#psvtam (otherwise know as the BSc Professional Sound and Video Technology, Advanced Multimedia module) was a game – an alternate reality game.

A game that took so many unanticipated twists and turns that I’m still trying to process everything. For the past 48 hours I’ve been replaying the past 3 months in my mind, thinking about every clue, red-herring, reaction… wow.

Don’t know where to start really – there’s way too much for one blog post. Watersidestudio and JustPressPlay have already blogged their impressions here and here, which I keep re-reading as it’s amazing to re-live the experience through their eyes… thanks guys!

I suppose it all started on 16^th Feb 2011, when I met up with Hugh Garry for a general chinwag. We were talking about creativity and curiosity. Hugh is a master of both. I was bemoaning the lack of curiosity in higher education, and having been hopelessly addicted to the LOST experience and read various accounts of ARGs in education I’d been wanting to run a module as an ARG for a while – but I didn’t want it to be ‘just another ARG in education’ – I wanted it to be an unforgettable experience, one which could lead to genuine changes in thinking and could have a transformative effect on the students. I wanted to introduce mystery and intrigue into the curriculum in order to arouse curiosity and to see how far learners would go in terms of driving their own learning/curriculum when they weren’t being assessed. As luck would have it, Hugh had worked on two ARGs for BBC Radio One and being the amazing individual that he is, was up for working on it and that was it – the #psvtam ARG was born.

So, how to sum up the #psvtam ARG? Well, it’s been many months in the making and has involved a huge amount of work – way more than I had anticipated. The sheer logistics of running a module as an ARG and designing the curriculum in a way which would allow this to happen, while ticking all the boxes in terms of content/assessment has been quite a challenge. Personally, I underestimated the difficulty of playing multiple roles (module tutor/programme leader/personal tutor) alongside my role in the game. We would have been quite lost with Huey, who worked tirelessly behind the scenes to devise clues and plotlines as the overall puppetmaster.

The students didn’t start playing the  ‘game’ until a couple of months ago when 9 members of the group received letters containing a mysterious sequence of numbers. Although they didn’t know it at the time, these numbers were the date of yesterday’s Big Reveal: the moment when a) some of the students braved the horrible weather and followed the final clues which led them to the centre of Manchester to see their mobile phone films being played on the BBC Big Screen, and b) the identity of Rufi Franzen was finally revealed… as the one and only Hugh Garry.

The ARG has been played out on multiple online platforms and f-2-f in the classroom on a weekly basis for the past 2 months, although I guess it’s longer when we consider that the students have been fed clues from week one of the semester. The overall themes were explicitly covered by Hugh when he came in to deliver a guest lecture in week 5, where he spoke about four elements of the creative process: curiosity, collecting ideas, connecting and getting your work out there. These were the overarching themes for the module, outlined in the ‘module manifesto’ and alluded to on a weekly basis as the group were gradually developing their online identities and producing a range of media leading up to their final mobile films. It’s been crazy, challenging, scary, exhilarating – the list goes on.

There are so many people to thank, so first of all thank you to #psvtam for their participation, and for the peaks and troughs which have kept us on our toes. Secondly, Ben Shirley for being an amazing colleague and friend, and who has known about this since the beginning and has played more of a role than he realised just by being there in the classroom using his iPad – the presence and the tech contributed to one of the most effective red herrings in preventing the students from guessing the identity of Rufi Franzen. I’d also like to thank Jeremy Buxton and Phil Chapman from the BBC, who sorted out the final encoding/compliance testing and making sure the films played at the right time (I’m thinking Phil’s probably never had a weirder set of instructions than “don’t use your phone between 11.15 and 11.45, you will get a call, a voice will say ‘pebbles and boulders’, at this point press play text back and say ‘look at the screen’). Also many thanks to Charles Leadbeater who Huey managed to grab on Thursday evening for this video (throwing in another curveball as suspicions that Rufi Franzen might be Charles Leadbeater were starting to emerge). Thanks to D who addressed and posted the initial letters and has been a listening ear throughout.

