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The CHI Fieldschool is a unique experience that employs the model of an archaeological fieldschool (in which students come together for a period of 5 or 6 weeks to work on an archaeological site in order to learn how to do archaeology). Instead of working on an archaeological site, however, students in the CHI Fieldschool will come together to collaboratively work on several cultural heritage informatics projects. In the process they will learn a great deal about what it takes to build applications and digital user experiences that serve the domain of cultural heritage - skills such as programming, media design, project management, user centered design, digital storytelling, etc.

ABSTRACT In this review essay, the academic merits of three anthropological blogs ("Savage Minds," "Zero Anthropology" [formerly "Open Anthropology"], and the official blog of the American Anthropological Association) are considered.

Here's a working academic blog, mostly on the writing process. https://lauraportwoodstacer.wordpress.com/

I appreciate the working academic blog. I might be interested in seeing two or three similar sites that are in dialogue with other another. Either people working on the same project or researchers in a similar field engaged in similar topics. This serves an obviously helpful role in garnering interested in your project.

[Synopsis] This book is a critical and ethnographic study of camgirls: women who broadcast themselves over the web for the general public while trying to cultivate a measure of celebrity in the process. The book's over-arching question is, "What does it mean for feminists to speak about the personal as political in a networked society that encourages women to 'represent' through confession, celebrity, and sexual display, but punishes too much visibility with conservative censure and backlash?" The narrative follows that of the camgirl phenomenon, beginning with the earliest experiments in personal homecamming and ending with the newest forms of identity and community being articulated through social networking sites like Live Journal, YouTube, MySpace, and Facebook. It is grounded in interviews, performance analysis of events transpiring between camgirls and their viewers, and the author's own experiences as an ersatz camgirl while conducting the research.

This study (and its author) is mentioned in this week's reading 'Digital Ethnography : An Examination of the Use of New Technologies for Social Research' by Dhiraj Murthy. Dissertation Remarks and Synopsis (from Theresa Senft's website) http://www.terrisenft.net/diss/synopsis.php#remarks

From website: "This portal is a gateway to the cultural materials of Plateau peoples that are held in Washington State University's Libraries, Manuscripts, Archives and Special Collections (MASC), the Museum of Anthropology and by national donors. The collections represented here have been chosen and curated by tribal consultants working in cooperation with University and Museum staff." The About section has a good description of the curation process. In summary, the digital collection allows annotation and content submission by registered tribal members and organizations; also allows visitors and guests to leave text, audio, and video comments on content. The Tribal Links section for each category connects the historical content to contemporary cultures. Content controls allow participants to flag content as sensitive; presumably there is non-public content that is somehow managed. Here is a record that has some annotation by tribal organization: http://plateauportal.wsulibs.wsu.edu/html/ppp/display.php?tid=2&cid=4&fid=147&pgst=0 Metadata seems to include geospatial metadata that allows mapping of buildings, etc. From what I understand, the software used to support this collection is based on an Australian project with similar approach. Unfortunately, not much on the site about the software tools. I will try to locate and add the Australian project and related documentation. Is this digital ethnography? It seems to approach it; but limited markup by tribal members and organizations gives limited view of offline implications of online data.

Here is a link to San Francisco's center for digital storytelling. The website has a digital storytelling cookbook, a basic guide to digital storytelling including interview techniques and basics of final cut express. The following is out of the "overloaded memory bank" section of the cookbook: "construction system to assist us in this process. Images, videos, sounds, and other representations of events from our life can help us to reconstruct more complete memories and therefore expand the repertoire of story that we can put to use." What are the implications for memory, and storytelling, if it is being framed in the context of a more formal recorded digital story.

and here is the link (http://www.storycenter.org/). There are several videos on the site that might be interesting to check out as well.

I really like this piece! I'm not super familiar with DML as a field, but the author's attention to the world-making capabilities (and not even capabilities - it's built in or "politically preloaded") of research methods. The post provides a clear defense against those who would argue that research is just objectively recording the world. At the same time, it doesn't slip into a poststructuralist wormhole about meaning. There's an attention to politics here that 's fruitful [Ah! but politics in general.. What are this author's projects' politics? What departmental/ disciplinary political fights shape the ground on which DML research takes place?]

this is all you really need to read (abstract/chapter intro...): New technologies represent a system of constraints and possibilities that constitute the foundation of new rhetorical spaces: the spheres of new communicative and persuasive procedures. Nowadays, urban planning has the chance to critically and rigorously experiment with these new spaces. It has the chance to transgress traditional representational codes and to expand its semantic horizons. This chapter portrays one such challenging exploration: the fecund crossroads between qualitative analytical approaches and digital languages within the planning field. It is a path that embraces diverse dimensions media and messages, analysis and rhetoric, ethics and aesthetics.

I only read the first 15 pages or so of this chapter through Google Books preview - but - I loved it. It's beautifully written (jargon-y at times, but it's good for the genre). Plus, it works as a manifesto for the kinds digital ethnographies I want to read/experience. The best part for me was the author's focus on "multi -sensory aesthetics" in digital ethnographies. It's worth a block quote: Understanding that reason doesn't produce the totality of our actions, to create real communicative space, and induce peoples to act it is not enough to "tell" rather it is s necessary to transfer energies, make sentiments, and emotions vibrate, awaken latent aspirations, knowledge and enrages, rediscovering the powerful role of artistic and poetic languages. It is necessary to focus on the cognitive and communicative performance of aestehec pleasure, a pleasure that is not an accessory but rather a central moment of very communicative process.

As we are thinking about digital presentation, take a look at the Fembot/Ada site. It's an international collective working on building a digital, feminist peer review process.