Sorry for the delay, but here’s the notes from the last Digital Media group call on November 3rd.  As a whole, a lot of our conversation centered on the challenges of working with youth media projects, such as lack of equipment, youth motivation, developing handouts and guides.  Subsequently, AJ followed up by volunteering to gather any curriculum and handouts people are willing to share.  [Check out the archives of the discussion list at http://www.ctcvista.org/forum/] In future calls, we plan to center on topics such as web design techniques (Dreamweaver or Drupal), video editing help and youth development. Our next call is scheduled for Friday, December 15th at 2pm EST.

Here's some individual highlights:

• AJ & Kevin (Home Inc) - working on after school programs with little to no video equipment; HOME Inc is evicted from office space and moving to BNN Roxbury; developing Final Cut materials for youth; challenge of distributing tasks out to large group of youth (8-22 youth) to do one video project; meeting challenge of no equipment by improvising and using cell phones; offered to gather some of CTC VISTAs curriculum and handouts
• Colleen (Project Think Different) - see article for Digest about new Media Literacy Series program (Media Watch Teens she trained in the summer now lead 4 months of trainings for other org's like Roxbury B&G Club; office dynamics and personnel changes at PTD adding to her workload;
• Dina (Project Think Different) - now that PTD electronic community projectthinkdifferent.org/civic/ ("a socially conscious My Space") is in it's final stages (where she edited Drupal/PHP modules by hand) with radio, forums, and podcasts - its soft launch on 10/31, working on some print materials for PTD and CTC VISTA and re-organizing the PTD filing system
• Gariet (Portland Community Television/OLLIE) - getting hardware soon for MNN's Digital Distribution project and continuing to work with schools; requests more time in the day!
• Jeff (UTEC)- switched to TANP group; we’ll miss you!
• Jessica (Center for Digital Storytelling) – participated train-the-trainer in Ukiah, now she's trained to do those workshops (future workshops include foster youth and domestic violence); research about who's doing storytelling in Berkeley area is now on hold because they don't have time to support; working on content for the StoriesforChange.net portal; working on redesigning some promotional materials and a Final Cut Xpress handout update (will try to share shorter version)
• Lashanda (Benton Harbor African Arts and Culture Council) - programs are going ok but working with supervisor to get updated computer equipment.
• Lauren (Media Bridges) - getting some content for the youth channel but needs more!; in process of setting up youth film festival with schools (old name "Sprockets") as Youth Channel kickoff and more established programs for youth such as an  8 week project based workshop in January; interested in doing collaboration to go to conferences;
• Ray (Computers4Kids) - developing workshops and writing them up; 10-15 workshops developed so far - digital photography, 3d modeling with Bryce, photoshop composites, web page design, silent movies with imovie, remix in GarageBand;
• Richard (MOLLIE) – working on video projects in schools, where the subjects of the videos match the school curriculum, such as astronomy – challenged by lack of hard drive space for editing; wants to set up an audio production track but need to survey the community
• Shaneka (WYTEC) - attending an Entreprenuership conference in AZ; developed a tshirt business/marketing plan with youth; continuing to develop a girls program; also developing an adult computer literacy program (created her own manual) based on resources on GCF Global learning (will check about sharing the .pdf)
• Tony (BGC AZ) - Techathalon this weekend; he's been doing the setup with getting teams organized and working behind the scenes; posted AYW animations (with video and sound); lack of real programming for teens, so he's trying to do movie/video projects but teens don't like the more structured programming;; got his motorcycle going as a form of transportation;
• Will (Reel Works) - been working on Benefit 11/14, documentary about the program; helps with classes, guides people through the editing process; working on using MySpace to recruit new youth, and putting movies and films up on there;

Comment from Richard T. Anderson on November 28, 2006 - 10:40am

Wow, I'm included in the minutes of a "meeting" that I missed.

Well, I'm still plugging away. How you had a nice Holiday.

