Citizen Professional Toolkits

Chip Bruce speaks of exploration kits in a recent blog post

[Backpack-based exploration kits] would be available to individual youth, or to organizations such as community centers, after-school programs, boys and girls clubs, 4-H, and so on. They would allow youth to take tools into many different settings, thus promoting ubiquitous learning.

I have been obsessing on the technical components of such an exploration kit.  Is there a certain set of technologies that various professionals use in their daily work lives that could be included in such kits and made available to youth and other citizen professionals?

I’d like to propose a group brainstorming exercise to design such a toolkit, and invite comments on what others would see as the ideal components for such a kit.  To kick things off, here’s some components we’re beginning to play with for our first kits.  In choosing the specific items, I’ve tried to balance cost, ease-of-use, quality, and completeness of the kits.  As such, devices are sometimes chosen because they can serve multiple purposes, although it sometimes may sacrifice a bit on ease-of-use and/or quality.  At other times, components were chosen to improve quality even if it increased cost to some degree.

Base Kit

• MSI Wind 10″ ultra-mobile netbook PC (UMPC). Laptops are becoming the general computing device of choice over desktop computers.  The UMPC shows great promise of providing an increasingly mobile format that remains fully functional. The slightly larger screen and near full size keyboard of the MSI Wind are expected to serve well as a general purpose computer, while the under 3 pound weight and relatively small size maximize portability.  The specific model includes a 6-cell battery to provide over 5 hours of charge in the field, a 160 GB hard drive to allow storage of digital photos and video for editing, and bluetooth to connect to GPS and other wireless components.
• Sound Professionals ‘Super Stealth’ High Gain, High Sensitivity Omnidirectional USB Microphone. We’ve had great success using this external microphone to enhance Skype conference calls and to capture high quality archives of interviews and group discussions using Audacity software.
• Garmin 10x Bluetooth GPS receiver and Mobile PC software.  As geo-coding becomes integrated with a growing number of applications, it seems valuable to equip toolkits with a GPS receiver.  The Garmin 10x receiver was chosen because it works with any GIS-enabled software, for the flexibility of wandering with the receiver within 30 feet of the UMPC, and its quality of satellite reception.  The Mobile PC software provides driving directions and resource location within North America.
• Canon Powershot SD1100IS digital camera.  A highly reviewed sub-compact camera that provides good quality still images and potentially YouTube quality video.

Possible add-ons

• Pinnacle Studio Ultimate 12.  This has been used very successfully by some of our community partners to enable youth to produce quality video presentations with minimal up front training.
• Tripod.  Something like the Canon mini-tripod 7 is highlight portable and provides a stable base for long exposure captures, for time-lapse photos, and for shots in which the photographer is included in the image.  A larger tripod, such as the Proline ST-400, while less portable, provides eye-level positioning of the camera and greater stability in windier conditions, among other advantages.
• Logitech Clearchat Comfort USB Headset provides the ability to listen to recordings live to confirm recording quality, and to also provide improved recording quality by an individual when doing things like voice overs or podcasts.
• Canon ZR930 Camcorder.  This DV-based camcorder provides higher quality video recordings, but just as importantly provides an external microphone input for improved audio recording in a consumer-level camcorder.  We’ve had many reports that the most problematic aspect of video capture has been the audio input when interviewing people in the field.  The tradeoff of using a higher quality, DV-based camcorder is that transfers to PC occur real-time (1 hour recording requires 1 hour to transfer) via firewire (which is not included as part of the MSI Wind and therefore must be performed on a separate device).
• Azden Cam-3 passive mixer, Audio-technica ATR-35S wired lavalier microphone, Audio-technical ATR288W wireless microphone system.  Combined, these provide a mechanism for a mix of lavalier and handheld microphone inputs via mini-phono plug that can be used with either the ZR930 camcorder or the MSI Wind laptop.  As pointed out above, audio recording quality has been a major issue during interviews.  There is considerable value in having a mixture of different microphones to best meet the recording needs under different environments.
• Garmen eTrex Legend.  This standalone GPS device has been field-tested in many different situations.  It remains to be seen whether the UMPC combined with the Garmin 10x bluetooth receiver can fully replace this tried-and-true method for collecting geo-coding data.