But finally, we are indebted to Hugh Garry for his work behind the scenes on the plot (which has had to be changed so many times according to the reactions from #psvtam) and also the amazing content that he has produced for Rufi Franzen’s tumblr – not forgetting Thursday night’s Rufi Franzen live-stream which involved the group being given the opportunity to ask 5 yes/no questions (“best make them good ones!”) mediated via two glittering black skulls and a white fluffy penguin – I kid you not. Thursday night was also the night that the all-important password was revealed, check for the flashes in this doctored Steve Jobs film (again, thanks to Hugh):

Huey is without a doubt one of the most phenomenal people I have ever met and had the pleasure of working with. I’ve learnt so much from him throughout this whole experience. He has been incredible, and has remained good humoured throughout despite some shaky moments – always coming up with fantastic work-arounds and helping to ensure that the game didn’t die, even when it looked as though it might do.

As for Rufi Franzen? Well the name ‘Rufi’ was inspired by a guy I’ve known in  for years, and ‘Franzen’ was taken from Jonathan Franzen who wrote The Corrections. However, Rufi Franzen has taken on a life of his own. None of us will ever forget the ‘Rufi Franzen’ mystery… I feel more obsessed now than ever, obsessing over every twist and turn over the past couple of months and also thinking about the students involved and how amazing they have been. Their commitment and motivation have been overwhelming, and I’ll never forget their reactions to the Big Reveal. As far as educational experiences go, this has been incredible.  To hear students reflect back on the module and recognise how their prior experiences and expectations may have stifled their innate sense of curiosity in an educational setting is testimony to the initial hypothesis that introducing mystery and intrigue into the curriculum could bring back the sense of curiosity that leads to genuine engagement and deep learning.

As one of the students said the other day “I am looking at it as just the beginning…”

“I cannot shake the growing feeling of “loss” which comes from moving to another semester and the introduction of new lecturers and their module content whilst in the same breath saying goodbye to the friends I have made.”

It very much echoes my own feelings at this time of year as modules come to an end and students move on to the next phase. It’s been one of those posts I want to write at the end of each semester but never do. Thanks to @watersidestudio for sharing his feelings from the learner perspective as this has spurred me on to share my own.

I too am filled with a sense of melancholy when modules end. I grow incredibly fond of students I work with, and treasure our learning journey over the 12-week semester. They never cease to amaze and inspire me, and there’s a real transformational shift when developing digital identities and literacies that makes this the best ‘job’ in the world. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not perfect – in fact this semester has been quite challenging in many ways due to settling into our new building at MediaCityUK, and also making Twitter compulsory which has aroused some strong feelings (including anger) in some members of the group. However, despite some niggles and teething problems, we’ve had a fantastic module and I don’t want it to end – I never do!  It would be amazing to work with them for at least a full year instead of one semester. Sometimes it feels as though we’re really on to something incredibly powerful and then it all comes to an end. Normally, I feel ‘connected’ to my students by week 4, but it took a little longer this semester, and it wasn’t until week 6 or 7 that I really felt I was getting to know all of them/their personalities on an individual level. This is (for me) the magic moment, but it took a little longer this year due to the campus move and related issues.

Last week we had an extra session for feedback, which was only announced on the Friday (I’d booked a room for the following Monday). They’re not in on Mondays normally, so I really appreciated so many of them coming along and we had a great session! We talked through feedback, chatted about their projects – which are shaping up brilliantly – and then the group suggested we crowdsource a film there and then using our mobiles (it’s being edited by @AlicjaSocha as we speak). It was their idea, concept etc. and (to me) it felt amazing, like a group of friends creating together, rather than the traditional tutor-students dynamic.

Luckily for me, in the case of #psvtam, i’ll still be their Programme Leader and Personal Tutor, so it’s not like we’re saying goodbye. I’ve also been incredibly heartened by the effort they have put into ad hoc mini-projects which were suggested they do for… well, fun basically. They weren’t assessed, but really astounded me with the creativity, time and effort in their mashup-videos, as an example. I’m hoping we can do more mini-projects ‘just for fun’ next year.