Peace,

Rich

This is an excellent example of how to network on the web.  I have been a member of a motorcycle forum for over 2 year...maybe three.  Anyways I went to visit a fellow member this last weekend and this is the story that I posted on my forum.  It has pictures. :)

Well this was a great weekend. I have got to admit that its some of the best riding I have done. So I will do my best to explain it. Patti can jump in and fill in any details that I failed with.

Friday night my roommates drug me out to the bar so I was up to about 3 am. I was so worried that I wasn't going to make it up to Sedona the next day. I was the designated driver so I had to be responsible (as much as that stinks). Anyways I didn't want to feel iffy in the morning. I was up early. Had a gut full of coffee and I was off and away from the apartment at 7:50 out of the rat race zone.

Out onto the 202 and swinging around onto the 101 loop around the east side of Phoenix. I thought I had left early enough for the crazies to still be in bed. Ya right. 100 mph on the interstate seems excessive...but not for these people. Thank goodness no one was trying to share my lane today.

I swing off the 101 loop onto I-17 north. The road is quiet and only 4 lane. Its amazing to watch the terrain change as you head farther north. The desert plants give way to scrub trees as you head into the higher elevations. This is where I started to get a bit of bite from the wind.(stick a sock in it Brad!!!!) This is also the area where I start thinking that my 120 mile range isn't enough. (stupid small tank) Stop for a quick fill up(3 bucks a gallon...) and I am back on the road with 30 miles left. This is where the elevation starts changing greatly. Up and down and some amazing views. Then my exit is upon me. Off the road and only about a quarter mile to Dave's shop. Over the cattle guard and just off to the right. I got to admit I find the cattle guards unnerving. I have never been comfortable driving over something that is steel.

I pull into Dave's shop and I can see Pmint out front waving me in. Am I that obvious. LOL. Anyways. I am all jacking into my tunes and my stocking cap on under my helmet. So whatever she said when I shut the bike off never got to me. She gave me a huge hug...and let me get situated. Small chit chat and meeting the big guy (Dave). She wasn't lying. Thats for darn sure. I have a short chat and then Patti tells me we have to go on a parts run. This is starting to feel more and more like home. I got a first class ride in the Dodge and a chance to thaw. I hope I get the details right but I believe we went to Cottonwood or was it Cornville. Great ride...even if it was in a cage. I was trying to soak up this absolutely gorgeous area. Right now they are having their fall leaves...if you can have that in Arizona. I got a great tour.

Got our parts and headed back to Dave's. Hmm I can't remember the route we took. Ha we took so many different roads I can't remember. We dropped the part off and I got to run over and check out Patti's home. I know some of you mentioned that Patti was great but I do not think you can really tell how much of a sweetheart she is until you meet her. Food and a nap and I was ready for a ride.

This is were the rocket ride gets pulled out. Patti's bike is a beast. Hearing that thing fire up and rumble was great. I then fire up the lowly 800 with it's quiet demeanor and off we go to pick up Dave. Patti had some race fuel in the bike and it was a sweet smell. There is nothing like the smell of burnt race fuel.

Pick up the big guy with his gold wing and we were off on the interstate. This is the point where I realize that I have no chance keeping up with Patti and it was going to be a long day if this was the pace we were going to go at!  She was just opening up on the interstate she said or "blowing out the carbon". She let Dave and I catch up and by that time we were at our exit. We get off the interstate and somehow lost Dave. We got off the ramp and pulled over to the side of the road. This is where Patti mumbled something about a Wing being like Harley...but thats just what I heard...could have been something totally different.

We are off the interstate and heading towards Sedona. The traffic was horrible so we spin around and take a detour through Cottonville. Which was a great ride in itself. I do not remember the name of the road but 35 to 45 mph curves. I think I enjoy the low speed curves more then something like going 75 mph in a long sweeper. This road took us to a rest stop just outside of Sedona. I took a couple of pictures of all the bikes and got some good photos of Sedona off in the distance. We hope back on the road and in no time we are in Sedona. Sedona is beautiful but is it ever crowded! Overrun with tourists. I will have to return again but on a weekday. It took awhile to get through the stop and go traffic but onward to ride up Oak Creek Canyon.