With each of the add-ons, a kit runs around $1600 USD including various incidentals. Certainly to make these widely available, a number of logistics would need to be worked out regarding maintenance and security.  But I’d like to focus this brainstorming session on components.

So what do others think?  When sending out citizen scientists, citizen planners, citizen journalists, and other citizen professionals, what technologies are most needed?  Is it possible to create one exploration kit to cover most or all citizen professional needs?  Is it possible to create one base unit and a mixture of add-ons to include as needed for specific purposes?

Equal Voices in a Digital World

I’ve been working on an exercise to develop a mission statement for my research.  I think I’m settling on the following.

Helping communities have an equal voice in a digital world.  To accomplish this mission, it is important to:

• inform communities on how emerging technologies and trends are opening up new possibilities for community action;
• enable communities through access to, and education on, appropriate technologies; and
• collaborate with communities, giving them an equal voice in my own research and helping them have an equal voice with others.

As technology becomes increasingly ubiquitous, to fully participate in this digital world it is important to have the literacies needed to harness technology when appropriate, and to judge when technology is a hindrance instead of a help.  But while there is a significant economic and technical hurdle in achieving full digital inclusion for everyone, I think at the core this is a social problem.  Achieving an equal voice requires new understandings regarding the value and indeed necessity of diverse voices in all aspects of our society.

But too often we as researchers do not practice what we preach.  For in research many would argue that what we do is too specialized to engage citizens, or is contaminated through subject involvement.  I take an opposing view.  While it is helpful to regularly take a 10,000 foot view of communities, it is also critical to utilize a scholarship of engagement approach in which citizen scientists participate as equals with academic researchers.  In so doing, it becomes possible to gain unique, deep perspectives to important social issues.

While it is important to inform the community regarding the possibilities of harnessing new technologies, and to also enable them to utilize those technologies effectively, the cycle isn’t complete until there is also meaningful collaboration.  We must practice what we preach lest we live our professional lives as blind men who only percieve the full shape of an elephant through the touch of its trunk alone.

The Whirlpool of Racism

A whirlpool in the straits of Naruto near Japan

Whirlpools exist in many areas of our lives.  Some come because of disease, for instance addictions to drugs or gambling.  Some come because of choices, for instance lies we tell that take on a life of their own.  When our lives get caught in such whirlpools, they can suck us in and keep us from reaching our full potential.

As I’ve spent the last two months considering racism in the United States, I’ve come to appreciate that race is a unique type of whirlpool.  First, this whirlpool was intentionally created early in our country’s history precisely to pull down people of color.  It allowed us to enter into a policy of genocide for Native Americans, and to enslave blacks who were brought over from Africa.  This whirlpool was created precisely so that others, whites who came to this country, could build their own wealth and power.  What is so striking is that into the 1950’s, it was not only individuals and corporations that worked to build this whirlpool.  The United States government used policies like redlining, a Federal Housing Authority (FHA) policy that gave lower finance ratings to homes in black communities or those on their way to becoming black, to fuel the whirlpool.

Civil rights and ongoing vigilance by many work to take away the fuel that has made the whirlpool grow.  But we are foolish to think that the whirlpool of racism no longer exists.

Kayaker trying to escape a whirlpool

This whirlpool has a life of its own.  The wealth gap in our country, the statistics that show blacks are put in jail far more than whites for drug crimes, and the lower quality of education available in many black communities are but a few examples that new generations of black Americans continue to be sucked down in its vortex.  This is a life or death struggle that many are loosing.  And not only do those of us who have benefited from the history of this whirlpool too often fail to help those caught in its grasp as they struggle to get out.  We are unaware the whirlpool exists, insisting that racism is no longer an issue in our country, or that if only “those people” had a real will to get out, a few strokes of the paddle on their part would be sufficient to allow them to escape and join the mainstream.  After all, it’s how we got where we are now at; through our own determination or that of our ancestors.  No one was there to help us!

Except for all those who historically have been caught in the whirlpool of racism and who served as the foundation for our historical rise to power and wealth.

