iDMAa 2009

Learning through Prototype Development

Teaching Interactive Design Prototyping

• Gretchen Caldwell Rinnert, Assistant Professor, Kent State University,

Contemporary digital technology is constantly evolving. Such technical advancement particularly affects educators, who often find themselves torn between teaching the mechanics of technology or its language and ideas. The conundrum: Do they teach the software and its associated programming languages, or do they teach the concepts: user research, usability, wire-framing, interface design and user experience? Quite often, design students suffer the consequences when a choice is made of one over another. In the School of Visual Communication Design at Kent State University, a strategy is being employed to address both technology training and interactive conceptual thinking. In our sophomore level Kinetic and Sequential Design class, the concepts and techniques of the language of interaction are co-taught through a framework based on prototyping. Through basic programming of HTML, CSS and ActionScript (used in Flash and Dreamweaver), students create reflective, interactive artifacts.

Creating Smartphone Interactive News and Advertising Content

• Jennifer George-Palilonis, Assistant Professor, Journalism, Ball State University,
• Michael Hanley, Assistant Professor, Journalism, Ball State University,
• Suzy Smith, Assistant Professor, Telecommunications, Ball State University,
• Christopher Flook, Instructor, Telecommunications, Ball State University,
• Vinayak Tanksale, Instructor of Computer Science, Ball State University,
• Kirsten Smith, Labs Manager and Technical Associate for Applied Research, Acting Assistant Director of the Software Engineering Center for Information and Communication Sciences, Ball State University,

According to a 2009 Pew report, 39 percent of the U.S. adult population has seen the frequency of their online use grow as their reliance on mobile devices has increased. At the same time, news organizations have expanded online efforts to develop mobile media sites. As the number of touchscreen models, such as the Apple iPhone, Blackberry Storm and Palm Pre increases, content developers continue to seek ways to take full advantage of mobile platforms. There now exists a need to test design, functionality, and presentation strategies for news and advertising content developed for mobile media. This paper offers results of a four-week study that presented iPhone users with a graphically enhanced multimedia news and advertising application. The application was created to explore how users would respond to a mobile site that offers multimedia advertising and news story packages with video, text, information graphics, interactive time lines and photo/audio slide shows.

New Visual Literacies

Teen Independent Learning Online: Visual Literacy Tools for Assessing Credibility

• Marty Lane, Assistant Professor Visual Communication Design, Kent State University,

According to research done by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Stanford University, teens tend to rely on the look and feel of online information to determine content credibility. As design software and image manipulation tools have become more available, average users can create content that looks professional and therefore trustworthy, however they may not be experts. Subtleties such as reserved tone, subdued color palette and balanced composition look professional to inexperienced teens who may interpret content as credible. The Internet, which many high school teens utilize for academic research, offers multiple perspectives. (Rich,1) The Internet also allows anyone to participate in public discourse, positioning amateurs and experts at the same level of credibility. The flattening of source credibility is called side-by-sideness and is problematic for teens with limited cognitive abilities and life experiences to judge what they see. Four types of assessment are used specifically in online environments relating to credibility: relationships over time (experienced), third party recommendations (reputed), cultural or media based assumptions (presumed) and the look and feel of information (surface). (Fogg, 131) Through the development of online tools, my paper and interface seek to assist students in critically sorting through complex visual information and evaluate the credibility of multiple perspectives.

3D Computer Animation Curriculum Innovation: Get Prepared for Industry

• David X. Xu, Associate Professor, Regent University,

Previous research shows that nearly 40% of professionals working in the animation industry considered themselves underprepared and only 25% well prepared by their educational experiences. There is clearly considerable room for development in 3D computer animation curriculum. This paper summarizes the current problems of 3D computer animation curriculum, explains the areas that need to be developed, including animation fundamental skills, fine art skills and advanced technical skills. 3D computer animation curricula for undergraduate and graduate programs are explored and designed to well prepare for industrial needs. Curriculum maps are drawn to show visually how each course serves the objectives of the program.

Kinetic Typography: Building on Prior Learning

• Paul Bruski, Assistant Professor, Iowa State University,

Typographic skill is a fundamental in many graphic programs, these skills are taught either in their own specific courses, or are otherwise embedded throughout the program. Kinetic typography, type that moves or changes through time, builds upon the same design principles students of graphic design have learned in what could be considered their more print oriented courses. This paper describes a kinetic typography project, its process, and its results, through which it is hoped the question may be answered: At what point and how should students of design be taught these skills?

