Videotaping and Wallpapering

wallpaper,
originally uploaded by BeckyF.

I've been reading up on videotaping methodology and analysis. What a cool idea! I ordered a book, but have realized it's probably too late in the game to learn to analyze video. I guess it can go on the list of things to do after I graduate.

This morning I started wallpapering my study....and my desk. I'm trying to figure out how to mesh Gibson's portfolio matrix with Engeström's Activity Theory. I hope staring at it will spark some inspiration.

The rest of the week will be spent at WTST (pronounced whats it) playing hostess. That will put me around a bunch of software folks. Someone might know a lot about activity theory. I'm hoping.

Multimedia Scholarship

Talk about timely. Friday, I wrote about the implications of the Electronic Thesis and Dissertation (ETD). Today, I received an announcement that the newest Innovate (vol 1., issue 3) is online. Bruce Ingraham has an article Beyond Text: The Challenge of Multimedia Scholarly Discourse in which he talks about how "embedding a scholarly article (in whatever medium) in its wider discourse should enhance the academic process." I clicked on his links hoping for multimedia - and found an interesting piece from the Journal for Multimedia History in which the author describes an oral history he completed with stories and music. Ingraham also pointed his readers to a BBC website that complemented one of their broadcasts.

I won't go too far out on a limb for my dissertation, but it will be interesting to watch how ETDs develop and scholarly discourse changes over the next years.

Tonight I'm planning to attend a GSA-sponsored workshop on the ETD. I think I'll ask the editor about how far others have taken the digital capabilities that ETDs offer.