Big Broadband and Citizen Professionals

I’ve followed with passing interest the development of fiber to the home (FTTH) that is occuring in a few areas around our country and much more extensively overseas.  Along with others, I have wondered just how valuable that much speed really is for most people.  Still, it seems somewhat disconcerting to think that we’ve gone from being a leader in national Internet access to 15th in the world for broadband access.  Further, our definition of broadband is slower than in many of those countries that are ahead of us.  Other countries find it important to bring very high speed Internet access to the home.  The question is what are we missing?

At a presentation Tuesday regarding support for broadband infrastructure development found in the recently signed stimulus package, a consultant utilized an interesting tool developed in the Netherlands that demonstrates the value of Big Broadband (Internet access speeds that are 10-100 times faster than current DSL/Cable speeds in the United States for downloads AND as importantly offer the same very high speeds for uploads as for downloads).  The tool is a simple Windows program, called fiberspeed, that can be accessed at: http://www.mxi.nl/projecten/index1.asp?ph_id=38&pr_id=9

What really caught my attention was just how handicapped people in the United States are compared to other parts of the world when it comes to uploading multimedia files.  For personal use, examples used in the fiberspeed application include personal photos or family videos.  For societal use, examples include instructional videos or even x-ray photos.  For those with high speed DSL or cable, downloads can occur in minutes for large files, but uploads can take hours.

One person attending the meeting asked why the rush to implement Big Broadband since the killer application to demand such high speeds did not yet exist.  I believe this question was well intentioned and reflects the thoughts of many in our consumer-oriented society.  But I also believe the lesson from the fiberspeed example is that the killer application does indeed exist.  It comes in the form of citizen production of multimedia presentations.  Most rural areas, and many low-income urban areas simply do not have access to affordable high speed bandwidth to tell their stories online as citizen journalists using digital images let alone digital video.  And the ability to quickly upload high definition video is only available in very limited places anywhere in the Unitied States.  Nor is access to high grade video conferencing available to most homes in the United States, a valuable tool to allow citizen professionals to work from their homes at a range of collaborative tasks.

But let’s say for a moment that these examples still do not represent the true killer application that demands such high speed Internet be brought to the home.  I would argue that the question also represents a very top-down conceptualization of application development.  It is framed in the idea that Big Broadband isn’t needed until a University or Big Business researcher develops the application that justifies such bandwidth.

What if we started with a bottom-up conceptualization of application development.  What if we conceived of a Big Broadband infrastructure that was open, where people could shop for the best services available from around the world to meet their needs.  And what if we conceived of a development model in which these services used open standards that allowed for anyone to enhance, build upon, and uniquely combine those services to create new ways of doing things.  What if citizen scientists were encouraged to become an active part of the development process, and micro-businesses were encouraged to form to market and support such new services. What if the whole process were opened up to everyone and anyone, bringing together the best and brightest regardless of location, economic status, culture, precisely because they have insights into community needs and goals that only those intimate with their community could bring?

This is not a far fetched dream.  All the pieces are being put in place in Europe and Asia.  It is clear the driving forces for change will come more and more from citizens and not from big business and big universities.  The one thing that is not clear is whether the citizens of the United States will get to play an active role along with their European and Asian counterparts.

References:

Local groups to pursue stimulus money for broadband network (http://www.news-gazette.com/news/technology/2009/02/17/local_groups_to_pursue_stimulus_money_for_broadband_network)

Fiberspeed Application (http://www.mxi.nl/projecten/index1.asp?ph_id=38&pr_id=9)

U.S. Lags Behind in Broadband Infrastructure (http://www.epi.org/economic_snapshots/entry/webfeatures_snapshots_20080423/)

My battle with racism

When I was about 21 or 22, a close friend of mine who was black came to me one day and told me she could no longer be my friend. When I asked her why, she said that it was because I was racist and sexist. I asked her with horror what I had done that was racist and sexist. In the end, she could not show one specific thing I had done; the damning evidence was that I was white and male. That was a memorable moment for me, particularly because I have always prized my friendships with males and females of many difference races and cultures.

