Verde Smoke

Here is the final version of my master thesis submitted on August 11, 2009.

Full Document (2.5 MB, PDF)

Chapter Pullouts:

The advantages of participation, collaboration, and iteration shape the functionality of media tools like blogs, social networks, and user-created media sharing sites. At first glance, these tools should easily align with the stated values of many community and youth development organizations perched on edge of the digital divide in both the U.S. and abroad. The most critical growing disparity, thus, is not only access to these tools but also their integration into local programs that aim to empower individuals and build collective power.

(Give it a sec to download all the fun media files before you begin by clicking the arrows. OR view it full screen on http://prezi.com).

Also, download the handout/outline.

Check out this video of the final presentation to the Lawrence Community Works Union Crossing Committee, describing programs devised by the graduate and undergraduate students in the Spring 2009 Lawrence practicum course in the Dept of Urban Studies and Planning (11.423 LAWRENCE PRACTICUM: Info, Assets, and the Immigrant City) where I’m the teaching assistant.

How can participatory media tools be adapted for grassroots strategies to seed more forward-focused institutional memory practices? Can we use these tools, supported by strategies such as reflective practice, participatory action research, and participatory development communication, work in real-time in both the university and community?

I like to describe myself as a storyteller in search of community. But I’m not always the most well spoken person in the room. Sometimes I look up and find myself up to my neck in community. Upon reflection, perhaps the biggest gap is between the way I see myself and the reality of the places I end up.

[More info on a campaign that Lawrence CommunityWorks is devising to empower citizens to get involved in local political campaigns and citizen journalism - they need help developing new media tools to support these efforts!]

The initial phase of this project had the goal to empower Lawrence youth to conduct, record and edit audio interviews with employees of the relocating Southwick Company and key participants in the Union Crossing re-development project.

Barring a snow cancellation, I’m slotted to present my research tonight at the Harvard-MIT-Yale Cyberscholar Working Group.

You’re cordially invited to watch MIT@Lawrence’s youth celebration event, hosted in the 2nd floor conference room of the MIT Museum (265 Massachusetts Avenue) on May 9th, 2008. This event featured both presentations by student workshop participants and and free ice cream!