Interactive Art and Performance

The Eleven Year Journey: Creating and Publishing Theatre's First All-Digital Textbook

• Michael O'Hara, Sursa Distinguished Professor of Fine Arts/Associate Professor, Ball State University,
• Judith A. Sebesta, Professor and Chair, Lamar University,

First conceptualized in 1998, a prototype developed in 2002, and a final version completed in 2009, Explore Theatre: A Backstage Passwill be the first all-digital textbook published by Pearson Education, Inc., the world’s largest textbook publisher. The first draft for the work was completed in 2005, and the long journey the authors have undertaken suggest that the barriers to emerging media within the world’s major publishing houses have finally (hopefully) fallen. A near-final version is being tested in classrooms this fall, and the authors will share data and feedback from over 500 students who are using this text for the first time. The authors will also share both the extraordinary process (supported by a grant from the Center for Media Design) and the revolutionary product that is now nearing its official launch date of early in 1010.

Displaced Resonance: Extending Installation Art Participation through Hybrid Reality

• Jesse Allison, Coordinator of Interactive Arts Research & Development, Ball State University,

Traditional art installations engage visitors on many levels, but are limited in the kinds of interaction they can provide. Current trends within the confluence of art and technology are offering exciting ways to broaden the installation experience. A fundamental change incorporates extending a viewers participation into the realization of the work - providing participants with an art framework and letting them influence the construction of the piece on the fly from within those constraints. A second, recently developed extension of installations is the use of Hybrid Realities - allowing physical installations and virtual environments to inform one another. Congruent with these incipient yet broadening trends, Displaced Resonance offers a unique extension of the art installation into the areas of participatory creation and the virtual realm. Utilizing a proximity based system of interaction, it provides participants in Second Life and at the physical installation site collaborative creative influence over the work.

The Multi-Player Story Engine: Interactive Performance Without Inter-Actors

• J Michael Moshell, Professor, University of Central Florida,
• Jeff Wirth, Research Associate, Digital Media, University of Central Florida,
• Kate Ingraham, Graduate Student, Digital Media, University of Central Florida;

Interactive Performance (IP) is a title that is shared by several emerging art forms. In the story-driven version pioneered by Jeff Wirth (Wirth 94) and others, trained inter-actors work with untrained guests called spect-actors to create and enact stories based on ideas and initiatives from the guests. An inherent limitation of this form of IP is that most scenarios require several inter-actors, and provide experience to only one or two spect-actors. In 2008, Wirth proposed a radical approach - a new form of Interactive Performance that would take place almost entirely without the mediation of inter-actors. In order to support and stimulate the spect-actors to build and enact a story among themselves, Wirth proposed the creation of a wireless network consisting of web-enabled cell phones coordinated through a central server. This system, the Multi-Player Story Engine (MPSE), was designed and prototyped by a team of thirteen Digital Media graduate students at the University of Central Florida in the fall of 2008.

Teaching Design

Creative Sound Exercises for Digital Media Students

• Jennifer Burg, Professor of Computer Science, Wake Forest University,
• Jason Romney

This paper describes curriculum material that teaches creative experimentation with sound and music to students of varied backgrounds. Text-based explanations are accompanied by videos, interactive tutorials, and demonstrations that actively engage the learner in the creation and digital manipulation of sound and music. Designed for students from a variety of backgrounds, the explanations in each topic area begin with concepts relevant to all students; move to applications in theatre, film, and music; and end with mathematical and algorithmic underpinnings. The interactive online material is accessible and relevant to students of digital art, music, computer science, and sound design for theatre or film. The learning units are modularly designed so that instructors can choose the units that match their course goals. This material uses immediate feedback, interactivity, and a game-like presentation to engage student interest and creative involvement. The material is freely available on the web.

Moral Esthetics and Ethics of Art: Graphic Design with a Purpose

• Paul Booth, Assistant Professor, Graphic Design, Fort Lewis College,

As a graphic design educator, I believe we should teach our students to be responsible and ethical graphic designers. Design communication is a form of power. The power of design communication is seen in the re-structuring of language, in the hierarchy of information, in communicating a unique benefit, in simplifying and aesthetically polishing information, or even polarizing information. In graphic design education, students need to learn that design communication is powerful; and graphic design educators need to teach the ethical and moral side of graphic communication, and talk to students about the effects of graphic communications on society. Every day, people are subjected to design communications for thousands of products: cigarettes, "junk" food, diet pills, prescription medications, physical enhancements, and ultimately the promotion of unrealistic and often unhealthy lifestyles. Graphic designers, however, could and should think and act more responsibly in the communications they produce. In this presentation, I will show examples of how graphic design educators can teach their students to be responsible, ethical and moral graphic designers.

