Digital Arts Service Corps - Computer lab

Month 11: Final Workshops and Facility Recommendations

Stephen Fonzo — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 22:12:05 +0000

In May/June, I offered several training workshops, likely the last round of dedicated sessions as my year of VISTA service comes to a close. The remainder of my year will be devoted to compiling the training materials I've written, and writing the manuals I haven't had time to compose yet.

Of the three video production workshops I led, one was an interactive session with students from the READY School in Champaign, IL. After an initial tour of our facilities and those of Urbana Public Television, the students checked out free camcorders and videotaped a day at their school, with interviews and shots of classrooms, art, bulletin boards, and the building itself. Our training session covered the fundamentals of cutting, arranging, and editing scenes, using Adobe Premiere Pro. The students, whose school year is finished, now have two local resources for continued learning where they can finish this and other films if they would like.

Many of the training sessions were about A/V data backup, transfer, and duplication, as members of the IMC get ready to work more independently after I have finished my service. Beyond these and other basic recording and editing tips, two of the audio workshops addressed key issues for citizen journalists - 1) posting to the web and 2) understanding the principles of digital audio and their application. Finally, I have been working with our community radio station WRFU, to ensure that members are knowledgeable about making PSAs, news stories, and updating their Drupal site. In the last month, I will compile and share these resources; for now, I have been revising the manuals as I go, and sharing with smaller working groups.

Though we often use commercial software like Premiere at the IMC, the only real expenses that any artists or journalists should ever have to face are time and hardware (cameras, mics, computers, a/v equipment, etc.). I encourage everyone I train to use and tell others about free and open source software (FOSS), and this month I continued my research into these tools. Specifically, FOSS operating systems can be installed (easily and for free) and used to keep older and slower computers running quickly and efficiently - especially important for organizations with small budgets. Operating systems I recommend are Ubuntu (which has many variants, including one with media production applications called Ubuntu Studio), Puppy Linux, Dyne:bolic, and Pure:dyne. There are others, but these systems have familiar desktop and window environments, can be expanded to include office productivity and media software, and some even run off of live CDs, so no installation is necessary. We received a donated laptop that was quite slow, running Windows 98 - now with the most recent version of Xubuntu, it is much faster and is available for IMC members to use for on-location recording, broadcast, and web publishing.

A critical component of documentation is not just manuals or progress reports, but recommendations. The final aspect of capacity building requires communicating to your organization what they can do to grow after the absence of VISTA staff. At the IMC I am in the process of troubleshooting and listing improvements that could be made to the production facilities - via hardware that will need to be purchased, and software that is free. Luckily for us, we just hired some summer youth employees through the Champaign Consortium, and each individual has his/her own project to use as a learning experience and as a service to the IMC - adding to the continuity and capacity built so far with VISTAs.

Computers, Kids, and CLANK!!!

Raymond Varona — Wed, 21 Mar 2007 14:05:33 +0000

*The following would have been posted last month if I didn't constantly close Firefox in mid-blog*

I have no idea what the heck they're working on next door but they're certainly doing a great job of constructing it as loudly as possible. It would be one thing if it was a steady-state din, but instead there will be a long stretch of quiet, followed by an ear-splitting CLANG! as someone (I'm guessing) starts taking a sledgehammer to a very massive, VERY resonant object. There's also the deafening buzz of a chopsaw gnawing through metal the very moment you start to get your concentration back, as well as the desk-rattling jackhammer to add insult to injury. To make matters worse, when they have a radio playing its top-40 stuff. Not like I have anything against popular music, I just don't want Ashlee Simpson as the musical backdrop to this chaotic production. Call me a purist, if you will.

Anyway, the big news of the past couple of weeks has been the arrival of 14 new computers. I say a couple of weeks instead of a week because Dell certainly did their part in making sure I had plenty of work to do. It didn't start off too bad. I did get bounced to 3 different sales reps (due to the quantity), none of whom could cut us much of a break (so much for a karma discount) and had some annoyances putting together a quote, but nothing I wouldn't normally expect. When the systems finally arrived (no hitches yet), I pulled them out and noticed the CPU sticker only denoted an AMD64, and not the 64X2 dual core that I had specified. Fired it up noticed the BIOS listed the CPU as the 64. Not cool.