It’s great that the #psvtam module is being rolled out to other programmes, especially considering that it started as an experiment back in 2006 (guerrilla module design . However I’m also acutely aware that we’re now in a mass HE system and the more students I work with, the less I’ll be able to connect on a personal level.

I have so much admiration for #psvtam, some of whom are juggling parental responsibilities (including new babies!) and full-time jobs with being a student. Assessment deadlines, family responsibilities, financial issues – and yet they remain good humoured and (most of the time a joy to work with – including those who resent having to develop their digital identities across a range of platforms (at least initially) as it’s often these students who challenge my own philosophies and practice the most, hence this earlier post on the Tyranny of Authenticity.

So #psvtam, it’s been a blast – and our journey’s not over yet! Let’s enjoy the next few weeks and thank you for being such a brilliant group.

There’s a certain aesthetic to many mobile phone films which can often be shaky and pixelated (termed the ‘Ketai Aesthetic’ by Max Schlesser) and yet some of the most powerful images of recent world events have been captured using these personal, consumer devices. The mobile phone camera is intimate, discreet, and allows us to ‘shoot from the hip’, recording events as they happen in real-time.

However, the ‘art’ of mobile film making allows us to question our assumptions in terms of what works (and what doesn’t) when it comes to creating engaging content. Without being able to rely on high-end technology and production practices, narrative practices are laid bare: what works on the big screen doesn’t necessarily work on the small screen – and vice versa. It’s about energy and imagination rather than big budget, and pushes us to think about how to tell a story quickly.

For 3 years now I’ve been working with students on the production of VSS films as it challenges their prior assumptions about film-making and pushes them to really focus on content and the art of ‘fast entertainment’. These skills are invaluable in a time when 48 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute and there are 100 million daily mobile views – how to increase the likelihood our of content being seen, enjoyed and contributing to the YouTube community and culture as a whole.

I’m especially looking forward to this year as after seeing the mash-up videos the group came up with as a non-assessed short exercise a couple of weeks ago (see here http://alicjas.wordpress.com/2011/10/11/copyright-vs-mushup-video/ for an example), I have a feeling we’re going to see some excellent productions. While we’ve so far been focusing on remix culture, fair use type policies, and pushing boundaries in terms of copyright, we are going to have to now re-focus in order to ensure our content is viewable on the various screens around our building at MediaCityUK. This is going to mean adhering to certain editorial guidelines, which necessitates certain constraints in terms of what can be filmed, used and broadcasted. It will be interesting to see how these constraints influence the films that will be produced; at the same time I’m acutely aware that constraints are often seen as going hand-in-hand with creativity…

I’m going to leave it there for now, lots more to say and I’m trying to keep this blog post length – will no doubt be writing more about the films themselves in due course. In the meantime, here’s one my (many) favourites which I like because it’s simple and quirky: Personal Jesus by Yaroslav Dimont.

Another nice find from @brainpicker is “Sound” by… SoundCloud! They say “We love sound. Hear from sound experts and friends of SoundCloud why sound is so important to the way we connect with the world. Enjoy.

This is something that I’m sure we’ve all experienced/noticed at some time. Only this morning I received a comment on my earlier blog post that (at first glance) appeared to mistakenly attribute my post to one of the other commenters (thanks to Anne Marie Cunningham for clarification – see comment below). A further scenario that springs to mind is a fairly recent case where I had tweeted a link to a video made by some of my students. In spite of clearly stating in the tweet that it was their work (not mine), when I checked back into Twitter later on that day I was happy to see that it had been retweeted many times – but slightly dismayed to see that in the flow of dissemination, the link was now being referred to as ‘@heloukee’s film’, suggesting that I had made it myself. When we promote our students’ work, are we also promoting ourselves? Whether intentional or not, it is possible that we ‘profit’ in some way (reputation, social capital) from their work – in this case I was happy to be retweeted, but felt guilty about the mis-attribution and tried to clear up the confusion (through a tweet – should have followed it’s progress really…).

