01.27.12 Posted in LARP by Scott

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January 27, 2012

On Transmedia and Education: A Conversation With Robot Heart Stories’ Jen Begeal and Inanimate Alice’s Laura Fleming (Part Two)

Some transmedia properties are entirely top-down, deploying fairly conventional models of authorship, despite their deployment across multiple media platforms. Others include strong elements of participatory culture. How central is youth participation in the production and circulation of media to your visions for transmedia education?

Jen: Youth participation is very important In production and circulation as many Transmedia projects are aimed at young people, and the ones aimed at adults require that the adults have some prior knowledge of media which leads us back to teaching media literacy at a young age. Specific youth aimed projects, like Robot Heart Stories, require that the students create their own videos, write collaborative stories and construct and color their own paper robots (called “heart packs”) which were pdf downloads from the website. The theory behind transmedia education is that user generated content (i.e. created by the students themselves) should be at the core of these projects.

Laura: Story-driven user-generated content is a powerful piece of the transmedia experience and in my opinion is an essential consideration for any educational property. Technology tools allow for new forms of participation and learners inevitably seek out those opportunities. Even just the notion of creating transmedia experiences for specific groups or demographics is something we need to consider carefully. Learners themselves should be immersed in the creative process to ensure that they are not mere consumers of the experience.

What are the implications of teaching a generation not only how to read but also how to write across media?

via henryjenkins.org

Read the full post here:

http://henryjenkins.org/2012/01/on_transmedia_and_education_a.html

There is still very little known about the life of Vivian Maier. What is known is that she was born in New York in 1926 and worked as a nanny for a family on Chicago’s North Shore during the 50s and 60s. Seemingly without a family of her own, the children she cared for eventually acted as caregivers for Maier herself in the autumn of her life. She took hundreds of thousands of photographs in her lifetime, but never shared them with anyone. Maier lost possession of her art when her storage locker was sold off for non-payment. She passed away in 2009 at the age of 83.

The Los Angeles Ghost Patrol is a paranormal investigation team focused on Southern California hauntings. The project came into our radar thanks to project producer Susan Bell, who has come up with a great Prezi presentation to describe exactly the Transmedia stratergy for LAGP. Among the platforms developed for the project include the web, film, TV and an ARG.

The Rising is an organization made up of both ordinary people & genetically unique warriors known as Seers. The Rising is dedicated to the preservation and advancement of human society, and the destruction of the Wraiths. The Rising came into our radar by creators Philip Gable and Lauren Scime from Witchfactory Productions. The driving platform for the projects is the book, which is currently available for purchase here.

GATES is a young man living a wretched existence in an isolated colony of humans. Deep within the caverns of an industrial mountain complex, his society is ruled by a totalitarian government called the ConGenement–who controls all facets of life. Gates came into our radar by creator Hal Hefner. The driving platform for the project is the web comic, which as of recently just wrapped up the first year of publication. The comic is being presented by Heavy Metal Magazine.

See April’s full list here (& Part 1 & 2):

http://thearrglingtonjump.com/blog/2012/01/26/a-year-in-showcases-part-3#

5 low-profile startups that could change the face of big data

By Derrick Harris Jan. 28, 2012, 3:00pm PT 7 Comments

Big data is hot, but infrastructure-level platforms such as Hadoop, which focus on storage and processing, still need help to take them into the mainstream. They need a killer app or two that will let companies analyze, visualize and act on all that data without hiring a team of Stanford Ph.Ds, or that will let developers write big-data apps without having to reinvent the wheel.

Here are five startups (in alphabetical order) either in stealth mode or just out of it that could help take Hadoop and its ilk to the promised land.

1. BloomReach

The stealth-mode BloomReach is taking a very targeted, very hands-free approach to big data for its customers. It’s offering a SaaS-based product that job listings say is for “helping leading online businesses uncover the highest quality, most relevant content sought by their consumers, when and where they want it.” Founded by a team with roots at Google, Cisco, Facebook and Yahoo, among other companies, BloomReach has, according to one estimate, about 160 customers — all of them among the top 10,000 websites, and most of them in the retail space. Among its core technologies and methods are Hadoop, Lucene, Monte Carlo simulations and large-scale image processing.

Excerpt from gigaom.com. Full post here:

http://gigaom.com/cloud/5-low-profile-startups-that-could-change-the-face-of-…

Excerpt from the full TechCrunch group:

“Netflix, Amazon, iTunes and YouTube need to develop marketing chops, and ways to communicate with audiences on a deep visceral level. They all have a huge and powerful opportunity to move audiences — an intimate, activated, one-to-one relationship with a person sitting just an arms length away from their computer screen; or on their couch with a brand-new jury rigged gadget, invested, motivated and ready to get their socks knocked-off. Instead, users are greeted with a miasma of cover art, lists of titles in all shapes and sizes and a search box — no communication, no connection.

How can digital entertainment services connect with audiences? Three easy steps, and a bonus feature:

1. People. Tech companies need to hire people to shine a light on the best stuff, and craft the stories that sell it to audiences (at least for now, until computers catch-up and develop wit, emotion, creativity the ability to write with heart). Some people call this curation. Others packaging and promotion.

2. Design. They need to create interfaces to capture audiences and connect to users.
Living, breathing beautiful displays that make you watch, and want to click.

3. Tools. Tech companies should leverage what their platforms do best — target, track and account — to deliver those stories to interested audiences en masse….”