[Home]
[Themes]
[Comments]
[Date Prev] [Date Next] [By Date] [By Thread] [Top]
- - E-Mail for All - - - EMFA-EVENT - - - Universal Access - -
http://www.iaginteractive.com/emfa - Details Below
Networking Communities - Comments and Responses #3
--------------------------------------------------
The following messages are included in this digest:
1. Ingeborg Endter - Telling Our Stories - Seniors
2. Michael Mulquin - UK Communities Online
3. Carla Seal-Wanner - Kids Online Summit
4. David Lansdale - Access for Older Adults
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
[1]
Date: Tue, 12 May 1998 00:24:25 -0400
From: Ingeborg Endter <inge@media.mit.edu>
Subject: Telling Our Stories
TELLING OUR STORIES
by
Ingeborg Endter
The World Wide Web is quickly becoming yet another medium for
viewing content created by commercial and other special
interests. We get news, we get entertainment, and it's all
precisely targeted to whatever market segment can be extrapolated
from the immense amount of user data extracted from Web surfers.
Is the promise of the Internet as a communication and
community-building medium being swamped by commercial interests?
Individuals or groups who want to publish a Web home page require
(at a minimum) access to a server, and some acquaintance with
HTML. Recently a large number of Web sites have sprung up to
offer free hosting of home pages. Often they also offer extensive
HTML assistance, including pre-built components. Now anyone with
Internet access can also have a home page. That is, provided that
you allow the host site to show advertising banners on your page.
The free Web page services are laudable, because they do allow a
much wider audience to actually become creative on the medium, to
tell their own stories, and to reach out to others through the
Web.
However, there's another scenario: in Melrose, Massachusetts, a
group of senior citizens who call themselves the Silver
Stringers, meet physically several times a week at the Milano
Senior Center. They discuss, write, draw, photograph, and argue.
And thus they create and control their own community publication
called "The Melrose Mirror." Another group of seniors meets at
the Jack Satter House in Revere, Massachusetts, to publish "The
Satter-lights." And both groups distribute their publications
worldwide via the Web: http://silverstringer.media.mit.edu/. The
Melrose Mirror and The Satter-lights tell the stories of years of
rich experience. They tell of news in town, local artists' work,
the stories of their members and the history of their
communities. They enrich their community, and they enrich
themselves with their new-found skills. Many of the Silver
Stringers had never used computers before, had never been
journalists before. Now they are plunging into the mysteries of
computers, scanners, and digital cameras with relish.
These projects are currently supported by software tools created
by my group at the MIT Media Lab. The tools are designed to allow
group publishing on the Web. Members of the community can submit
articles, artwork, or even sound files. Editors review the
submissions and publish them to the Web site. Users can learn
HTML if they wish to (and several are), but they do not need to
know about servers or HTML in order to create their publication.
Our intention is to prove that given the tools, communities can
tell their own stories, and enrich both their real-life and
on-line communities.
The challenge now is to provide the next piece: access to host
servers for communities who wish to use such publishing tools.
Access that is free of commercial requirements, content control,
as well as free of cost.
===========================================
Ingeborg Endter is a Research Assistant in the News in the Future
research consortium at the MIT Media Laboratory
(http://www.media.mit.edu/). Her research area is Community
Publishing. inge@media.mit.edu Silver Stringers:
http://silverstringer.media.mit.edu/
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
[2]
Send reply to: <michael@communities.org.uk>
From: "Michael Mulquin" <michael@communities.org.uk>
Subject: UK Communities Online
Colleagues might be interested to know more about UK Communities
Online. Here is the text of a leaflet about what we are doing.
UK Communities Online - promoting the Information Society on a
human scale.
Are you interested in:
- Strong and dynamic local economies?
- Rich and vibrant communities?
- A society in which everyone is included and feels a part?
Then read on and find out how we can work together!
...................................
