You’ve got to see this to believe this. Imagine what would happen if you combined Google’s streetview car with live video recording. Imagine that the entire world was a single high-rise building. The ultimate media macrocosm. Enjoy.
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The Friends of the ACU Library posted some photos this week of the first stages of construction on the Learning Studio. They provide some sense of the size of the space that will receive the new Speaking Center, Media Collections, and an expanded Digital Media Center.
Thanks again to the many folks who work and study in the library for their patience over the next few months. We’ll have more to announce about the grand opening dates and events in the weeks ahead. Stay tuned.
In Cornerstone this week, Dr. Bill Rankin joined us to talk about the power of technology to move beyond models of competition to models of collaboration. Since creating a space that fosters collaboration is a goal of the new Learning Studio, I thought I’d pass along a couple of his links.
Bill illustrated how these technologies give “us a perspective on the world that hasn’t been possible before.” The following clips offer examples of some digital musical projects we think you’ll find powerful.
A great talk from the TED Conference by Steven Berlin Johnson considering the types of spaces most likely to spark new ideas. Not surprisingly, ideas rarely appear all at once, the result of isolation and the individual genius. Johnson walks through a range of examples, from natural selection to GPS, to illustrate that great ideas are born of communities with a wide range of interests and expertise.
Thanks to Joyce Haley for sending this along. She just opened the Morris and Mitchell student Ad/PR agency on campus and has spent most of her summer thinking about designing spaces that spark creativity, an interest we share for the new Learning Studio.
This spring the Media Lab will begin offering access to BeeDocs Timelines, a new application that allows users to create interactive, 3D timelines. A strong tool for presenting chronology in a visual way, not only are users employing the software to study history, but to illustrate their employment history, chart literary characters to examine interactions and connections, and even summarizing a 5-year plan to illustrate upcoming milestones. With features that allow the user to send his or her timeline to a mobile device, iPod, Quicktime, Email, or Keynote, BeeDocs Timelines really serves its niche powerfully.
BeeDocs Timeline demo
Last month Adam at BeeDocs published a short video introducing what they’ve been working on recently. One new feature of particular interest is the ability to export timelines to the web in a format that displays well on a desktop or on mobile devices like the iPhone.
Stop by the Digital Media Center to experience BeeDocs 3D Timelines or drop by the Bee Docs blog for more concrete ideas of how to introduce timelines into your podcast or presentation.