little ones were very excited about being able to go inside the bus and sit in the big chairs by the driver seat.  All of us contributed to the experimental permanent marker-on-film film that is being created throughout the tour. The little ones were also mesmerized by the film viewer toys and flip books.  That is where they spend most of the 2 hours of our time.

The joy for me, apart from the sharing with the fam was seeing the films that were being screened on the side of the Film Mobile.  The one that was playing before we left “The Sound We see: A Los Angeles City Symphony”.  This was one of the films the students at the EPFC spoke about at DML. This was the film they were so proud of. I totally got it as soon as I saw it on the screen.  I’ve watched all of the films they have available on DVD.  They are delightful and fun.  There are amazing glimpses in to how the kids see their world.  This film was the first film where you are really able to see their growth in terms of how they see the world and themselves in it.  And the growth is in leaps and bounds.  One of the comments that stuck with me was one of the female students (I don’t remember her name), talking about how this film showed her that, even if they just live in Echo Park, it is just like all the fancy neighborhoods in LA, and she didn’t know that before they made this film. I saw it and totally got it and started tearing up a little (I’m a sap, I know).  It was so beautiful though. Breathtaking really.  It was great hearing other people discuss how beautiful the shots were without even knowing the background.  They had know idea how amazing what they were seeing truly was.

Last semester, one of the amazing students in my cohort, Marie Garlock, asked a question during a seminar on Voice where 100% of the discussion was on people coming to voice and voices being marginalized etc. The conversation was basically about dominance.  To paraphrase what she said, if voice is all about moving air and the breath out of the body, what are we taking back in?  So much of academia is about the out. Getting your voice out. Looking at your research. Being an expert etc. Most of the time we aren’t supposed to care about what we breathe back in.  But we should.  I sent her an email after that class period and thanked her, kicking myself for never questioning what I am breathing back in as I move through nailing down what I will be doing for my dissertation.  “The Sound We See” is the type of thing I want to breathe back in.  These are the type of voices that need to be heard and shared and incorporated to how we construct the world we live in and the people we live with.  Plus, for my own interest in digital media, performance and identity and their intersections, the EPFC project is just a beautiful example of traditional media, meets new media, meets performance and identity.  I am so happy they are out with their Film Mobile sharing what they do across the country.  I hope that those people who stopped in Chapel Hill to take pictures but didn’t speak looked up the bus on the web when they got home.  I also hope that those people who stopped to talk for a minute and grabbed the info sheets on the bus took the time to read them, and then looked up the film center too.

I am, yet again, infinitely thankful to Mozilla.  If they hadn’t placed my table next to the EPFC during the DML Science Fair, I might have never known that they existed.  Thank you again to Paolo and Lisa for a wonderful Friday night.

I totally survived.  In fact, I kind of sort of had an amazing time.  By far though, the most amazing for me thing was the Echo Park Film Center:

http://www.echoparkfilmcenter.org

I first saw them at the Mozilla Science Fair, on Thursday night, the night I arrived, and was exhausted (the super shuttle took 2 hours!!!).  I also presented at the Science Fair on Future class (more on that later), and was put next to this table with tons of DVDs, prop films, buttons, and two super charismatic guys (I wish I had taken a picture.  I’m sure someone did, and I’ll find them and add them later).

Anyway, Out the Window consists of many film and media centers that are doing outreach to marginalized youth.  It gives them a space to create, express themselves, explore etc.  They brought a group of kids that had participated in the various programs to speak during their panel, well, really during the question and answer session.  They were AMAZING!!! All of them said that they were empowered, and all of them, without prompting, explained their experience as a chance ot think critically.  I LOVED it.  So I had to ask a question, that is related to my research interests of course.  I asked them if participating in these groups, and learning how to and actually creating these alternate narratives and representations of themselves and their neighborhoods and communities had changed how they view their communities, neighborhoods and how their role in them.  One kid stood up.  He was latino, tall, lanky with long hair and a red ski cap on.  His name was Walter.  Let me tell you, Walter blew us ALL away.

He talked about how all the representations he’s ever seen were made by people who had the money to control all the messaging that gets out on a massive scale, and all that messaging made people like him and from his neighborhood seem bad, less than and not worthy.  But the project had allow him to see what he can do, and explore the rest of LA and see what it was like, and he was just like everyone.  His participation made him feel empowered, and let him think critically about the situation and it allows him to show it for what it was.. and you could just feel the love and empowerment and it was seriously, tears.  I talked to other people and they had the exact same experience.  Just phenomenal and mind blowing.