The Information Society is already changing our society. Many
traditional jobs have gone or have changed beyond all
recognition. As a result of the way that centrally stored
information can be easily accessed from anywhere, a whole range
of new services have become available to us, such as automatic
cash machines which enable us to draw money from our account at
times and places convenient to us; banks and insurance companies
that work only by phone and have no branches; computers in the
home, in schools and in offices - all linked to one world wide
network, the Internet. The change is so great we can say that we
are in the beginning of a new revolution - the Information
Revolution However:
- Will the new information highways help only
world wide companies at the expense of local economies?
- Will connecting to cyberspace further isolate us all so that
people have less human contact?
- Will there be new forms of social exclusion - the information
haves and have-nots?
..................................
We have all heard of the Internet. Huge amounts of information
are available at the click of a mouse. We can contact people all
over the world for the price of a local phone call. We can do
business on a global scale. We have probably all heard stories
such as the Australian aborigines who are selling their art via
the Internet to people in New York. Imagine the Internet on a
more local, more human scale. Imagine using it to find out local
information, book appointments, buy from local shops, meet new
friends who share your interests and live just up the road.
Imagine the Internet not only being used to build a global
community, but also to enhance local community life and
strengthen local economies. Imagine an Information Society in
which everybody is included.
....................................
UK Communities Online is running a three-year campaign to enable
everyone in the UK to be able to join their own local online
community.
We are working to ensure that every city, town, village or
neighbourhood has:
- A well-organised 'gateway' web site, so that when local people
connect to the internet the first thing they see is their own
locality online. From there,with a few clicks of the mouse, we
will be able to find out all we could possibly want to know
about what is going on - from local entertainment, to local
businesses, local planning applications, local clubs and
societies, right through to the catalogue at our local library.
- Electronic Public Space where we can discuss and debate issues
of local interest, and make our views known to local
authorities, the local MP, and other agencies. A place where we
can be creative and share our poetry, stories and art. A place
where we can have fun, tell jokes and make new friends, whom we
could also meet face to face because they live in the same
community.
- Systems that make it easy for us to "do business" locally, not
only to shop online, but also to pay our Council Tax, book
appointments with our GP or the hairdresser, book to see local
shows and visit the cinema - or whatever else we need to do.
- Support for local small businesses, community and voluntary
organisations and special interest groups to enable them to use
the new technology effectively, so that the institutions that
bind a physical community together can also play that role in
cyberspace.
- Access, training and support in using technology
for everyone.
....................................
Who we are, and what we do.
- We are a not-for-profit company with charitable objectives
- We have developed an extensive network of local projects
- We are making the case for a locally focused information
society
- We are positioning ourselves to be an independent partnership
broker that can bring different interests together at a national
and regional level to develop projects of mutual benefit
- Our aims and programme are supported by the Government, by
industry and by some of the UK's leading authorities on the
changes that are taking place
....................................
Our programme:
- Events to clarify issues, develop proposals for new
initiatives, and demonstrate the importance of a locally focused
information society to decision makers in government and
business.
- A comprehensive and practical website, featuring regular news
items, a library of useful documents and articles and pointers
to a range of other resources. It will also provide an
interactive map of online projects throughout the UK allowing
you to search and find out about projects of the type and
locality that interest you.
- An interactive online forum where you can learn from the
experience of other practitioners, share your own ideas for
comments and feedback and findpeople to collaborate with you in
tackling common issues.
- Web space for new online initiatives to experiment and find
out what system best suits their needs.
- Policy work to use the growing experience of online localities
to identify what sort of legislation and funding would best
support this growing movement.
...................................
How can you join in?
- Get involved in a local online project - or help set one up if
there is nothing going on already; we can show you how to start -
Check out our web site on www.communities.org.uk
- Join our email newsletter by emailing mail to:
majordomo@ukco.org.uk with no subject, just the message:
subscribe co-announce
- Share your experience and learn together with others at our
events or through our online discussion forums
Together we are building the future - let's make it a good future
for local communities!
Michael Mulquin
Executive Director UK Communities Online,
"Promoting the Information Society on a human scale!"