Comparison of Digital Drawing Tablet to Traditional Drawing on Paper

• Carol Faber, Assistant Professor of Art and Design, Iowa State University,

In this case study, twenty-five university students in a experimental course entitled “Digital Drawing” attempt to address the perception of technology through the use of the digital camera, and the comparison the digital drawing tablets and traditional drawing using paper with traditional media through course assignments specific to this issue. From student perceptions of their experience with traditional and digital tablet drawing as documented in their journals, process work, critique questions and assignment analysis by the instructor, this research investigates how technology provides an additional way to record the hand drawn mark and how it challenges artists and designers to understand and use it as fluently and precisely as traditional media. This case study will examine how students embrace new technology in all that it offers in the studio and how this experience compares to the traditional art and design studio.

Narrative Forms

Browsing the Data Narrative: Affective Association and Visualization

• Elise Takehana, PhD candidate, University of Florida,

As the computer is increasingly used as not only a tool but also an aesthetic of literary production for both electronic and print narratives, literature finds itself in a position of having to reevaluate what constitutes narrative and how the convergence of image and verbal texts affect the future of narrative. Not only have image and text taken up an intimate symbiotic relationship, advancements in computer technology have allowed for a more integrated interactive space within electronic literature. In order to be effective in the digital environment, narrative must cede its stronghold on literary expression giving way to ordering structures outside of a strong dependence on plot and character.

I examine several examples of digital literature and art, addressing the claims these work make about digital writing and reading as interpretations based on recomposing and visualizing data. I conclude that writing in the digital environment is a practice of collecting affective potential and reading becomes an act of browsing and remixing. Digital art and literature emphasize the vulnerability of digital subjectivity as one in which human and machine cognition intimately interact where the reading experience and text itself change in response to the user’s perceptions and actions. By converging interaction and narrative, digital literacy becomes invested in a process of designing affective, multimodal, associative narratives divergent from the immersive nature of print literature, which largely dismisses conversations of materiality and media specificity.

The Distributed Story Stream: Web-Native Storytelling

• Brad King, Assistant Professor of Journalism and Emerging Media Fellow, Ball State University,

This project, the outgrowth of my book (The Cult of Me/Carnegie Mellon, 2010), will develop the framework for an online publishing system that combines top-level editorial control with the freedom to create individual sub-networks within that same environment. The system will allow storytellers to tap into the flow of conversations that happen online, aggregate them into one centralized location, control the "wrapping" and display of those conversations, add their own stories to the gaps (or provide a wider context) while simultaneously allowing individuals to also tap into the streams using software tools to aggregate those conversations how they want and to share those conversations with their social network. The system will allow professional storytellers to moderate the top levels of the conversation and the individual storytellers to moderate the sub levels. A predictive market component will allow individuals to create and participate in content-driven games build around the site mission.

Core Narrative Properties: Looking at Franchise Narratives from a New Perspective

• Michael Niederman, Chairperson, Columbia College Television Department, Columbia College,

Franchise narratives have been a cornerstone of the media industry for as long as singers appeared in movies and novels became toys. However, the success of “Star Wars” created a shift within the industry from personality based franchises to narratives based franchises that have given birth to property after property attempting to be the next billion dollar narrative. In the process, financial success has become the only widely used evaluative tool that is regularly used to evaluate the success of these narratives. This article will begin moving the discussion to look at the core narrative properties instead from the perspective of both narrative integrity and quality of the storytelling. This approach will illuminate a process of narrative development that often leads to some of these franchises destroying the worlds they have created while others create stories that have now lasted for decades.

Collaboration and Design in Virtual Worlds

The Las Americas Virtual Design Studio Populates Second Life

• Guillermo Vasquez de Velasco, Dean College of Architecture And Planning, Ball State University,
• Antonieta Angulo, Architecture, Ball State University,
• John Fillwalk, Institute for Digital Intermedia Arts, Ball State University,

The metaphor of cyberspace as a place that can be inhabited was conceived by science fiction authors since the early days of the local area networks. For a number of years, schools of architecture have been experimenting with virtual design studios that provide geographically distributed collaborators with a conceptual place for communication and interaction. This paper describes exploratory work in the promotion, design, implementation, and use of a virtual structurenested within a virtual multi-user environment and serving a geographically distributed collective of architecture students. The objective of the exercise is to identify the potential benefits that such a teaching/learning environment could offer beyond the now common instrumentation of virtual design studios. The paper will answer, at least in part, the question on whether this kind of virtual environment better supports virtual immersive learning with a level of freedom that other media have not been able to provide.