I came across this post from plagiarism today ‘Watching Attribution Erode on Twitter’, which offers a nice example of Network Whispers in action:

“The case study follows a single tweet put out by user @Haleys_Hell (NSFW Language Warning) on August 7th of this year. The tweet went as follows:

While this isn’t terribly surprising, what is interesting about it is how the attribution eroded away. On the first few days of tracking, nearly all the tweets were either true retweets or attributed tweets (using RT @ format). However, after a few days, it was the unattributed tweet and the misattributed tweets that were winning out, growing to the point that, on the last day of tracking, there were no correctly attributed tweets at all.”

For a more in-depth analysis/discussion of the case, it’s worth reading the original case study ‘Tracking a Stolen Tweet’

Network Whispers are seemingly inevitable in the rapid flow of dissemination through social platforms. There are numerous posts in the blogosphere which highlight issues around attribution on platforms including Twitter Playing “Twitter Whispers” with your message and attribution and Tumblr Tumblr, attribution and the Internet, also some interesting thoughts relating power relations between old and new media, the excellent What’s the best way to give retweet attribution on Twitter? (there’s a great cartoon from The Joy of Tech in this post), along with How Misunderstanding Retweets Can Get You Suspended From Twitter, and even a Comic Flowchart That Encourages Attribution of Work Found Online.

Attribution can easily be lost as content passes along a network resulting in credit not going where it is due. It is clear how easily this happens in a platform such as Twitter (viral-like spread of information through networks, the desire to modify tweets in order to add value through comments/curation). I’d love to hear your thoughts and share your experiences in an educational context. What implications might there be for our learners, and for us as educators?

There is undoubtedly much to be gained from taking control of, and actively developing our digital identity. I work with HE students who are developing their (professional) online presence in order to develop their PLNs, and bridge across the transition from formal education to their professional careers. In order to engage our learners I find myself evangelising and modelling online behaviours. This in itself affects my own online behaviour, in that I have a more relaxed Twitter ‘self’ during the summer months (more personal details, sharing of music/images, probably some swearing…) and this then deviates from my Twitter persona during the academic teaching year when I’m more guarded with regards my online communication and behaviour, focusing on sharing useful links and operating more as an ‘interestingness’ curator for my students. I have 2 Facebook accounts, multiple Flickr accounts, and separate Twitter accounts for teaching and personal/professional use. Essentially, my online self – despite having become more comfortable being ‘me’ online, and also being much more consolidated now that I exist professionally as ‘heloukee’ (see earlier post) – is still performed to some extent. Having spoken to many members of my PLN (personal learning network) about authenticity, trust and reputation I’m certainly not alone. Twitter is a good example of this, especially the considerable use of the back-channel (DMs), which we often use to say things we wouldn’t want to share publicly on the main stream.

When we encourage our students to manage their digital identity we often find ourselves adopting a rhetoric centred on openness and authenticity as devices for connecting, building social capital, nurturing networks/networking and PR of the self. Although there are tangible benefits in terms of developing their online IDs/networks, we are also operating within a pedagogical space which is largely driven by an employability agenda, the perceived need to develop an online presence in order to compete in a for employment opportunities, and the development of the PLN as an additional device for lifelong learning.

The transition from ‘me’ to ‘professional.me’ is not unproblematic, and there are ethical issues at play when we encourage our learners to cast-off prior, potentially problematic online IDs in order to nurture a persona that appeals to potential employers. In my case, the students who I work with are assessed on their content production and online IDs and while we have so far only had success stories, it has at times thrown up some interesting issues and highlighted tensions around what is/is not acceptable in a formal educational context vis-à-vis the individual’s right to present themselves in the manner they chose in an online space which is not owned, provided or controlled by the institution.

