Icelab: Networked Media Production

That's a wrap

Wed, 05 Nov 2008 13:03 +1100

Thanks everyone for a great semester! A few last reminders:

You should have submitted your assignment via email by now.
We should know which three blog post you have nominated as your best. You can include in your blog, or email us.
There should also be a reflective ‘meta’ post on your blog.
Surveys. Don’t forget to do your student surveys and provide some unit feedback on OSIS.

Revision notes for quiz in week 15

Thu, 23 Oct 2008 14:00 +1100

Important information

Tuesday 28th October
Room 6B10 (the room in which the lectures were held)
9:30am

The quiz questions are all based on this semester’s lectures. Some of the answers are in the lecture notes available online. Some are to be found in the recommended readings, and some by doing a small amount of research into some of the ideas/concepts/terms raised.

Thanks to a collective course effort, we also have a pretty good resource at our delicious page.

Notes/slides from all the lectures are now on this site. Go for it.

Revision (some clues)

Lecture 1: What networked media is

What mediums are we talking about? What mediums aren’t we talking about? How do they differ?

Get a grasp on the basic history of the internet, its core technologies and cultural effects.

Lecture 2: Blogs

What makes a website a blog? What are some of the effects of this medium? On media consumers, on media industries? What technologies have contributed to the rise of the blog, and how do they work?

Lecture 3: Carving up the world

Have a good look at the lecture, make sure you understand (and can explain) the main terms raised. How is the organisation and classification of online content changing?

Lecture 4: Web 2.0

What technologies have prompted this shift in the internet? What is actually changing for users? For artists and media producers? For industry?

Lecture 5: Multiplicity

Make sure you really understand the ‘wisdom of crowds’ concept.

Lecture 6: HTML and CSS

Just make sure you understand what HTML and CSS actually do.

Lecture 7: Data. Everywhere.

Read the lecture, follow some suggested links, enough so to be confident in talking about data visualisation as a concept.

Lecture 8: Remix, API, Mashup

You’ve all played with some applications and interfaces built using APIs: think about how they might work.

Student Surveys

Thu, 23 Oct 2008 11:07 +1100

As you might have noticed, Student Surveys are up on OSIS. This message is to ask, beg and plead with you to do those surveys. There are lots of good reasons: these surveys are an important way for us to gather your feedback on the specific units you’re studying, and your course as a whole. As if this wasn’t enough, UC is offering a chance to win cash prizes.

Since this is the first time we’ve run Networked Media Production we’re especially eager to get your feedback on the unit. Your feedback will help us shape and improve the unit in future years.

There are two surveys currently on OSIS: the USS (Unit Satisfaction Survey) - which relates to specific units - and the UCCEQ (UC Course Experience Survey) - which relates to your course as a whole. These only take a second; please do them both and take the opportunity to give feedback.

Mashups and APIs workshop

Tue, 07 Oct 2008 12:30 +1100

Some links we’ll be using in this weeks workshops.

Flickr API

Twitter

Other

Newsmap

Oh, and make sure you look at this if you’re doing assignment 2:

We tell stories (21 steps in particular)

Lecture 8: APIs

Tue, 07 Oct 2008 08:30 +1100

Attached are the lecture slides for Max’s lecture on APIs

Data visualisation workshops

Tue, 30 Sep 2008 14:57 +1100

Some links we’ll be looking at in workshops this week.

We feel fine by Jonathan Harris
Gapminder community; some serious data here
Feltron; make sure you check out his annual reports to find some ideas for personal data sets
Google charts; API for auto graph generation
Google trends; start comparing some simple data sets
Daytum

Lecture 7: Datavisualisation

Tue, 30 Sep 2008 13:00 +1100

I started this lecture by discussing how we can use scale, colour, shape, position, movement to help us understand data. As humans, we’re more easily able to apprehend and compare quantities when they’re well presented. I showed a couple of TED videos - Hans Rosling on visualising development economics, and Jonathan Harris about his social-media projects, including the amazing WeFeelFine. We finished with a look at the Radiohead video for House of Cards, which is one giant datavisualisation. Along the way we looked at some other visualisations from NYTimes.com, as well as some pretty work based on archive records, and one on internal crossreferences in a well-known piece of religious literature.

Big PDFs of the presentation attached: delicious-ed links in the feed. -MH

HTML/CSS tutorials: Resources

Tue, 23 Sep 2008 14:01 +1100

Attached are some resources for this weeks tutorials.

Lecture 6: HTML and CSS

Tue, 23 Sep 2008 08:23 +1100

Attached are the slides from Max’s lecture on HTML and CSS.

Lecture 5: Multiplicity

Tue, 26 Aug 2008 14:17 +1100

In this lecture I started with an anecdote about the wisdom of crowds, from James Surowiecki’s book of the same name. I talked about various aspects of the notion of multiplicity -“many-ness”- as it relates to networked media. I discussed and gave examples of sampling, iteration, combination, collaborative filtering, and so on. I then showed some example of the aesthetics of multiplicity, from the 1K project to Aaron Koblin’s Flightpatterns, through to MC Escher and the opening ceremony at the Beijing Olympics.

We finished with a video from TED demonstrating Photosynth. Which rocks. (Also: an analog precursor)

Copyright and attribution

Thu, 21 Aug 2008 10:08 +1100

The online exhibition project asks you to ‘Ensure that all content used is licensed appropriately and attributed accordingly’.