Project Lifewerx

• Dolores Zage, Assistant Professor of Computer Science, Ball State University,
• Wayne Zage, Professor of Computer Science,Ball State University,
• Ben Johnston, Research Assistant, Ball State University,

Project Lifewerx is an investigation into virtual worlds as a collaboration tool. It is based on Project Wonderland (Wonderland), a Sun Labs research project. Unlike most other virtual worlds Wonderland is open source and can be ran on internal servers, alleviating many security concerns larger corporations have with other virtual worlds. Project Lifewerx set out to adapt Wonderland to be more useful for specific clients, including Rockwell Collins. Over the summer a Lifewerx researcher had the opportunity to accept an internship at Rockwell Collins. His internship included several user test phases and developing additional virtual world features. This paper will cover a pair of features from the internship and will also cover features developed early Fall semester 2009.

Interactive archaeology

• Michele A. Chiuini, Professor of Architecture, Ball State University,

The most desirable future for interactivity is to ensure that people will meet in person or experience physical places with all their senses, and not just through digital media. Interactive digital media can however be used to this end in combination with a real world experience, i.e., visiting an archaeological site with visualization of different historic stages of existence and interactive digital models, linked to metadata and archives of information. Reconstructions that are now seen on a computer screen will be possible in virtual reality. The integration of virtual environments with information has led us to explore the concept of a "hypermodel" that can be accessed through the Internet or experienced on site. Documents and artifacts that are today preserved in different places can be recombined in the same virtual place and linked with documentation (Frischer and Stinson, 2007). In one of our projects an archaeological site was documented with laser scanner technology and different reconstruction were tested. The visitor can walk through these reconstructions and access information on the same screen. The concept of a "hypermodel" for a historic site is relatively new, and its applications are limited to few examples in ancient archaeology. For the scholar, testing in the virtual world different hypotheses of reconstruction vis-à-vis with the archaeological evidence represents a major advance. The presentation discusses the possible types of interactivity between scholar and data (e.g. the digital model of the site) and between different scholars and institutions working on the same topic.

Why Art in Virtual Worlds? e-Happenings, Relational Milieux & "Second Sculpture"

• Patrick Lichty, Professor of Interactive Art and Media, Columbia College Chicago,

In the 2000's there is an emergence of New Media art in virtual worlds - 3D online spaces where people navigate using e-personifications called "avatars". These include MMORPGs (Massively Multi User Online Role-Playing Games), and MUVEs (Multi User Virtual Environments). Though multi-user worlds have been around for years, the number of artists working consistently creates a critical mass in which this art is being recognized by contemporary art curators and the mainstream art press. These artists include Cao Fei, Eva and Franco Mattes, Second Front, and Gazira Babeli. The emergence of these forms negotiates between genres, as virtual worlds have not been a general milieu for Contemporary Art. The question of why this particular genre of social media has merited this level of attention remains. What is compelling about virtual world art, its emergence in contemporary art, and how does it locate within an art historical context?

Physical Computing/Hybrid Realities

Research Directions in the Geography of Emerging Media

• Matthew W. Wilson, Assistant Professor of Geography, Ball State University,

The emergence of new media simultaneously involves the emergence of new data. Many of these new data developments embed location. Data emerges through desktop and mobile computer usage, including laptops, personal digital assistants, smart phones, iPhones, and other location-savvy devices. These technologies track movements and habitation. IP addresses, triangulated wireless signals, and satellite GPS fixate on some of us, or rather, some of our devices. Our digital footprint is distinguishable in a large cloud of data. These mappings capture daily life at a scale never before imagined by geographers and cartographers of even ten years ago. What is lacking within the discipline of geography is further conceptualization of the research agenda. Research is needed that not only explores the uses of emerging mapping technologies, but also situates these technologies in broader conditions of emergence. In this paper, I sketch out an agenda for the study of emerging mapping practices.

Physical computing and Adobe Flash: A Student/Faculty Collaboration

• Cara Brewer Thompson, Associate Professor of Art, State University of NY at Oswego,
• Dawn Orlandella, HCI graduate,
• Brian Hauser, Graduate student,
• Mike Donato, Technology graduate,
• Listte Antugua HCI graduate,

This is a student/faculty (SUNY Oswego) project combining the industry standard multimedia software package, Adobe Flash, various sensors (such as light sensors, infrared sensors, RFID and motion sensors), as well as web cameras to track human movement to create interaction with a computer interface. In this interface (geared toward children), children interact with virtual pets by making sound and movement to trigger actions in their pet. RFID tags allow the user to physically react with objects (stuffed animals) to choose them.