The best part of all of this is of course that there is a big blue bus called the film mobile that has been gutted and turned in to a mobile cinema and production studio and it will be coming to North Carolina over the summer.  I am SOOOOO there.

http://www.filmmobile.org

Even cooler, I got a couple of the DVDs of things the kids have made and I’m planning on sharing them with some of my classes and of course, guarding them as the sacred items they are for years to come.

Then there was the DML Showcase, which was amazing! I will have to write more about that later (probably with video), but it was soooo inspiring.

On to what I did

SCIENCE FAIR: Future Class

So, there was a Mozilla Science fair at DML2011.  I exhibited as Future Class.  I had my drumbeat site up and explained that my role in the class was to see how digital media could be used in ethnographic projects.  The best comment was “isn’t that just a blog?” my response was of course, yes, and I explained that the purpose was to show a quick and easy way to create a discursive space where you field site can visibly say yay or nay to your observations. Even if it is just a blog, most people aren’t allowing for that type of exchange yet and blogs are easy and simple.

I also had a very small activity.  I explained that future class was about thinking in the digital age and exploring what that means and what the challenges are in the university setting.  It was a project based tutorial for the most part, but we also had to determine what needed to be different than the traditional classroom experience.  I had tons of post its and pens and let people cover the table with words, sentences and paragraphs of what they needed to be changed.  Almost everything centered around assessment and community/engagement.  There were also quite a few on media.

A Taste of Mozilla Drumbeat: Storming the Classroom Grading and Community

The next thing I did was have a workshop session at the drumbeat workshopping session.  The purpose of this was to create a foundational idea of what we want grades to do so people could then move on to brainstorming tools and methods to get them to where they needed to be.  I had the smallest group but we had a wonderful time.  I brought a ton of markers and a roll of paper and we created a “cloud” of thoughts (there were 4 of us), first on what was bad about how grading currently works, then what was good about how grading currently worked and finally on what are wishless was for how grading should work in the future.  Everything ended up being that grading needs to be a community driven type of thing that allows for continuous feedback rather than relying on test that are incapable or measuring what people actually learn.  Oh, and collectives.  Classroom spaces need to be more community driven.  I think the paper we had ended up being at least 14 feet. We taped it up on the wall.  Even though we were few, we did something big, literally.

PANEL: New Collectives HASTAC Scholars as a Case Study

The last thing I did was a panel with Cathy Davidson, Fiona Barnett and Dixie Ching, on the HASTAC Scholars.  I showed a short film (final edited forth coming) and share a website: http://jadedid.com/dml2011

The other three women on the panel? Simply amazing. I continue to be humbled to be sitting with these people.

I also shared my big revelation from DML2011.

ACADEMICS are just HACKERS and REMIXERS and FORKERS of KNOWLEDGE! By that I mean, what is a dissertation or a thesis other than taking the existing body of knowledges, mixing them, remixing them, forking them, modifying them, changing them, breaking them and coming up with something new and then publishing them?  We just do it on paper (and that is starting to change slowly but surely).

I don’t know why it took me so long to come to that realization.  When I think about academic work like that though, it makes me super happy.

So, all in all… wonderful amazing trip.  There are so many people out there doing amazing work, and being around them is simply inspring.  I’ve got to do more. I just have to.

I am preparing for a panel at DML2011: Designing Learning Futures that is a part of the new collectives track.  The panel is titled “Modeling a New Collective: HASTAC Scholars as Case Study”.  I will be sitting on it with four amazing women, Dixie Ching, Fiona Barnet, Cathy Davidson.   The idea for the panel is, it will not be a traditional panel where we present papers.  Instead, we all are going to represent different parts of what HASTAC is and does.  I am lucky in that I’ve gotten the best part, in my opinion. I will be on the panel representing the scholars.

I have spent the past few weeks, speaking with, skypeing, emailing and getting video from various HASTAC scholars where they shared their thoughts on new collectives, being a part of HASTAC and how they see digital media and learning being beneficial in higher ed.  I’ve also spent some time talking to people outside of HASTAC to get their thoughts on New Collectives.  As a result of this, I have come to a preliminary hypothesis regarding what it takes to make new collectives successful:

goals, community, freedom, openness & action tends to = success

Almost everyone I’ve spoken to is tired of just talking about great ideas.  They want a space where they can vet their ideas, get feedback, get other people interested in the same thing and take those ideas to the next step.  They want a space with clear and realistic goals or purposes.  They want a place where, despite the set goals, they have the freedom to try other things within the group (playing).  And finally, they want to know (not just meet) who is in the collective and what they are doing so they can find ways to work together.  So far, all the successful collectives people have mentioned had these things in common.  These are also the things that people tend to start discussing without prompting.

