EXERCISE 1: WHICH IS THE NEW MEDIA SOLUTION?

PROBLEM: A DISAPPEARING LANGUAGE

Ian Larson wanted to help preserve the Passamaquoddy language from extinction.

SOLUTION A

Create a taskforce from a select group of Native American language experts, and ask them to write down a dictionary of words and their definitions. Enter these definitions into a database and build a Web site that allows anyone to search for terms and hear their pronunciation. Hire a high-profile Web designer and marketing firm to ensure that as many people as possible learn about this resource.

SOLUTION B

Distribute laptops with video cameras to schoolkids in the Passamaquoddy community, and ask them to record their grandparents telling stories in Passamaquoddy. Upload these to a Web site along with the grandparents’ definitions of particular words used in the story, and make these words searchable via a tag cloud.

Embodies the “many-to-many” principle:

Solution B embodies the many-to-many principle because the school kids are able to interaction with their grandparents by asking them and recording them but also they are able to interaction with others because they can watch these videos on the tag cloud. Solution A doesn’t work as well because they aren’t interacting with their grandparents and learning stories, they are just asking random Native Americans.

PROBLEM: NEGLECTED RUINS

Evan Habeeb wanted to make people aware of the beauty of abandoned buildings.

SOLUTION A

Assemble a film crew and visit abandoned homes, factories, and other buildings. Bring lights to illuminate these spaces dramatically, and record ambient sounds like dripping water. Edit the footage onto a DVD to create a compelling account that documents these relics for posterity, and distribute copies to historical societies across the state for their collections.

SOLUTION B

Build a Web site that allows adventurers to print stickers they can leave behind in abandoned buildings they explore. Create the stickers so they can be scanned by a mobile phone to reveal a Web site built to feature photographs taken by those explorers.

Embodies the “many-to-many” principle:

Solution B embodies the many-to-many principle because anyone can make the sticker and leave it whenever and then anyone can and scan it and leave their own sticker so it opens it up to more people. Solution A doesn’t embody the many-to-many principle as well because having just a film only allows the people working on the film to physically see the beauty of the abandoned building.

PROBLEM: MISUNDERSTANDING COMPUTER ANIMATION

Ryan Schaller and Jason Walker wanted to help people understand the many layers required to create a computer-animated film, including wireframe, textures, and light effects. As a case study, they created an animation depicting a cartoon archeologist digging for ancient artifacts.

SOLUTION A

Design and build a touch-screen interface that allows viewers to “rub” away layers of the film with their hands to reveal previous stages of the animation as it plays.

SOLUTION B

Create an iPad application that documents each stage of the animation process, using stills from the archeologist film as illustrations. Explain techniques such as ray tracing, motion capture, and morphing. Include links to companies that create animation software such as Autodesk.

Embodies the “many-to-many” principle:

Solution A embodies the many-to-many principle because by creating the touch-screen when they physically interaction by rubbing away it allows them to truly understand what it takes to make the film. Solution B doesn’t embodies the “many-to-many” principle because it’s only an app and doesn’t allow you to be hands on.

PROBLEM: A BROKEN FOUNTAIN

Danielle Gagner wanted to renovate the waterfall fountain under the skylight in the middle of the University Union, which had fallen into disrepair.

SOLUTION A

Repurpose the existing plumbing to irrigate a garden planted in the former fountain. Research the types of plants that would grow well together at different levels of the fountain, and meet with dining hall staff to find out what herbs or vegetables they might add to salads and other offerings. Then plant these in collaboration with the sustainable agriculture club on campus, and invite students to pick the resulting parsley, strawberries, and other fare from the garden for their lunch.

SOLUTION B

Use Google Image Search to download photographs of natural bodies of water such as streams, rivers, and the ocean. Combine these with nature footage from sources like National Geographic and the Discovery Channel to create a multichannel video installation that projects images of flowing water and rippling waves onto the fountain, which has been covered with theatrical screening. Supplement the moving images with the sound of a babbling brook emanating from surround-sound speakers mounted on the ceiling.

Embodies the “many-to-many” principle:

Solution A embodies the many-to-many principle because by creating a real environment it allows lots of people to interact with it and having the dining hall staff to put herbs or vegetables makes it more of a collaboration making it many-to-many. Solution B doesn’t embody the many-to-many principle because by just having images and videos doesn’t allow someone to immerse themself into the actual environment and creates a disconnect between the whole community and the waterfall.

EXERCISE 2: INVENT YOUR OWN MANY-TO-MANY SOLUTIONS

THE OCEANS ARE DYING

How can you stimulate students to learn more about the oceans?

Even thought the ocean makes up about 71% of the earth, we have only discovered around 7% of it. We know more about space than we do about our own planet. This is one of the main reasons that it’s so hard to keep attention to the crisis that the oceans are dying. In order to help educate students and then hopefully get them more involved in saving the ocean is to us VR headsets to allow them to explore the ocean on their own. There are many apps that can turn your phone into VR so this could be one of the apps. The app can use the The World’s Ocean feature on Google Earth and this will allow kids to see what it’s really like to be in the ocean. It can show the good and the bad parts of the ocean and show the effects that climate change and humans have left on the ocean.

In addition there can be parts of it that show what the world will look like if our ocean does die. Because once our ocean dies, so does our planet. If there is a section that show this happening and what exactly will happen it might allow people to see the truly issue of our oceans dying and put it in to perspective. Also there can be features showing what coral reefs looked like 50 years ago, how they were more full of life and more vibrant and then compared to now how there isn’t really anything left and how most of the worlds coral is bleaching.