The IDIA Lab: Bridging Art, Science and Technology

• John Fillwalk, Director of the Institute for Digital Intermedia Arts, Ball State University,

Virtual space has the potential to be augmented and engaged by physicality, informing and transforming an audience’s aesthetic and informational experiences in a profoundly transformative nature. The Institute for Digital Intermedia Arts through the Center for Media Design at Ball State University, along with IDIA faculty fellows and staff has been researching hybrid-reality approaches within musical performances, interactive environments, and navigational interfaces employing various virtual environments and bridging technologies. These hybrid reality experiences bridge approaches between worlds with media streaming, client-side interaction, web services, external web server communication hubs, and also provide opportunities for human/computer interaction. These connections to virtualized space provide experiences that can transcend more typical screen-based digital phenomena. This presentation will survey representative projects using several approaches to bridging.

Adapting Craft, Adopting Technology, Expressing Nature

• Richard Elaver, Assistant Professor of Visual Art, Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne,

Evolution in thinking, technology, and culture happens in incremental stages, connecting tradition to change, moving to the new by melding it with the known. In this work, the mix of design and craft, of digital and analog tools, is about cross-fertilization, exploring the interconnections of different fields, media, materials, and processes. It is sexual reproduction rather than cloning, where two related fields have a dynamic cross- pollinating effect and new possibilities emerge. This project is an investigation within the space between craft and design, co-inhabited by digital and analog processes for visualization and making.

Public Service/Civil Engagement

Undergraduate Research, Civic Engagement, and Digital Media

• Dene Grigar, Associate Professor and Director, Digital Technology and Culture, Washington State University Vancouver,

This presentation looks at ways in which undergraduate research and projects involving civic engagement are used to 1) teach students important skills in about video production, web development, and multimedia performance and installation and 2) prepare them for careers in digital media. The presentation focuses on two student works. The first is VJ Fleet, a sound and video performance piece created in which students outfitted three cars with sensor-based technologies. During the performance, students drove the cars around the city, recording sound and video images en route. These recordings were updated and remixed with new information picked up at locations the cars stopped and interacted with audiences. The project won the Undergraduate Student Research Award in spring 2009. The second project is the website created for a local family shelter. In this project beginning design students worked closely with the shelter administrators and residents in developing the website, visiting the shelter and attending its events. In both projects students not only gained important insights into design strategies and teamwork but they also became involved in and knowledgeable about the community in which they live.

Leveraging a blended-media narrative to expose college freshmen to relevant health issues and resources

• Michael Dermody, Assistant Professor, East Carolina University,
• Christine Russell, Visiting Assistant Professor, East Carolina University,
• Fiona Baxter, Director of Institutional Effectiveness, East Carolina University,

As freshmen begin the orientation process for life on campus, most find themselves for the first time as the sole decision-maker for many of their own health issues. There are several key health/lifestyle challenges most likely to impact the student’s quality of life experience and academic success during the critical first years of University. Those issues are ones of diversity, healthy living, and drug and alcohol abuse. Students making informed decisions relating to these challenges are more likely to be successful in the University environment as a whole. This project explores the use of mixed media and associated narratives to capture young people’s interest in health and lifestyle messages. This presentation will describe the approach to the problem and share the current data gathered related to effectiveness of the message delivery. It will provide tips on how to design and execute a project of this scope, with this audience.

Personal Media / Public Good: The Global AIDS Personal Public Service Announcement Project

• Scott Shamp, Director, New Media Institute, University of Georgia,
• Karla Berry, Dean, School of Media and Communication, National University

Worldwide, over 33 million people are living with HIV/AIDS. It is estimated that over a third of those infected do not know their HIV status. Over half of the new HIV infections worldwide are in young people under the age of 25 (UNAIDS/WHO). Worldwide, over 3.9 billion people have mobile phones. In the Global AIDS Personal Public Service Announcement Project (GAPPSA), ten student teams on six continents will use cell phones to fight AIDS. In one day (4/22/10), student teams using only cell phones and laptop computers will plan, script, shoot, edit and premiere video messages encouraging their friends to be tested for HIV. Through the GAPPSA young people will use their most cherished technology to live longer, healthier lives. This paper will discuss this project and will explore the potential for new mobile media technologies to have a positive impact on people’s lives.