Over the next few days I will be curating all the information/media I’ve gathered and preparing something to show at DML2011 so people can “meet” the scholars.  Once the panel finally happens, it will be open to all the HASTAC scholars via chat and twitter.  The hope and goal of this little panel collective, as I understand it, is to have an unpanel, where people in the actual and virtual audience are encouraged to join the discussion and help guide where the panel goes.  So far, based on what people have contributed, I think it is going to go somewhere wonderful.

But I would like to acknowledge that the Spring semester is in full swing and I am very happy with my schedule:

• Seminar in Popular Culture
• Media & Society
• Experimental Film
• Communication and the Discursive

I was on the fence about adding a fourth class, but I am so happy I did.

Jade Did Drumbeat: A Field Journal

It’s Interactive & Ethnographic

It is also so interesting to hear what people are saying.  I went to drumbeat with one question:  “How do you imagine the involvement of tradition forms of Higher Education in the future of Freedom, Learning and the Web?”  I actually had responses from everyone I spoke with other than “but how are we going to credential” which is not something that has happened yet in academic settings.  Most people there were in agreement that the approach to learning and spaces of learning needs to be more holistic.  However, people were still unwilling to completely let go of some of the ideals of industrialized education.  They are just re-imagining them and making them more flexible.  I would have to do more reflecting and exploring to determine if I think that is a good thing or a bad thing.

Things that were great:

• Gunner, quite possibly the best facilitator ever
• The quality of everything
• Conversations
• Technology
• Variety of people there

Things that could have been better:

• More local involvement (I am still not clear how locals are kept out of a conversation on the city as a classroom)
• Volunteers to translate so participation is more open
• Finding a means to encourage exploration
• Putting people/tents closer together
• Drink/Snack Stations (coffee, water, fruit, crackers throughout the event)
• Longer time for sessions

So, on to the points that I am trained to observe that were reproduced (as is normal and also abnormal) at the event.  There was a very clear lack of diversity.  In terms of people of color there were a few of us.  I believe there was one other black American female and one European African female (she was amazing.  Her name was Nadia, and her project makes my heart sing.  It is called the Prototype Project, and yes, you should check it out).  There was also at least one black American male from, from Chicago, a Saffa… and… I might have missed some people.  There were some asian males, from all over, meaning US and UK asian ;0), but not as many as one often sees at big tech events.  I also came in to contact with one asian female from the states.  So that was interesting.

Now on to the abnormal/positive observation: THERE WERE SO MANY FRIGGIN’ AMAZING WOMEN at the event.  I didn’t realize, though I’m sure I’ve seen it before, that Mitchell Baker, the Chair of Mozilla Foundation, is a woman.  And she was just one of too many to name who were in attendance.  She and Cathy, the prof from the Duke class I was there with, gave the keynotes.  That was super empowering.  Also, even though they didn’t speak about it openly, the people who were interested in using digital media and the open source culture for advocacy were there, and we found each other.  That was a wonderful thing.

So, I will go in to more detail about what I observed/did/the point was for me in the digital performance ethnography thing I am in the process of working on.  I will post and update and link from this blog once it is ready (hopefully by the end of this crazy month).

I am hoping I get invited back to next year’s event and that next year is in Amsterdam… but Amsterdam is just a personal preference.

Today was THATCamp RTP, months in the making, supported by HASTAC, ISIS, and FHI at Duke, and UNC Comm Studies.  It was very good.

Everyone who registered didn’t turn up, but those who did turn up were really in to it.  Everywhere I went there were some very exciting conversations.  Lots of stuff around digital histories, archiving, community engagement, museums, and the future of the academy with the changing digital environment (something I will also be exploring at Mozzila Drumbeat next month in Spain).

Highlights for me:

• Ghost Histories: Histories that can be found with geolocation tools of places that no longer exist (i.e. where this house now stands is the former site of church x… etc.)
• Acoustic Recreation: Using technology to recreate the acoustics of former buildings to enable people to hear what performances, or worship etc sounded like in buildings no longer exist (the person who was working on this was specifically looking at St. Paul’s Cathedral pre the fire that burned it down).
• Future of the Academy: People from the academy have no clue what the future of the academy is and what it is going to look like.  This is exciting because it could be anything and no one knows.  I am excited to be a part of the shift (hopefully).

I was told that our THATCamp had a much different feel than THATCamp prime, in that it was more academic.  But that makes sense.  We are in the research triangle after all.  Either way, it was a very good time.  There was talk of another school hosting one next year.

And now it is time to move on to prep for Drumbeat.

So, I participated a week ago in the Peer-to-Peer Pedagogy (p3) workshop and (un)conference at Duke on September 10th.  I’ve been holding off on writing something up.  I needed to let my thoughts marinate and then meditate.  The most important conclusion I came to was that this peer-to-peer stuff seems to be keeping the invisible people invisible.

