Digital Humanity

any post

Jeff Allen — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 16:48:35 +0000

Could SketchUp Reinvent Your World?

Jeff Allen — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 19:41:41 +0000

I’m enthralled by Google’s free 3D-modeling program, SketchUp, even if it has been around in one form or another for several years. Perhaps my background in architecture makes me a sucker for easy to use 3D, but as an educator, this tool seems to have promise — especially for the humanities.

For one, it’s easy to use, right out of the box, comes with a community of users who freely share textures and styles for use in models, it can export to Google for the world to see (and interact with), and the limit is only measured by the designer’s — or better yet, student’s — imagination.

Wherever there is material culture, or text that describes it, there lies an opportunity for investigation of that form, or a virtual recreation of that form, or perhaps even a reinvention of that form.

Watch how real stuff becomes virtual real estate.

And imagine what a bunch of bored twenty year-olds could do over a long weekend…

Need a Dropbox?

Jeff Allen — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 14:33:36 +0000

If you haven’t yet heard of Dropbox, a web utility that auto-magically creates a shared file folder across all of your various Internet-connected computers (or other people’s to which you give access), don’t feel bad. It’s only been around for a week. After downloading and running it through the ringer a couple of times, I’m still impressed. For a Web2.0 app (which there are way too many of these days), it’s simple and unencumbered — even if it currently limits you to 2GB of space (with a pay version slated for rollout, of course).

The premise is basic. You download and install a small file and your Windows/Mac/Linux computer now contains a shared folder that syncs across the net and keeps files handy no matter where you are. Services like this aren’t new — Mediafire and others have offered file sharing for some time — but the onboard drag and drop interface that Dropbox offers makes things that much easier.

So how can we use it in education? I can think of several ways, but the immediate ones surround teaming and collaboration. Classes could share documents, of course, but a special feature that assigns web addresses to files placed in a “public” folder makes it very easy to distribute materials. A special “photos” folder will host web-based albums — just drop the files in and you’ve got a web-based display.

All that ease of distribution should come with a hefty disclaimer, of course. Dropbox also makes it very easy to mistakenly share information and files that need to be kept confidential, so users should take extra care when dragging things around that little box on the desktop, lest they go out for the whole world to see.

If you want to check out the program just surf on over to Dropbox and take the little tour. If you want to try it out, it takes about five minutes to set up and get rolling.

Web 2.0 … The Machine is Us/ing Us

Jeff Allen — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 18:21:47 +0000

In 2007, Michael Wesh, an anthropology professor at Kansas State University, created and released a short video in conjunction with his class on “Digital Ethnography”. It’s purpose was to demonstrate the broadening impact and daunting possibilities of a wired world. In less than ten days, his YouTube video rose to the top of most major tech tracking utilities in the online world and has now been viewed over 7 million times.

As he states at the end of the presentation, we are going to have to rethink some things…perhaps even the nature of scholarship itself.

If you would like to download a high quality version for use in your teaching or research, click here. Also, check out Michael Wesch’s blog at: http://mediatedcultures.net/ksudigg/.