The Omission

• Mike Fry, Associate Professor and Coordinator of the Internet and Mobile Media concentration at Columbia College Chicago,

“The Omission” is a branded entertainment webisode targeted at sexually active 18-25 year olds who are potentially at risk for STD’s/HIV and AIDS. The creative goal was to engage the demographic by creating a story and characters that simulated their way of life. The marketing strategy was to involve the audience in the story and characters and to allow the natural use of a product to rise from story organically. Set in Chicago, The pilot centers around the rise of a hot young pop-punk band, their fans and the complexities of their technologically linked sexual relationships. "Everybody wants it, everybody needs it, some will lie to get it. A few seconds of bliss. I guess we’re all on the mission.”

IDEAS Digital Art

“Democratization of Typography”

• Beth Koch, University of Minnesota, Duluth,

"Democratization of Typography" explores loss of identity experienced by the author (and other designers) whose training pre-dated computers. It depicts the struggle of digital typography to retain its roots in expert knowledge of form, honed type handling skills, and precision craftsmanship.

“Critical Gameplay”

• Lindsay Grace, Miami University,

How do games effect the way we problem solve, socialize or even view the world? When we shoot, do we learn to destroy obstacles or work around them? does the binary world of enemies and adversaries teach us to ignore the gray in the everyday? Are we forgetting how to play with each other because playing against each other is more fun? Critical Gameplay is a collect of polemically designed video games. Each game asks whay common game mechanics teach us. The games in the collection are designed to help reevalaute our perspective on gameplay experiences. Critical gameplay seeks to offer alternative perspective on the way we play. Critical Gameplay does not attempt to answer these questions. Instead it seeks to open the dialogue with demonstrative experiments in gameplay. It attempts to fill the space of what if, with something tangible - a game. What is the avatar did have a history before you destroyed it? What if you could not read the game world by stereotyping characters? Critical Gameplay is simply about raising questions that encourage critical reflection on gameplay experiences. The four game currently part of the collection are Wait, Bang!, Black/White and Charity.

“(In)formation”

• Tammy Brackett, Alfred University,

(In)formation is an installation that collects visitor’s biofeedback and then visualizes and sonifys that information via a complex system. Large video projections of biofeedback information and real time video of the installation space are projected and repetitively re- scanned by cameras in the space. An audio signal, created by voltage-controlled oscillators in an analog biofeedback computer, is created for each channel of video.

“Petals of Light”

• Young Suk Lee Altieri, Indiana University,

We interact with living creatures many ways in our daily lives. We observe the results of our interactions with livings creatures when we approach them and witness their defensive behaviors in response to motion or sound. The defensive movements made by creatures such as hedgehogs and potato bugs when approached by humans or other animals serve as the inspiration for SKIN. There are numerous other examples of adaptive movement in nature, such as a flower opening its petals to absorb more light.

The main design concept is that interactive objects can be conceived of as an organic entity taking on difference shapes or functional forms to give off different amounts of light. For SKIN, this dynamic design metaphor provides a meaningful analogy in terms of reactive behaviors to environmental stimuli or to other creatures.

Social Networks 1

What Social Media Does Best: Innovative Teaching and Learning Practices Using Social Networks

• Richard L. Edwards, Assistant Professor of Media Arts and Science, Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI),
• Eric Esterline, Graduate Student, Media Arts and Science, IUPUI,

Today's students are networking with their friends and classmates using a variety of social media tools, including Facebook. As part of a leading edge, many instructors are experimenting with how to leverage these informal social media skills into their college classrooms. In this paper, the authors provide an overview of innovative social media practices in higher education. They also share initial results and analyses from their own study involving a large undergraduate gateway course. Their study uses qualitative and quantitative assessments of student-centered social media practices. Focusing on results from a large, multi-section introductory course, the authors evaluate the pedagogical value of a course-based social network (ning.com) and related social media tools (such as Twitter and RSS feeds). Based on this research, they identify some of the more effective uses for social media in the classroom.

Starting the Conversation: Using Social Media for Promotions

• Jessica Seaton, Multimedia Specialist, Ball State University,

Social media can play a critical role in bridging this gap and can even improve the project itself. For the commercial independent film My Name is Jerry recently produced at Ball State University, the challenge was to promote a film with no set distribution and very little marketing budget.

Ball State Sports Link: An immersive, multiple platform, sports experience

• Suzy Smith, Assistant Professor, Telecommunications, Ball State University,
• Timothy Pollard, Associate Professor, Telecommunications, Ball State University,

This paper looks at the process involved in a project based learning experience based on teaching sports journalism and sports production across multiple platforms and with a variety of emerging media in mind.