This ride was great. It started out with some 45 to 55 mph curves. By the time we were getting to the top we were into the 15 mph hairpins. The whole time we were following Oak Creek and this was great area. Lots of aspens and tall pines along the ride. I wish there was less traffic to take some of the corners at some higher speeds but thats fine we still had a blast. I have to admit. I have done some super rides in Wisconsin. The Mindoro cut being the closest to this but the Mindoro cut is tiny compared to riding up this mountain. I would have to say this is one of the greatest rides I have taken for scenery and the technical riding. We stopped at a scenic overlook and took some pictures and froze in the high winds. I can't remember the exact elevation but I think it was just under 8000 feet. Lots of bite in the air now. Best part of all is that we get to head back down!

Thank goodness they didn't let me take the lead. I might have done something rash. Anyways back down the mountain and back through Slowdona. I think the traffic had Patti fired up a bit because she popped the clutch and revved the engine (using alot of fuel) at some guy that tried to pull out in front of us. I am not sure how he could miss us coming?? Wait silly question.

We made it out onto the interstate and heading back towards Patti's house. I am tailing the group just hanging out when I see Patti ride up beside Dave in the passing lane and she started to make a bunch of motions. I remember she mentioned her clutch was getting hot in Sedona so I thought she was saying that her clutch was slipping. We continue on and about another 5-10 minutes down the road Patti suddenly wants to get over. I was thinking that we were going to have to trailer the bike home cause her clutch burned up or something. Turns out someone's bike ran out of fuel...but I am not sure who's bike and who's fault it was.  I guess the race fuel burns faster. A short shot down the road and a 1.25 gallon gas can (whatever happened to simple 1 or 2 gallon gas cans) and back to the point of interest to fuel the unsaid bike. We were back on our way to Patti's house.

I will skip ahead and say that we went out for chinese. I swear....I think I gained 10 pounds this weekend. Patti knows how to feed a guy!

Here are the pics that I have...Patti has the others but because of technical difficulties we will have to get those later.
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?ai...f&id=185101191

Last week my schedule changed from Mon-Fri to Tues-Sat. Yesterday was my first Monday off, so today really feels like Monday. Aside from that, it's not so bad. Saturdays around Media Bridges is rather slow. But the whole point for my move is to start a weekly Saturday program for youth around here.

I'm aiming to start it right after Thanksgiving. Every Saturday for a couple of hours we will designate computers and space specfically for youth to come in and learn and work on projects. The structure has not been completely set up yet, but I am planning on having weekly 'demos' or mini-lessons. This way a participant does not have to come in every week where one lesson builds on the previous one. So one day will be intro to imovie and another day will be interviewing techniques and so on. Then whenever a participant is ready to take a certification test, they can take it anytime and come in anytime during the week and use our equipment and edit stations. We're all also thinking that the participants may have to submit a statement of purpose (or a video blog) about why they want to learn whatever or what project they want to do. This will hopefully prevent kids from just coming in and using the internet or as an easy place for parents to drop off their kids for a few hours.

This is a pilot program for a couple of months. Originally, we were going to have afterschool workshops here, but we do not have any space at our facility during the aftershool hours (Media Bridges has to provide general classes to the public during those hours as part of our contract). The two alternatives are Saturday programs here and going to do outreaches at afterschool programs. I"m contacting area afterschool programs to see what we can get going at their places rather than at Media Bridges. There are some obstacles for that, but we're working on them.

So all is moving along.

In other news, we'll be going up to Lansing, MI on Thursday for the Alliance for Community Media, Central States Conference and the Philo Awards.  I hear that public access people like to party. I'll report back on that next week.

Good Morning,

Well, the sun is rising here in Michigan on chilly Friday. My computer is now by the window, so I can look out on the sky, the trees, the road, and the apartment complex office.

Yesterday, Jeanne, my supervisor, said, "It's the last good day for a bike ride." She was probably right. It was unusually nice yesterday and it's supposed to get colder starting today. But you never know. There could always be a 60 degree day in December. This is Michigan, after all.