13 Evelyn Dennington Road,
Beckton,
London E6 5YH
+44 (0)7071 780 522
+44 (0)171 473 2030
http://www.communities.org.uk
To join low volume list mail to: majordomo@ukco.org.uk
no subject, just the message: subscribe co-announce
[Host Note: Not only a great organization, but they know where
to take you for the best curries in London. :-)
More seriously you can also visit the following groups from our
Networking Communities page: Association For Community
Networking (US), Australian Community Networking Association,
Civic Networks in Europe from EPITELIO, European Alliance for
Community Networks/European Association for Community
Networking, Telecommunities Canada, and UK Communities Online
from: http://www.iaginteractive.com/emfa/theme3.htm#Online
Did we miss your association? Let us know: emfa@publicus.net ]
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
[3]
From: carla F seal-wanner <CSealWanner@compuserve.com>
To: The NTIA Committee for the Clinton Administration's Kids
On-Line Summits A summary White Paper for the Fourth Summit on
Quality New Media
GREENING CYBERSPACE:
A CAMPAIGN FOR EXCELLENCE IN INTERACTIVE MEDIA FOR OUR DIGITAL
KIDS Dr. Carla Seal-Wanner, Founder and President, @ccess 4 @ll,
29 King St. 2A, New York 10014 CSealWanner@compuserve.com, (v)
212-989-8197, (f) 212-924-6081 4/10/98
As we all know Net Day is an effective concept, but a misnomer.
Providing universal access for children is a monumental effort
that requires Herculean accomplishments day after day if we are
to keep the gap between the information "haves" and the "have
nots" from widening. And, just like our resistance to settling
for the "have nows" and the "have laters" we must resist the idea
that because there will be so much media for children to choose
from in the Digital Age, they will find some that is exemplary.
The exponential commercialization of cyberspace astounds even
many of us who have been pioneers on the children's new media
frontier. If we do succeed in making the powerful information
tools of cyberspace a simple mouse click away for all children,
the longest distance that will remain is that last eighteen
inches that reaches from the computer screen to the child's heart
and mind.
Creating a campaign to promote quality new media may be the most
important legacy those of us in the new media field can leave our
children.
Technological inequity won't end even when all children have
access to the hardware and are "wired" to the global information
infrastructure; they must also be "wired" to meaningful
experiences and content. There is no doubt that electronic and
information deprivation follows hard on the heels of economic
deprivation, raising the specter that today's poor children may
have less chance than ever to participate as full citizens
tomorrow. Universal access if we ever achieve it can guarantee a
ready, willing, and technologically-able community of leaders.
The challenge now is to ensure that advantaged and disadvantaged
children find meaningful and valuable experiences once they are
connected.
Top entertainment and telecommunications executives have said
that they view children as the primary beneficiaries of the
developments that are shaping the lanes, vehicles and drivers on
the ever-extending metaphor of the "Information SuperHighway."
Educationally and technologically speaking they are right; these
products and services have the potential to help prepare our
young cybercadets for the creative, intellectual, civic and
workplace challenges of the next millennium. But, in my view, the
jury is still out on whether they are all thinking about children
in this context as our greatest resource or as a market. Commerce
and capitalism being what they are, if we want to ensure that new
media live up to their potential, some safeguards might be
necessary.
We all want to encourage our children to develop the computer
literacy skills to make the best use of the quality educational
and entertainment possibilities offered by on-line activity. If
used appropriately, the Internet can be a powerful tool that
connects young learners to valuable information, communities of
peers with shared interests, the home and the school, places
around the globe that they may never be able to visit, expert
advice and popular culture thrills. For several reasons they need
guidance to develop these appropriate and valuable uses.
First, much of the commercially available software and kids
on-line activities fall far short of their marketing claims, are
not well targeted to the age of the learner, and waste much of
the time that could be spent on valuable interactive experiences.
Parents and teachers who have tried to find the better products
that "cut through the clutter," to create a quality media
environment for their children, are exasperated by the amount of
research required to do so. And, those who do not have the
financial ability or access to information to help them find the
right products are aware that their children will not have an
equal chance to participate in the "Promise of the Information
Age."
In addition, there is also of course widespread concern that
travel in cyberspace from home and school exposes young Netizens
to content that they do not fully understand or know how to
respond to appropriately.