A lot of people have been asking questions about this.

If it bears that copyright logo it might be smart to leave it alone.

If the work is licensed under creative commons (CC) it’s likely a different set of rules applies. The different types of CC licenses are listed here. The creative commons website has a search feature which allows you to search flickr, yahoo, google, video sites and more for appropriately licensed work. Check it out.

You also might come across work in the public domain. This means you can do whatever you wish with it. Have a look at archive.org if you’re interested.

It’s a tricky issue, we’ll have a chat about this in workshops. Please talk to you tutor if you remain confused.

Lecture 4: Web 2.0

Tue, 12 Aug 2008 13:12 +1100

Lecture notes now up!

This week’s readings:

Workshop 3: Web 2.0 & Social Media

Tue, 12 Aug 2008 13:05 +1100

This week we’ll have a closer look at some ‘Web 2.0’ services. Some of which just might come in handy for Production Project A:

delicious. Intro to delicious here. Start saving bookmarks of sites or content that might be useful for Production Project A.
flickr Investigate tags, save some favourites, look into photo groups and pools
vimeo Explore some user content. Look into Vimeo’s channels, groups, albums and projects
wikia Might be a good option for option 3.

Your mission is to find great stuff on the net. It might be art, fashion, political commentary, film, music, a really innovative website. Find a common theme or thread. Start saving links, start sharing links, start making sense of it. Start organising it.

Workshop 2: Read some feeds + Production Project A

Tue, 05 Aug 2008 13:16 +1100

Make sure you come to this week’s tutorial: we’ll be having a good talk about Production Project A.

Some handy links relating to tutorial discussion:
Yahoo Pipes: Networkedmedia
Delicious: nmp2008

Flickr: Beyond Reasonable Drought
Beyond Reasonable Drought

We will also be signing up to rss feed readers. If you have a google account google reader will be convenient. There are plenty of other options i.e. bloglines.

Subscribe to the blogs and news sites you’ve been reading. And when you find a blog you like, make sure you subscribe. Soon you’ll be surfing the net like a demon. - Nathan

Lecture 3: Carving up the world

Tue, 05 Aug 2008 11:52 +1100

This lecture was about structure, and taxonomy, and hierarchies, and tags, and design patterns, both in the physical world and online. Lecture notes below. As always, happy to discuss any aspects of the lecture by email at michael@icelab.com.au. - MH

Delicious links + your blog posts

Fri, 01 Aug 2008 11:26 +1100

People:

Two new things on the site today: we’ve flipped our link list to delicious (which has just updated its interface and dropped the interstitial dots): anyone can publish links to it by using the nmp2008 tag. [UPDATE: clever/dumb link by mikurubeam to an expired internet meme, purporting to link to “Michael Honey”.] Also, below that, links to everyone’s most recent blog posts. (MH)

(If you don’t quite get delicious, start here).

Let's see your blog

Tue, 29 Jul 2008 14:26 +1100

Post a link to your new blog as a note below.

If you have signed up for a blog and are wondering what to do next, try some of the following suggestions:

Spend some time getting the know the platforms admistration/dashboard/customisation features.
Learn how to add pictures, videos, links etc to blog posts.
Write a blog post about why you chose your blog platform (blogger, wordpress, livejournal etc).
Write a blog post about some of the blogs you have found that you really like, and why.
Start customising your blog. Look at blogs that use the same platform to find features or widgets you like. Work out how to add them to yours.
Pick a new theme or style for your blog.
Start a blogroll (A list of links in your sidebar). Link to some friends blogs, or blogs that interest you.

There are a lot of tutorials and faqs out there designed to help you along the way. Have a look, and ask your tutor if you’re stuck with something.

Lecture 2: Blogs

Tue, 29 Jul 2008 12:43 +1100

Below are the lecture notes for the week 2 lecture on blogs.

Here are some links I spoke about that you might find handy:

Blog search engine and resource: Technorati
Browser based RSS feed reader: Bloglines & Easy-sub ‘sub with bloglines’ button
Blogging platforms: Blogger and Wordpress
Microblogging: Twitter
Social bookmarking: del.icio.us

There are plenty more within the pdf.

Now get out there, find an RSS feed reader, some blogs you like and subscribe to them. Why not subscribe to the rss feed of this site while you’re at it, and you’ll always be up to date.

If you’re feeling brave sign up for your own blog before this week’s tutorial, you’ll have a head start and you can spend the tutorial writing your first blog post.

Welcome to the blogosphere.

Nathan

Lecture 1: What is networked media?

Thu, 24 Jul 2008 09:22 +1100

People: below, a couple of versions of the lecture notes for Lecture 1. In the lecture I also encouraged you to read Vannevar Bush’s seminal article As We May Think.

I also recommended you go to the Introductions post and, well, introduce yourself.

-Michael

Welcome

Wed, 16 Jul 2008 11:54 +1100

This website contains readings, information and discussion relevant to the Semester 2 Networked Media Production unit at the University of Canberra. First lecture is 22 July 2008 at 9:30am.

Lecture: Tuesday 6B10 9:30 – 11:00

Workshops:

Tuesday 9B18 14:00 – 16:00
Wednesday 9B18 16:30 -18.30
Thursday 9B22 9:30 – 11:30
~~Thursday 9B18 16:30 – 18:30~~ (no longer offered)

Full details are available in the unit outline (148K PDF).