Work has been keeping me pretty busy, the last couple weeks. MoLLIE was out at a school nearly every day for two weeks. Now we're settling back into a lighter schedule. And I really want to focus on developing an audio class. We don't have surveys in yet telling us that that is specifically what the community wants, but I'm starting to think I should just proceed as if we have. Not having the survey's is just a way of procrastinating on doing something that I've never done, and thus is scary.

So, I'm going to go over my syllabi (syllabuses?) from my audio production class at Grand Valley and think about what would work for a beginning and advanced class. Seems like a good starting point.

In life news; I got a car. I've been without a car since July. And it really is no good in Grand Rapids. The public transit has improved over the years, but it's still not great for much besides going to and from work, and even then only if you are on a bus route (which fortunately I was).

Having a car means I can go out some nights. Especially nights when there are open mics for me to go and play my guitar and sing some songs.

My roommate and I are finally having a "house"-warming party. Which also doubles as a post Halloween, post-election celebration. And it's seems to have a six degrees of seperation aspect as well. If any VISTA's are in GR on Saturday, let me know, I'll give you directions.

Well, I'm probably already going a bit long for a blog. So I think I'll say adu.

Peace,

Rich

Last Friday, November 3rd, 2006, the Technical Assistance for Nonprofits group (aka TANs - technical assistants for nonprofits...at least in my book) had a conference call to make sure that everyone was still alive and kicking and doing well with their projects. Although Kamala was out sick (hope you're feeling better!!), and John was....well, honestly I don't know (hmmm)...at least, I don't think he was there, but it can be hard to tell over the phone (sorry John if you were actually on the call!), the rest of us spoke for about an hour about VISTA life, our terms of service, and whatever else came to mind. Below are some of the results:

In The Future...

For future calls, one member of the group is going to lead a discussion on a certain topic as to expand everyone else's knowledge on that particular topic. For example, Tim will begin our next call leading us in a discussion about collaboration software tools. All you other TANs be thinking about what you want to do for calls next year!

Project Updates

Cheryl has been heading up workshops, doing web modificiations, meeting with agencies to address how their needs can be met, and a number of other things. Yay Cheryl!

Laura (yes, me) has been focusing on checking one of the web-based tools Pangea uses for data management for inconsistencies. In addition, she has been updating a training manual for one of their other systems since it was out-of-date. Good thing she loves detail-oriented work!

Tim blogged about his most recent happening with Aspiration, and he did a great job describing it (much better than I could ever do). In a nutshell, people from different open source projects got together to brainstorm how to make products more user-friendly. (Gosh, I hope I said that right!) Really though, you should read Tim's blog...he makes it sound a lot cooler. Take 'em away, Tim!

Corey has been working on updating training materials for Pangea as well. In the hardware aspect of things, she repaired a broken power button for one of their servers. Go Corey!

Andrea's office was recently feng shui'd to ensure that her office is in harmony with her environment. :) She's been working on figuring out how her agency can host the Media That Matters festival (remember that from PSO?!). In addition, she's been focusing on volunteer stuff and working with the Library of Congress on gathering the stories of veterans. Awesome, Andrea!

Remember!

If you haven't updated your contact information yet, do it now! Make sure your agency information especially is listed and correct in your personal profile.

And that's a wrap! I hope you enjoyed hearing what the TANs have been up to!

Comment from Kamala Kalluri on November 17, 2006 - 11:24am

Laura;

Thanks for giving a detailed account of what has happened in last
monthly teleconference meeting for Technology Assistance for Non-profits group.
Unfortunately I had to miss that meeting on account of being sick with cold and therefore it fills me in on what I have missed. I am doing O.K and my downtime project work is progressing at a reasonable pace.

kamala

Exciting news! From Nov. 6-12 on the New York Times website the Times Select content which normally you have to pay for will be free. Yay! This includes some of the more popular Op/Ed columns and also some video clips. I think it  also includes some access to the archive but I haven't checked that out yet. 

 Anyway, yay for free information! (sponsored by Philips, so I suppose it's just an adverstising ploy)

If anyone is interested in volunteering for citizen schools the URL to get to the webpage is

http://www.citizenschools.org/index.cfm.