Learning through Gaming

Games as Teachers

• Lindsay D. Grace, Assistant Professor, Armstrong Professor of Interactive Media Studies (School of Fine Arts), Miami University,

This paper serves to illuminate prescriptions in problem solving and conflict resolution central to a variety of popular digital games. It outlines several innate pedagogic characteristics of computer games, including the tendency to require learning for efficacy, understanding over recitation, and the critical evaluation of the system’s design. The presentation also demonstrates several games; designed and developed by the author, that raise a player’s critical awareness of the problem-solving models prescribed by traditional games. The games, are part of an ongoing artistic examination of gameplay, were exhibited in Chicago, Illinois in April 2009 and Athens, Greece in October, 2009.

Serious Game Research and Development in Higher Education

• Alan Hashimoto, Associate Professor, Utah State University,
• Brett Shelton, Assistant Professor, Utah State University,
• Dave Smellie, Assistant Professor, Utah State University, .

The Utah Science Technology and Research initiative (USTAR) is a state-funded investment to strengthen Utah's "knowledge economy." This revolutionary initiative invests in world-class innovation teams and research facilities to create novel technologies that are subsequently commercialized through new business ventures. One of the recipients of this competitive funding initiative is the Interactive Design for Instructional Applications and Simulations (IDIAS) Institute. IDIAS is a partnership between Utah State Universitys Department of Instructional Technology and Learning Sciences and the Department of Art (Graphic and Interface Design Emphasis Area). This presentation details the three disciplines involved with the IDIAS Institute: 1) instructional design, 2) simulations and related assets, and 3) interface design. Each speaker will discuss and show examples of projects and demonstrate how these three disciplines are used collectively in designing serious games for the newly created IDIAS Institute.

Advancing Interface/Interaction Design

Designing a proactive multi-touch interface to support professional networking and planning

• Paul Gestwicki, Assistant Professor, Ball State University,
• Carrie Arnold, graduate student, Ball State University,
• Joshua Gevirtz, undergraduate student, Ball State University,
• Jesse Allison, Virtual Worlds and Interactive Arts Research Specialist, Ball State University,
• John Fillwalk, Director of the Institute for Digital Intermedia Arts, Ball State University,

We present the design of a proactive multi-touch display that promotes interdisciplinary communication. The interface was designed for the 2009 iDMAa conference, notable for the breadth of interest of its attendees. Metadata was collected regarding presentation topics and conference registrants' interests. As users approach the interface, it dynamically generates visualizations that highlight the relationships among attendees, their interests, and upcoming conference events. Hence, the system assists with session selection while promoting discussion among nearby attendees. The interface itself is implemented on a Microsoft Surface, and proximity is detected via radio-frequency identification (RFID). This design builds upon related work by focusing on a task that is challenging at multidisciplinary conferences, specifically the selection of presentations to attend during concurrent sessions. The evaluation plan calls for a combination of quantitative and qualitative analysis.

Smart Montage

• Brigid Maher, Assistant Professor of Communication, American University,

Smart Montage is a new-media visual language development, building off and integrating a number of existing concepts and technologies such as video mashups, intellectual montage and spatial montage and can be output to traditional devices, web and mobile devices utilizing the latest Web 3.0 technologies.

Mobile Devices at Innovative Educational Tools

• Jay Bagga, Professor of Computer Science, Ball State University,
• Vinayak Tanksale, Instructor, Department of Computer Science, Ball State University,

Touch-screen based mobile devices are increasingly becoming the communication tools of choice. Smart devices such as iPhone and BlackBerry are also rapidly assuming the role of small hand-held computing devices. While there is already an abundance of games, entertainment and utility applications on mobile platforms, the widespread use of such devices for educational purposes is still largely unexplored. Clearly there is a huge potential for such applications. We are designing and developing native iPhone educational applications to be used as learning tools for students from a variety of disciplines. For instance, students could use the iPhone to interactively engage in learning scientific concepts such as chemical equations and cell division, comprehend advanced mathematical equations, or actively get involved in the political system of our government through polls and quizzes. Our long term goal is to develop an array of educational applications for touch-screen based mobile devices. Our short term deliverables for this project are three fully functional iPhone educational applications.

Social Networks 2

Locus Communis: Twitter as Digital Commonplace

• Brian McNely, Assistant Professor and Emerging Media Fellow, Ball State University,

Drawing specifically from research in computer-supported collaborative work, rhetoric and writing studies, and pedagogical case-studies which leveraged Twitter to support student-led thematic inquiry, this presentation and paper applies long-standing norms of literate meaning-making to a radically misunderstood and emerging platform. As the commonplace book for the early twenty-first century, Twitter enables something that analog common-placing could do only marginally: the addition of overlapping publics, a self-selected, real-time, mobile, and constantly shifting integration of thoughts and ideas from distributed publics. The socio-technical infrastructure of Twitter as digital commonplace can support inventional and learning activities from individuals around the world, in real-time, giving students an entirely new understanding of “places in common.”