After looking over the invoice, it turns out that we did, in fact, get the correct systems. However, the systems magically changed from 64X2s on the quote to plain-old-64s on the order. Blarg. About an hour and a dozen phone transfers later we finally arranged to the dual-core systems sent. They arrived without incident, and also without return labels for the old systems. Cripes. Another hour and a few more phone transfers later, we finally arranged for another pickup the next day. Fast forward 24 hours, and the Fedex man is here with 8 shipping slips in hand. Wait a sec...8 slips...14 computers...KHAAAAAN!!!

A couple of days later, everything resolved itself and we all lived happily ever after, until it came time to order mounting systems. We wanted to mount the computers under the tables and elevated from the ground. While not unheard of, this wasn't particularly common so of course nobody locally had anything. Most online sources had units starting at $60-80ish, with the most simple units consisting of mounting plates for the table and straps to suspend the computers from the table. Not exactly kid-proof, but the alternative were designs that featured drawer slides and swivels, so the strapping method won by default.

When it came time to order the mounts though, the lead time was pretty long and we already had volunteers lined up to help install the computers, so rather than arrange for rush shipping when we probably wouldn't get the units in time anyway, I cobbled together a knock-off from tie-plates, tiedown straps, and drywall screws. It used 3x7" tie-plates to hold the straps against the bottom of the table. Then, an old mouse pad was taped over the plate with some double-sided carpet tape. After cinching the straps as tightly as possible, the excess looped around the end on both sides and tied onto the other side of the strap as a safety measure. The remaining ends were cut and fused. To make the catches tamper resistant, wedges were cut from shim stock, sprayed black to match, then put into place and secured with cable ties. Not exactly foolproof, but good enough.

Between the smaller footprint of the LCDs, the under-table mounting, and some cable organization, the lab looks much cleaner all-in-all. Wish I could say all the kids loved it. A few really were wide-eyed and overjoyed, but most others just kinda shrugged, said 'meh' and went back to their regularly scheduled YouTube viewing. *sigh*

Installation was smooth and easy thanks to the imaging process, although our inital attempt at imaging a dual-boot XP/Vista install didn't go over particularly well. Alright, so it didn't work at all. That plus the lack of support for Deep Freeze and we're looking at a purely XP setup on most of the computers. 4 computers were manually set up with a dual-boot just for kicks. While it'll leave a big, gaping Deep-Freeze exploit, I'd be tickled to death if our kids were savvy enough to take advantage of it.

Anyway, enough blabber, here's some pictures:

A shot of our old lab setup

Our new lab setup

Mounted computers

What is going on at Cyber Y?

Leena Silverman — Mon, 12 Feb 2007 20:12:47 +0000

I think that I have just gotten over my first hump in introducing myself and what my role is in the organization, now it is time for action.

Here at the Cyber Y computer lab we just hired an intern to help maintain the computers and printers and also help with children when programs are running.

We are trying to set up a successful "open access" time. We want to find good ways to advertise to the community that we have open access and also we are looking for good surveys to give to the community to understand what they need and want out of the open access time. Because we would like to set up computer literacy classes for grown-ups and or seniors citizens.

So, for the little kiddies after school i am working on implementing a program called Kinetic City. This children's computer program is an entertaining way to learn standards-based science. It is the ideal combination of technology and hands-on collaboration. Basically, kids learn reading, writing, and basic computer skills along with a little science thrown in. First though, i need to learn the curriculums and train the existing staff at the YMCA to promote capacity building. Then i will have groups of kids that will go through the program through out the year.

M y next big goal is to set up a youth media program during spring and summer for teens. Got lots of ideas. I'm thinking media literacy and media production for girl teens.