And finally, the reality is that surfing the Net is a problem for
users of all ages. Its takes too much of our precious time and
there is a lot of junk, and much of it is not very good or
accurate information, presented in small useless fragments. With
children primarily accessing the Web through browsers the
responsibility is on the child to find information that is
trustworthy, appropriate and desired. Given the sheer volume of
content, browsing is becoming impractical and exasperating,
leading to many cyber drownings. We need to encourage the
development of adequate systems that provide "information about
information", systems that are thorough enough to be inclusive of
a multiplicity of values and interests.
Given these facts I think there are two important goals for this
next Kids On-Line Summit. The first must be to identify what
quality interactive media content is. The second is to promote
initiatives to help all consumers learn to distinguish between
the new media that is beneficial for children and adolescents and
the new media that is not.
Learning to discern the valuable uses of new media is the most
important computer literacy skill children can develop.
Here are some giant steps we can take to build a campaign to
accomplish these goals:
"Raising the Bar" for Interactive Content
What is quality interactive media content? Identifying exemplary
new media uses requires applying an objective criterion of
excellence. These criteria should focus on every content issue
from developmental appropriateness and educational value to
production values and the thoughtful use of interactive features.
It must also address the more subjective aspects of this debate
that pertain to the impact of violent content, negative
stereotyping and hateful messages on children's' socialization.
Raising Consumer Consciousness
This Summit should emphasize the importance of designing media
that can help our children become cybersmart: protecting
themselves from indecent content, on-line predation, commercial
exploitation and most importantly, activities that make poor use
of their time and intelligence. As we and our children are
spending increasing proportions of our social, intellectual and
commercial lives in the digital world our critical ability to
select positive, productive and powerful uses of resident and
on-line media will become one of our most valuable skills.
Obviously this effort will involve an extensive parent and
teacher education component. Such an initiative would have to
recognize the considerable parental and teacher involvement
necessary for younger children and as well as the need for
well-targeted programs for teenagers that give them increasing
amounts of autonomy.
This focus will help to promote the value of the Internet as an
educational platform while at the same time acknowledges the huge
impact commercial entertainment products and services have on
child development through this new mass medium. Such a campaign
can help shape how children are socialized as consumers of the
media of the Digital Age. If they learn to be more discerning
hopefully they will demand that interactive media lives up to its
enormous potential to delight as well as inform.
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
[4]
From: david lansdale <lansdale@leland.Stanford.EDU>
Subject: Access for older adults
Attached is a brief, but poignant email from Jadwiga Ozer, an
87-year-old retired dentist from Poland. Access to the email and
the Internet opened up several channels of communication for
"Julie", and several weeks ago she participated in a presentation
of the results of an exploratory study conducted by the Stanford
University Medical School at Lytton Gardens, a low-income housing
facility in Palo Alto. She's got the TE Coli virus!
David Lansdale
P.S. Julie can be contaced at ozer@webTV.com.
>Dear David:
>I came to conclusion that human braine knows no limits in its
>development. when I was young girl ,the discovery of manual
>radio . a years later black Tv. later color Tv. Now I have joy
>to be able to connect to Internet Web.Tv.and trawel through the
>world of so interesting subjects. I have pleasure to be in touch
>with my family and friends writing E-mails Fast safe. I am
>enlarging my knowlege on manysubjects. I have to work much more
>to improve my ability operating web tv and my spelling.
>..........Sincerely Jadwiga-"Julie" Ozer
David Lansdale, Ph.D.
Program Coordinator
Geriatrics in Primary Care
Stanford Faculty Development Program
1000 Welch Road, Suite 1
Palo Alto, CA 94304-1812
**New Area Code**
Tel:(650) 725-8804 Fax:(650) 725-1675
E-mail: lansdale@leland.stanford.edu
http://www-leland.stanford.edu/group/SFDP/
end
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Markle Foundation's E-Mail for All Universal Access Event
WWW/Un/Subscribe Info: http://www.iaginteractive.com/emfa
Sub To: majordomo@publicus.net Body: subscribe emfa-event
Forward event posts via e-mail to others, for details on
other uses or to send general comments: emfa@publicus.net
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -