Video
An Anthropological Introduction to YouTube
Michael Wesch, creator of the strikingly insightful videos “A Vision of Students Today” and “The Machine is Us/ing Us”, gave a presentation at the Library of Congress back in May on the anthropology of YouTube. The presentation was the third in a series called “Digital Natives,” natives being basically my and probably your generation if you’re reading this. It’s about the net and the people who grew up with a computer humming by their bed stands. Wesch delves into this phenomenon that is us—how we think and how we perceive and connect with the world differently due to the internet and new media like YouTube.
“An anthropological introduction to YouTube” is where “traditional” academic research and the new media landscape intersect. It is the anthropological perspective and study of our generation’s fascination with YouTube, and is itself viewable on Wesch’s YouTube page. Check it out; I started watching it and couldn’t stop. The fifty-five minutes flew by like a lunch break. The video itself is licensed CC BY-NC-SA.
No Comments »50 Millionth View of TEDTalks
Today TED announced the 50 millionth view of a TED talk, marking its success since it first launched online two years ago in June of 2006. TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design—and it features talks by various speakers from Bill Clinton to Bono. However, the most viewed talks are actually given by persons previously unknown. They are ideas “flying on [their] own merit[s]“, says the executive producer of TED media according to TEDBlog. Almost half of TED’s audience comes from outside the U.S., establishing TEDTalks as a global presence. TED Curator Chris Anderson says,
“TED’s mission is to spread ideas, and we’re now doing that on a scale that was unimaginable two years ago. It’s clear there’s an appetite out there for big ideas and meaningful stories.”
Check out the Top 10 TEDTalks of all time; you’ll be surprised by the speakers and their subjects, with number one titled, “My stroke of insight,” by neuroanatomist Jill Bolte Taylor. And while you’re at it, check out Richard Baraniuk’s “Goodbye, textbooks; hello, open-source learning,” a talk by the founder of Connexions, a leading educational platform in the OER movement.
All TED talks are licensed under the Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND.
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ccLearn Workshop Video Now Live at OSL
In April I blogged about Open Source Lab‘s fourth official workshop featuring ccLearn’s Executive Director, Ahrash Bissell. The Open Source Lab has now posted a video of the workshop at their blog. The workshop focuses on recent developments within open education, including but not limited to the impact of open licensing, as Ahrash emphasizes the grander scale of the movement.
The video, like all content on OSL’s blog, is licensed CC BY-NC-SA.
No Comments »Raw Footage from NOVA’s “Car of the Future” Open for Sharing and Remix
In the winter of 2006, NOVA embarked on an “open production” experiment, asking viewers to contribute by reading and commenting on a preview of their show’s script—the (then) in-progress documentary, “Car of the Future.” The show’s producers liked the results, and according to the Wired Blog Network’s Underwire, NOVA decided to return the favor by “[giving] the material back.”
For the first time ever, PBS and NOVA have released 240 clips of raw footage from the making of the “Car of the Future” documentary online. The videos, which include full-length interviews with world-renowned scientists and engineers (in addition to various footage of the high-tech vehicles themselves), is free for viewing, sharing, and remixing under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial License (CC BY-NC). NOVA encourages you to take this footage and “create your own video or multimedia project about tomorrow’s cars, environmental issues, or other related topics you care about.” They also ask you to send them back your finished product if you want, so that they can feature the best videos on their site.
1 Comment »2008 Science Video Collection and Remix Challenge
If you have access to educational science videos for kids (or if you even want to make your own), ccLearn encourages you to participate in the 2008 Science Video Collection and Remix Challenge! Check out the website for official details, but here’s the important stuff. Deadline is March 31, 2008. The grand prize includes:
- $2,000
- an OLPC laptop
- winning producer material featured on laptops and press materials worldwide
Photo by Venkatesh Harihara / CC BY-NC-SA
One Laptop Per Child and Intelligent Television are working to bring educational video to kids (namely 8 to 16 year-olds) who don’t have it. Your submissions will help to increase the amount of great educational video content available as part of the Open Education movement.
Basically, anyone can enter—kids, students, teachers, filmmakers, working people with time on their hands… The aim is to gather as much existing scientific video material as we can; this is the first stage of the competition. All contributed video material must be openly licensed (CC BY, CC BY-SA ), which means it can be copied, distributed, transmitted, and adapted by others.
There are other prizes too, which will be awarded by an international panel of judges. After you submit the prime material, the remixing stage will be announced. Remember, it’s all about the best science archives. Happy gathering!
No Comments »Dream at 1920×1080 in CC
Elephants Dream, a short film that premiered late March, is now available for download in many formats, including a stunning AVI, MPEG4 (mp42) / AC3 5.1 Surround / HD 1920×1080 encoding. The production files are also downloadable.
The film is released under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 license. It was created to show off the capabilities of open source 3D modeling software Blender, a task at which it has surely succeeded.
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