Being a believer in the web as a place for play and experimentation, I’m a huge fan of pseudonyms and think that we should have the right to adopt a moniker (or monikers) of our choosing. The ability to adopt pseudonyms and personas has been core to the experience of many of our students, who choose to present themselves using alternative IDs in the professional spaces while still retaining their (much ‘cooler’ in terms of their peers) identities within less formalised spaces. They are simultaneously performing to the industry/future employers while retaining/building social capital with their ‘peer audience’ in their recreational online spaces – which is something that many of us (try to) do, to varying degrees.

The arrival of Google+ has seen a groundswell of disapproval and outrage in relation to Google’s ‘real name’ policy; essentially they are demanding that G+ users present themselves using their real names and decided to enforce this policy by identifying and closing down accounts where the user has adopted a pseudonym. The public outcry has been substantial, as evidenced by the open listing of Google Profiles Pseudonymity Debate Coverage, danah boyd’s “Real Names” Policies Are an Abuse of Power, and most significantly in the EdTech context: Should Students Use Pseudonyms Online?

For all this talk of openness, when socio-technical systems demand that we use our ‘real’ names; when we require our learners to ‘give themselves’ through the development of online IDs upon which they will be assessed; when we ourselves ‘perform’ professionalised selves, which are essentially watered-down versions of our actual selves, is the tyranny of authenticity leading to an inauthentic public commons? What do we expect from our learners and communities?

1) The #foodporn movement on instagram.

As a massive Flickr fan, I’m no stranger to #foodporn (pics of food that you made/ate/loved) but the thing with instagram is that it works perfectly for those ‘this is what I’m eating, right now’ moments. I love food, I mean I really love food. Through posting pics combined with the #foodporn tag, i’m connecting with lots of people from Asia (China, Japan, Korea, Thailand mainly) and that’s something that I haven’t done before on this scale. My (imagined – thanks Benedict Anderson) Flickr community/ies have tended to be made up of speakers of one of the world’s Englishes (or 2nd language speakers). Not intentional by any means, but it just seems to be the way we’ve gravitated towards one another – I guess the cliquey cultural references and in-group humour often serve to exclude, which is a shame really.
I’m enjoying the heavy use of the Emoji font by Asian instagrammers – big user myself, but up until now it’s mainly been with close friends (we do awesome Emoji texts – generally centered around flights/travel icons). Loving the way that Emoji plays such a key role in communicating the global appreciation of all things food. So yeah, instagram + #foodporn + Emoji = Mobile Web Goodness!

2) Remote working through Skype and Google+ hangouts (in a bikini).
I’ve been here in Stockholm for 4 weeks now and it’s been pretty scorchio. My goal for this time was to move to an entirely electronic way of working – armed with my Kindle and laptop I was going to shun anything paper-based. Managed until yesterday when I couldn’t take anymore and had to go and print out heaps of docs i.e. electronic office #fail. Really need to work on this as when I move to MediaCity UK in Sept I’m not going to have an office any more in the traditional sense – hot-desking all round!
Anyway, I digress – this is a post about remote working isn’t it?
SO, Google+ hangout/Skype! Ok, so Skype’s not new, but between the two I’ve been having exciting meetings with colleagues across continents about upcoming projects and have had some great supervision sessions with my postgrad students. Love the sense of peace and thinking space away from day-to-day campus distractions.

I especially like my chats with @francesbell. We talk a lot anyway, but it’s nice that distance doesn’t change anything – apart from the fact that she’s got this new recording software so I’ve stopped swearing on Skype. Oh yeah, and this is where the bikini bit comes into play – Frances wanted to test her software/interview me today, recording Skype vid. Had to go audio only because of the bikini – not a good look for serious EdTech chat. Google+ is good for this as it asks you to check how you look first i.e. are you wearing clothes? Skype needs to do the same.

3) The cover of ‘Wild Thing’ by The Pinups (1980).

This is an awesome cover, but couldn’t find it in any of my usual online haunts (Blipfm, Spotify etc.) – luckily some kind soul has shared it here: http://www.divshare.com/download/6371054-c9f
Serious gem.