I also have the Name and Number of the National Volunteer Manager

Kristy Krugh

617-695-2300

Museum Wharf

308 Congress Street

Boston, Ma 02210

I personaly have met some very nice people and they are teaching everything from cooking to emrgency first aid. If you get a chance I recomend you check it out.

Last weekend Aspiration co-hosted a Usuability Sprint at Google in Silicon Valley. The purpose of this sprint was to bring together designers of Free/Libre/Open Source Software (FLOSS) software with "usability experts", with the hope that some good design work could be done to make the products more user-friendly. Google provided most of the usability experts, and the open source projects represented were Drupal, Sustainable Civil Society, SocialText, HyperScope, and of course, Social Source Commons (represented by Gunner and me).

First off, I need to say that Google is awesome. They provided the meeting space and food for the weekend completely free of charge to anyone. We had constant access to snacks and drinks, and even got a "shwag bag" of free stuff. Aside from that, Google seems to really go out of their way to make their employees happy, from the free snacks and drinks to the kitchens on every floor, to the free laundry service there. Needless to say, I was very impressed.

We also got a lot of work done for Social Source Commons. We are in the process of adding "COmmunity Toolboxes" as a feature, and we spent the weekend designing the relevent pages for this new feature in order to ensure that we have all the functionality covered. We did a lot of good work, and developed some nice wireframes that we sent to our developers to integrated into the website. Hopefully we should have those up and running soon, because the value added by having "Community Toolboxes" will really help SSC to provide value to nonprofits and those providing them with technical assistance. I'll blog more about Community Toolboxes later, when we incorporate them into the website.

Comment from cheryl jerozal on November 3, 2006 - 4:05pm

did you get one of the google pins that lights up with different colors? that was my favorite piece of swag from them.

Comment from gariet cowin on November 9, 2006 - 3:01pm

For those of you interested, which is probably nobody, I would like to point out that "shwag" and "swag" are not the same thing.

"Shwag" is free promotional crap given out by companies.

"Swag" is an Aussie term for a rolled bundle of belongings, carried by a foot traveler. It can also refer to "loot", such as that plundered by pirates.

The only exception to this is if you happen to be at a trade show for a pirate startup company, and you steal some of their promotional items. In that case, either word is acceptable.

Comment from lauren bratslavsky on November 14, 2006 - 11:22am

well garriet you'ld be surprised to know that this is relevant at our office. We have been talking about schwag and calling it pirate booty. Thanks to your clarification, I informed my coworkers and set the record straight, though there are still some rebels who say schwag is the pirate booty of conferences.

Comment from cheryl jerozal on November 16, 2006 - 12:54pm

swag and shwag are the same thing: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swag_%28disambiguation%29 , except that shwag has one additional meaning of low grade marijuana. i chose the spelling i did as an attempt at a joke (sometimes i feel like a pirate looting companies, especially at job fairs where they have things like pens that light up in multiple colors...hmm maybe i just like things with flashing colors)...but i guess that attempt failed.

At present my work is focused mainly on a small software development project for which I write code in php.  I have to write code to interact with a database and generate forms and reports.

  Among the tools I am using for this project, Pear::DB and Smarty are more significant. PEAR is allowing me to write code which is database neutral. That is I do not have to write database functions addressed to a specific database. I need to do it only once in a single statement when I connect to a database of my choice. This is a cool concept that allows portability. For example same code can be used to connect to MySQL or SQLite or PostgresSQL data bases with changes only to configuration parameters. 

Another tool that I am using is “Smarty templates” for report layout. With Smarty I can   write code separating presentation details from the processing logic. Additionally Smarty allows me to use conditional logic and looping within the template, thus allowing me to separate not only the template but also the logic, this ability to use some level of logic, instead  of just plugging in the variables, gives me more control over the display

  For example I have been able to code the display of a form containing a list box filled with the results of a data base query. I am also able to create a table, populated with records from database with a layout based on a condition. Using smarty has simplified and reduced my php code as well. I find, having HTML files (templates)separated from PHP files is convenient in terms of running through HTML validator, linking to style sheets, debugging and editing.