Digital Arts Service Corps - presentation

Madison Park WiFi Presentation from PSO

Patrick Otton — Wed, 24 Jan 2007 16:39:04 +0000

Here's a pdf of my presentation from the Pre-Service Orientation last week on my work at the CTC and wifi project.

Madison Park Development Corporation provides 986 affordable rental housing units overall, with 546 units in the Village, consisting of over 1000 residents. (See the old project description).

Here's a bit of info from the presentation:

In 2005, 292 residents (over 750 families in the last four years) took advantage of technology training and computer skills classes.

In 2003, Madison received $70K Cisco grant to construct a pilot FREE wireless network Cisco Systems provided hardware for the WiFi system, including bridges, access points, antennas and client adapters Madison provides as a pilot free 802.11b wireless Internet access to the residents of Madison Park Village. Madison provides free Cisco Aironet 350 series wireless cards for residents. With either the standard omnidirectional antenna or a higher-gain flat panel antenna is used with the client cards.

With this project residents of Madison Park Village now have access to enormous personal opportunities that would have otherwise remained out of reach.

More info from my co-presenter CTC VISTA Emelio Flores from Castle Square coming soon!

Live D Web Conference - Neighborhood Networks 12/05

danielle martin — Mon, 04 Dec 2006 19:15:17 +0000

Are you ready? I'm leading my first web conference presentation tomorrow afternoon to spread my digital storytelling love on the Neighborhood Networks Quarterly Consortia Conference Call. I met some of these folks back in June at the Digital Storytelling Bootcamp at the (HUD) Neighborhood Networks Regional Technical Assistance Workshops. Check out the Powerpoint if you like.

I'm excited to try this new form of presenting and see if we can get more NN members excited about doing digital storytelling at their centers. We're using WebEx so I'll let y'all know how it goes and if my efficacious humor conveys over web presentation software and teleconference call.

Plans are still in the works for more Spreading the Stories train-the-trainer workshops next year, hopefully out in western MA and something local in Boston, perhaps with Latino groups or youth.

My big project over the past couple weeks is managing the StoriesForChange.net website development and looking for not only the right approach but also the best technology (and/or CMS) with a group of great volunteers and facilitators. I've got a bunch of thoughts now about approaches to building social networking and/or file sharing sites with nonprofits, but I'll blog about that later.

Oh did I mention we're pulling together a MassIMPACT strategic planning and board meeting for next week? MassIMPACT's board hasn't met in quite a while and the board members I've met with individually all have interesting ideas about where the organization should go in the future.

Is your computer a bicycle or a car?

Ben Sheldon — Mon, 18 Sep 2006 19:48:24 +0000

I just read an interesting article about a dichotomy in computer usage:

Bicycle: The computer amplifies your own capacities or abilities
Car: The computer comes with pre-packaged formulas or solutions whose inner workings you don't have to understand.

The article discusses this in the context of presentations--it is the Presentation Zen Blog, of course. For example, students can be taught PowerPoint in two ways:

This is how you make a slide. This is how you make a transition. Put a picture in by clicking this button. Use this drop-down menu to start the show. As a car. Or...
This is how you tell a story. These are good methods for displaying data. This is how to edit effectively. As a bicycle

And of course there is lot's of good advice on the blog on how to make a good presentation.