Anaventura's blog

On May 16, the Center for Digital Storytelling (CDS) and the Museum of the Person are celebrating the International Day for Sharing Life Stories.

The following day – Saturday May 17 –  at 10 AM PDT the CDS is proposing a reflection on storytelling in virtual environments in the form of a panel in Second Life.

Vijay Salaman was for me the high point of the Thursday Incommunity event! With no Powerpoint - and for that he was complimented by witty Juan Carlos Moreno-Brid (UN) ... - Salaman talked of the IT component of the interdisciplinary projects as the "waiters" as Cathy mentioned in her blog entries or "service providers" - another term he used. He noticed how hard it was for these folks to think of themselves that way - as "these are highly educated people". Salaman also noted that there is a new generation of IT leaders being educated at the UCSD and other institutions (some of them working with HASTAC) that is more aware of this role... for which I would dare yet another definition - one of "listeners"...

...what I would call "the role of technology in strengthening (awakening?) civic responsibility"... It was kicked off by Brian O’Connell in the context of a civic society; picked up again by John Eger on smart communities; questioned by Juan Carlos Moreno-Brid in terms of the more local and less global "rapports" (what about the local neighborhood, the family?); and it was turned “upside down” by Howard Rheingold, who has for long defended the power of technology in engaging (as in “mobil-izing") a society, through examples such as the 2000 political turmoil in the Philippines that brought down Estrada - after a public concentration in downtown Manila organized through text messaging.

...were we today at the Board of Directors meeting for NUCRI (National University Community Research Institute). I was honored to be there. Dr. Tom McCalla took the opportunity to tell the audience what was going to take place at National University in the next couple of days - the InComunity event, which my next blog entries will document: a summit that will gather thinkers and practitioners who strategize/work/reflect on the braod topic of smart communities. I will blog extensively during that period but for now just a quick note on the Board of Directors meeting. Professor David Goldberg (UCHRI - UCI) via videoconference talked about HASTAC and its overarching objectives as this was a diverse audience - and in fact some clarification of terminology is often required in this (and other) areas - terabytes, grid, cyberinfrastructure. I was pleased to hear Professor Goldberg talk about a project involving the collection of Portuguese maps as an example of the historical value that large collections stored in the Grid may have (ahem ...truly yours is Portuguese).

It's been almost 2 months but better late than never. I managed to be at 2 of the 3 main Hastac events planned for the Summer 2006 (Thinking Through New Media and the Cyber Infrastructure Institute); unfortunately I could not make it to Technospheres! Here are a few lines about the Summer Institute at UCLA (UCHRI). For me it was all about "demistifying". We started by addressing terms that we all use but may not quite understand such as "standards", or "metadata". We visited the "big machines" and realized they are just that: big machines. It was fun to see where projects X Y and Z physically "lied".