Helen Barrett’s discovered some interesting research directed by John Sanders at Leeds University. Reflect 2.0 is case study research into reflective practice and digital storytelling across disciplines, building on the work of Jenkins & Lonsdale.

The researchers ask that those that are interested join them in the i reflect community where you can find resources, watch stories, and contribute to the community forums.

OK so I’m thinking about learning environments but this book looks pretty cool and no Shelfari is not working for me.

Technology-Mediated Narrative Environments for Learning (Hardcover)
by G Dettori (Editor), T Giannetti (Editor)

http://books.google.co.nz/books?id=HNDMY5YwCPkC&dq=learning+environments&printsec=frontcover&source=in&hl=en&ei=We7CSbv5GpKWsQP4p8T-Bg&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=10&ct=result#PPP1,M1

I liked this too:

Interesting to attend a talk by Shelley Bernstein of Brooklyn Museum (NY). She talked about the way the museum uses Twitter, blogs, Flickr, webcams and other devices of social networking to create a community of interested people.

The talk was inspiring, and made me think about ways educational institutions could use these tools to create communities of practice. It’s a wee bit more fraught for us than for museums but hmmmmm it’s an area I think we are still toying with.

Nevertheless the talk from Shelley was inspiring and you can find the Brooklyn Museum on facebook, or on the various twitter or flickr and related sites.

Worth watching.

Update: Shelley is speaking and facilitating a workshop at Webstock 2010!

This video from TED (Ideas worth spreading) is a bit of a ‘knock your socks off’ video and definitely worth sharing.

It’s called: Talks Pattie Maes & Pranav Mistry: Unveiling the “Sixth Sense,” game-changing wearable tech

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/pattie_maes_demos_the_sixth_sense.html

http://internationaldayblog.storycenter.org/

The theme this year for May16th is Immigrant and Human Rights.

While last year we were part of team that set up the local Ning site Digital Life Stories I am not convinced that this year we will have the wherewithall to do anything. We had hoped that others would contribute to the Ning site and they have but it has alas lapsed a little. If you have a story you want to add there…. add it!

Let us know if you want to do something and we will do our best to support and be involved.

Ten Virtual Worlds predictions 2009

Looks as if virtual worlds continue to have a place this year. I guess it’s like the first time people saw movies or tv…..there may have been warnings about the nature of the new worlds….interesting to track.

Any other predictions for 2009?

With today’s launch of DigitalNZ New Zealand’s digital content just got much easier to “find, share and use”. A quick Coming Home search for Frank Clark returns Trooper Frank Clark’s Cenotaph Database record including a link to the digital story we created!
More exciting though is Auckland War Memorial Museum’s hosting of Memory Maker, a web-based video editor based on ideum’s EditorOne. Memory Maker lets you remix selected digitized content from National Digital Forum members (and others) to produce your own video. Not quite a digital storytelling machine, but a promising start.

We’d recommend that you visit this site in SL and try to get to one of the performances this week (NZ times). SEe the link for the link if you see what we mean. It’s a fabulous ‘build’ in SL and well worth a visit.

“You wont want to miss Rollo Kohime’s (RL: Mike Baker, Nelson, New Zealand) live performance in Real Life and Second Life at the Railway Station (http://slurl.com/secondlife/Koru/86/72/21) on Friday, November 28, at 8.40pm (all times are New rollo-mike-fionaZealand time), Saturday, November 29, 12.40pm, Wednesday, December 3, 12.00 midday, Friday December 5, 8pm, and a closing performance, Saturday, December 6m at 12.40pm. Rollo will be dancing in Real Life/narrating/playing his Real Life videos/Second Life Station with Real Life videos and some Real Life audience participation. “

We are both very pleased to be asked to sit on the technology panel at the New Zealand Communications Conference in Hamilton this year. We’ll be talking about Web 2.0 and applications for teaching and learning.

And talking of Web 2.0 and related matters….I guess we’ve all caught up with the story about divorce, prostitution in SL and the interface with reality. Interesting times and a story that has provoked many a discussion about multiple identities the nature of marriage and reality. If we had time we’d love to start our PHD about the nature of identity and the web. But we won’t. Yet.