Why Media Creators?

Hi, I'm Sally.

I work in the Learning Innovation Team here at the University of Nottingham - a role that means that I'm lucky enough to work with new and interesting technologies. My focus is on audio visual media so I tend to get involved in any projects with a focus on media.

I've called this blog 'Media Creators' in honour of all the people I work with and have worked with over the years who have a passion for creating media, but the blog is also about documenting the growth of a community of new and existing media creators here at the University and in the wider world.

When I started out in this role back in 2008 we were concentrating on introducing a scalable automated lecture recording system into teaching rooms across all of our campuses (located in the UK, China and Malaysia). It turned out that quite a number of other Universities were also tackling this challenge and as a result I met people from all over the world who are passionate about media and technology and how the two can interact. Two projects of note that I have been involved with are Opencast and Steeple. If you're interested in reading more about the Nottingham project, see the abstract and slides from my talk, "Invisible Technology? Simplifying Lecture Recording" that I gave at the International Association of Technology, Education and Development conference in Valencia, Spain in 2010.

There are two new and exciting projects that I am currently involved with: The first is part funded by the HEA's Changing the Learning Landscape (CLL) Programme and involves building a recording booth to make it easier for staff and students to create video content. The second is the introduction of a cloud based media management service called Kaltura.

More media created by Nottingham staff and students may be found at these locations:
The University of Nottingham's MediaSpace
The University of Nottingham iTunes U channel
The University of Nottingham YouTube channel

This is me changing a tape in the backup camera at a public lecture by the great Dr Richard Stallman, computer programmer and free software activist. The talk was on the subject of  'Copyright vs Community in the Age of Computer Networks' and was streamed live using all free software.
A video of the talk is available at http://audio-video.gnu.org: Ogg/Theora (1.9GB), WebM (1.7GB).
The recording is licensed under CreativeCommons Attribution-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.  

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on being an innovator: "Innovators can hold a situation in chaos for long periods of time without having to reach a resolution…won't give up … have a long term commitment to their dream … innovators introduce a maximum of tension into the thinking process, unifying concepts that often appear to be opposed, solving problems which appear impossible."George Land and Beth Jarman, Breakpoint and Beyond: Mastering the Future Today, Harper/Collins Publishers (1992)

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