Here is a transcript from the backchannel (the chat that was going on during the presentations).  I am “Jade”:

http://hastacscholars.wikispaces.com/P3+Back+Channel+Transcript

Two things were said that made me a little uneasy.  The first was the idea of letting people go in to a peer-to-peer situation without guidance.  Some people are better equipped than others to do certain things.  Different levels of education, access, socialization and culture will impact how well people will be able to handle collaborative learning/teaching/grading.  I don’t like the idea of the professor abdicating their role as facilitator and educator when the need arises.  So, I wrote the following:

Jade: Sometimes the babies don’t learn to walk if you don’t stand them up first, right?Sep 10

I was thinking of the experience of my own two children learning to walk.  They saw other people their size walking.  They were interested and frustrated by their immobility.  They would scream and cry.  So, I stood them up.  We turned it in to a game.  I got so excited when they would stand for prolonged periods.  This moved to holding my hand and taking steps on their weak legs.  As they got stronger, I would sit with their father on the opposite side, maybe a two feet away. We’d say “come here” with a big smile on our faces and our arms out stretched.  The baby would take steps.  And slowly, as their confidence grew, we would sit further apart, until, one day, the baby decided he was ready, and he’d stand up by himself, and walk across the room without needing a hand.  I don’t think students are babies, but, I think we learn new things by observation, and experience.  Often, those experiences need to be facilitated.

So, the other thing that was said was in the backchannel.  Here is the exchange:

Grace Hagood: I think (coming from the standpoint of teaching composition) that students are better able to understand not only issues of audience, but also their own agency as authors when they’re involved in producing digital work that they know is going to be available online.Sep 10

Grace Hagood: They’re very tuned into how they present themselves in a public digital context, often.Sep 10

Amanda Phillips: @grace I will probably make the forum more open next time. But does it feel public to them if no one from the outside is responding?Sep 10

Grace Hagood: @amanda I think it feels public as long as the class has access, but no doubt that’s compounded if outside readers are allowed.Sep 10

Amanda Phillips: I mean if you make a forum public, will students treat it as such if no one from the outside is posting? The Internet is a big place and can feel emptySep 10

Nilspete: Public space for students to work on toy assignment will not draw a real community. That is why you need real problems situated in real communitiesSep 10

Jade: @Nils, I think it is good for practice though so students feel comfortable going out to real communities.Sep 10

Nilspete: @jade. Learners do need to understand and develop these skills. But I’d argue, dare to be bold.Sep 10

The conversation continued a bit, and then I posted the following:

Jade: @nils, I agree it is important to be bold but it goes back to the question of making sure communities that have a history of not being included are integrated.Sep 10

There was no response to that from anyone.  I have this new thing.  Well, it isn’t new.  It is something I determined for me and my research interest and methodological leaning will be important.  It is called a”privilege check”.  The space I am coming from, the status I have etc gives me so many more privileges than people I interact with every day in daily life, the classroom, research etc.  I don’t want to take it for granted.  To me, my research will not be meaningful if I don’t check my privilege and try to ensure that everyone I am interacting with has an equal voice.  If they don’t, I need to try to help level the playing field as much as I am able to.  I feel like, especially in a University setting, people should feel they are safe to explore knowledge and expression of knowledge (or learning I guess).  For some people, that might be just the basics; learning that their ideas and thoughts are as valuable as any other idea or thought.

Not everyone feels safe enough to be bold.  Not everyone IS safe enough to be bold.  To ignore that is unrealistic.  It is something that must be discussed when looking towards a peer-to-peer system in a University context.

The President’s Forum with Young African Leaders took place yesterday and I was able to catch it streaming live from the website.   It was very inspiring.  In addition to  watching the actual forum, I’ve also been keeping my eye on the twitterfeed #youngafrica.   This feed has been active over the past few days leading up, during and following the President’s forum.

For a continent that is often invisible when it comes to discussions on tech/digital media/internet etc. there were a lot of reactions and discussions happening from all over the continent and expats of various countries living or studying abroad discussing not just what was being said, but also what was being left out.  There was also a lot of pride in the young leaders.  If you watch the video, I am sure you will understand why.

What the #youngafrica twitterfeed made very clear is that countries in Africa are connecting to the world wide web and using/engaging in social media conversations.  Also, even if we often ignore what is happening there stateside, they are  acutely aware of what is happening stateside.   If we want to have a successful future we will need to meaningfully engage the various countries and populations that were previously left out, both at home and abroad, in a two way conversation about the future.   I am still convinced that there is no way these conversations can exist without the use of digital media.  This forum was a big first step.  Now we have to keep the conversation going and with policy and processes, research and action.

The one thing that I took from all these conversations and the forum was this: #youngafrica is moving from the past and looking towards the future. Are you?