Facebook and Social Capital: An Exploratory Study

• Brandon C. Waite, Emerging Media Faculty Fellow, Ball State University,

The optimistic vision of the Internet as an electronic agora has been a common theme of discourse among scholars studying the impacts of computer technology on everyday life. In opposition to this view stand pessimistic scholars who insist that meaningful democratic discourse must be direct and claim that the Internet, like television, is reshaping our lives in decidedly antidemocratic and asocial ways. The present study contributes to this debate by examining online social networks to better understand their potential impact on society. Data were collected via a web-based survey using a convenience sample of 170 Facebook users attending the University of Tennessee. The results suggest that online social networks have the potential to reverse the decline of social capital by increasing users’ feelings of connectedness to society, increasing the diversity of their friendships, and enabling the collection and dissemination of political information.

Twitter, Student-Centered Learning, and Approaches to Study Inventory

• Philip J. Parisi, Assistant Professor, Lyndon State College,

Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, and YouTube appear to have become part of our collective conscience worldwide. Educators are working toward incorporating these social networking tools to engage their students as a means to motivate, excite, and grow their critical thinking skills. This study’s objective is to find the relationship between a practitioner-based digital media program, student cohorts, student-centered learning, and approaches to study inventory while developing ties within the cohort using Twitter.

Shifts in Digital Media Arts

States of Distraction: Media Art Strategies within Public Conditions

• Mat Rappaport, Assistant Professor, Columbia College Chicago,

Medium and large-scale video screens have proliferated in public contexts. Like any new technology aimed at a mass audience, there has been an engagement by artists who seek to comment, critique and enhance its social and cultural impact. At first glance videos presented on large public screens look like big televisions mounted to the sides of buildings. However, the juxtaposition of “publicness” and artist-driven content facilitates an alternate voice in commercial spaces and extends beyond the frame of the screen to engage the viewer’s experience of the built environment. In this paper I will contextualize the effects of adding artists-created media layers to the built environment. I will transpose David Joslit’s use of the concept of feedback which he uses to describe early video artists appropriation of television to contemporary public media works. Case studies will include a series of collaborative projects titled v1b3 and personal creative research projects.

Intermedia and Evolutionary Biology: A Philosophical Blueprint for Digital Art

• Adam Brown, Associate Professor of Intermedia and Electronic Arts at Michigan State University,

The reach of the digital embrace extends far beyond that of screen and keyboard. It surpasses the illusive bits and bytes that form the building blocks of software, and extends beyond ubiquitous portable computing devices such as Blackberries and iPhones. Digital technologies are seeping into the corporal world. Binary code is transforming into atoms via physical computing, rapid prototyping, and electronic fabrication processes. Soon, physical computing will become as common a part of our everyday experience as printing a document or making toast. But more importantly, it is the erosion of perceived traditional boundaries that separate disciplines that has caused the greatest cultural transformation, allowing for an unprecedented fluid transmission of ideas and cultures. In an attempt to navigate this liminal state, this paper will examine the relevance of Intermedia philosophy, both historically and contemporarily. It will look at how an Intermedial model can be expanded conceptually by insights learned through creative practice, the study of evolutionary biology and teaching/pedagogy.

Media arts and the digital divide

• Teresa Griffin, Asst Professor, Media Arts, Wesley College,

Concern about the impact of differential access to computer technology -- the digital divide -- has been expressed since at least the late 90's. Today's students generally have access to computers, but the digital divide remains a significant concern. Today's digital divide is found not in lack of access but in insufficient access, sometimes to hardware but perhaps even more often to software. This can be especially critical for Media Arts students, who use a great deal of expensive software throughout the course of their undergraduate careers. It is not unusual for a media arts major to have coursework requiring a dozen different software programs over the course of an undergraduate career. This paper addresses ways in which students and faculty alike can create opportunities for students caught on the wrong side of today's digital divide. I discuss specific tools that can be used in place of their much more costly counterparts. More important, given how quickly the tools we use change, I address how students and faculty can continue to locate acceptable, affordable replacement software.

Digital Art: Artistic Interpretation from Scientific Collaboration

• Yana (Ioanna) Sakellion, Assistant Professor of Graphic Design, American University,