That event has been in the forefront of my mind a lot lately as I’ve been helping to lead our church small group through a study on Christians and Racial Justice. This has been a longstanding area of interest for me, and I have often worked to help open up discussions of racism and the structures that support it. And I continue to reflect on my own understandings of racism and ways in which we can best overcome it. Still, this is the first time I’ve tried to lead an extended series specifically on the topic for a group. As with most other teaching opportunities, I find I learn as much or more than those seeing the material for the first time do.

In the PBS series “Race: the Power of an Illusion”, the case is made that race is not a biological/genetic phenomenon, but a social construct for economic and political power. The history of the United States is based on near genocide of one race, and the enslavement of another. How counter to our ideals as a nation, which we should and do hold very dear. The result is a paradox in which we fight for freedom and justice for all while in reality each generation of whites has a starting line further and further ahead of the starting line for their black counterparts. When a white child and a black child from families of equal wealth are compared in their ability to achieve throughout life, there is no difference; there is equal opportunity for all. But historic and current denial of capital rights mean that the average black family has far less wealth, and with it, less chance for a quality health and education, less opportunities for rehabilitation instead of retribution within the justice system, less chance for economic opportunities that can lead to asset-building that can provide a better start for the next generation.

My first new insight from the series to date is: if race is not a biological phenomenon but instead an historical one established to enable white supremacy, then do we really want to strive for racial diversity? As I now understand it what we really need to strive for is racial healing and reconciliation that then paves the way for cultural diversity. The disservice my friend almost 25 years ago did to me was to frame her statement in such a way that assured my whiteness and maleness meant I could never be other than racist and sexist. What I needed then, and what is still needed now, is deep meaningful dialog that helps all of us to come to grips with the deep wounds that come from the dark side of our country’s history, painful as that will be. Only through dialog, and ultimately confession and repentance, can we find a way to heal those wounds and to reconcile as a nation.

Later in the third episode, the PBS series did a nice job of clarifying the history of redlining and its contribution to the creation of the white suburbs for our group. What the video did an especially good job of was highlighting that these were culturally diverse suburbs. That is, people living in these newly created communities of the 1950s and beyond came from different countries, spoke different languages in the home, and even practiced different religions. One culture in particular, though, was intentionally kept out of this mix, the African American culture.

Here’s what really struck me within this particular presentation of this part of our nation’s history. I’ve heard it said that Sunday mornings are the most segregated day of the week. I’ve also heard it argued that this is likely not to change because we just like different kinds of worship. We like to be with our own people on Sunday. The suburban history lesson would suggest that this viewpoint is flawed. We were willing to come together with different cultures as long as they were not black, and that this was based as much on the government-designed and implemented policy of redlining. Redlining and later block busting led to segregated communities. Subsequently a myth was created to explain in polite, acceptable terms why we “chose” to be segregated – because we wanted to be with our own people. It was developed for the suburban segregation and I have rejected it there over and over again in conversations. But it was also applied to the church, and in that case I believed the myth. In so doing, I repeated and strengthened racism; not intentionally and indeed at the same time that I have been praying for racial diversity within our church and then questioning why the prayers have gone unanswered.

I read recently that it is very difficult to have a racially diverse church. In that same article (I wish I could find it again), it also suggested that in a number of cases, those that were racially diverse become all black when the leadership of the church passed from a white minister to a black minister. In No Cheap Peace, Leah Gaskin Fitchue points out “The church of the black community is the only institution that community totally owns.” It seems clear that in many if not most Christian churches, it is difficult to overcome racism – whites must retain the power or whites and blacks will remain segregated.

We have a long way to go if we are to truly heal, reconcile, and bring about freedom and justice for all: that is, to truly and finally overcome racism. I now believe more than ever that it begins through intentionally diverse communities brought together for dialog leading to real healing and reconciliation.

References:

Race: The Power of an Illusion http://www.pbs.org/race/

No Cheap Peace: The True Cost of Reconciliation by Leah Gaskin Fitchue (2000), in Crossing the Racial Divide, 2nd Edition, Sojourners Press.

Christians and Racial Justice (2007) Sojourners Press.