4) Ok so I’m stopping at 4, because this is just a frivoulous summer post and I’d rather save tales of this year’s sea-kayaking extravaganza for a dedicated post. It will involve digital cultures, promise.

Happy August
Bye for now!

Our paper concerns the potential, and processes of, the internet-mediated construction and communication of urban eccentrics; ‘local characters’ who have traditionally been known to unconnected groups within a geographic locale. Our work suggests that the internet has the potential to connect these groups and generate notoriety for urban eccentrics, transcending time and space. This is not a new phenomenon; the Nowhere Guide, launched in the 1990s, allows contributors to share memories of ‘local heroes’ and Gawker has spawned similar sites (Wired 2008). However, despite literatures around online fandom (Baym 2002) and micro-celebrity (Senft, 2008) it appears that the relationships between digital media and urban eccentrics have received very little academic attention. Our research is based on a discourse analysis of the Facebook fan page associated with a particular urban eccentric and other artifacts connected with them and shared throughout the Internet.

Drawing upon Monaco’s (1978) concept of the Quasar, a category of celebrity, we undertake a reading of an urban eccentric: the Market Street Mincer (MSM) someone known for walking around Market Street in Manchester, UK during 2001-2003. Monaco defines the Quasar by their unwillingness to ‘be’ a celebrity, that fact they have little control over their status and that our interest is due to what we believe they are. In our case, the MSM operates as an enigma, no-one knows for certain why he does what he does and the extent to which he is willing to become a celebrity and under what terms. For example, several Facebook posts state that he walked to be spotted by a scout for a modelling agency. If that is the case, the attention he has received is something very different from that which he set out to gain. Thus, we need to think about the concept of the Quasar, and their abilities to influence their identities in the light of user generated content.

The rise of user-generated content combined with the ubiquity of mobile devices has resulted in a 21st century ‘citizen paparazzi’ who participate by for example, tracking and recording individuals in a specific locale within the physical world and then creating spaces and discussing them in arenas such as SNS, internet news sites and even ‘traditional media’ such as radio and print. With respect to the MSM, it appears that his ‘name’ was given on a radio show and there is much discussion about his path of travel. These activities fuel the process of data gathering about urban eccentrics allowing people to contribute and experience them further. This ‘data’ takes many forms and covers various topics. Nicknames and memories of manchester are shared alongside speculations about the motivations and identity of the MSM. A combination of fondness and mockery characterise the dialogue around the MSM and there are links in to the trope of cyberbullying/cyberstalking (Adam 2005) which we will touch upon.  Many of the participants have now left the city but he has left an impression. The community was established in May 2007 and is still active – as of February 2011 there have been 385 posts.

Is the MSM a micro-celebrity? Terri Senft states: “micro-celebrity is perhaps best understood as a new style of online performance in which people ‘amp up’ their popularity over the Web…” There is no evidence to suggest that the MSM has ‘amped up’ his popularity via the web – this has been done ‘for him’, knowingly or otherwise. Thus, we maybe need to nuance the definition of micro-celebrity or introduce some form of category that includes internet-mediated urban eccentrics.  More generally, this work asks us to continue to unpack the affordances of digital media and how these might be implicated in the shaping of social networking practices.  For example, the MSM was present before the arrival of video recording capability on mobile phones. It will be interesting to see, as with pre-digital fan networks, if artifacts surrounding Internet-mediated Urban Eccentrics at a particular point in time become valued more so than others due to the amount and type of data available about them.

REFERENCES

Adam, A E 2005, ‘Gender, Ethics and Information Technology’, -Basingstoke and New York, Palgrave Macmillan.

Baym, N. 2000. Tune in, log on: Soaps, fandom, and online community. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage.
Monaco, J. (1978) Celebrity, New York: Delta.

Senft, T. (2008) Camgirls: Celebrity and Community in the Age of Social Networking. New York: Peter Lang Publishers. Manuscript version, used with author’s permission.
Spiegel, B. (2008) Websites Go Crazy Tracking Urban Eccentrics. Wired Magazine.