OWLE
During this past summer’s Beijing-based field school, the ChinaVine team traveled more freely and unencumbered than ever before. A glimpse in Professor John Fenn’s backpack reveals the secret to traveling so light: three Kodak HD Video cameras, two OWLE Bubo devices, two small microphones, a handful of SD cards, batteries, chargers, cables and a hard drive or two – an array of technologies known as “mini-media” devices. Instead of hauling full sized digital fieldwork equipment, faculty and students experimented with carrying as little equipment as possible. The team experimented by acknowledging what was already in their own pockets – namely smart phones and digital cameras. Thus, using a wide range of mini-media devices, ChinaVine members explored how to successfully document and capture new information and content.
“These devices are comfortable, familiar and overall ubiquitous in nature,” comments Professor John Fenn.
Furthermore, Fenn explains one of the goals for using “mini-media” is to “examine how far we can push these technologies for quality documentation with low investments.”
iPhone with OWL lens
These mini-media devices provide several advantages: they are much more portable and practical, they can easily be distributed, and most are quite efficient in capturing high quality material. Overall, they do more with less. Perhaps the best examples are those carrying iPhones with global communication access. With the iPhone, the CV team is able to record audio, take photographs, use geolocation, communicate via e-mail and text messages, and even take notes and sketches. Though not everyone has an iPhone, everyone has a sense of comfort in using their own tools, or in utilizing the simple, easy-to-use devices found in Fenn’s backpack.
In the past, the CV team would return with a hefty box of tapes. Instead, this summer’s CV team returned with pockets full of SD cards from which material will be easier and faster to archive. Nevertheless, there are some drawbacks to mini-media, as is often the case with technology: the generic batteries fail quickly and compatibility issues arise with different file formats being recorded. Looking forward, additional formats and file sizes when archiving the information may continue to expand. It also should be noted that what is shared from these media devices will be shown in a web environment; if shown in different environments, the quality may not be optimal. That said, what makes mini-media most effective is its discrete, portable, and flexible nature that becomes unavailable with larger equipment, such as the Canon XHA1 that ChinaVine has used in the past.
Though these very specific devices might be applied for future ChinaVine trips, Fenn remarks that this “multifaceted approach is sustainable in that these technological devices are not going anywhere; technology will change within time, but I would hope this approach will continue to be used in the Field School.”
And so, in recognizing what was in their own pockets, the ChinaVine team proved to be quite efficient in using what they were most accustomed to in an unaccustomed environment.
Mini Media Devices
QUESTIONS:
1.) What form of “mini-media” do you prefer in documentation?
2.) What do you perceive as strengths and or weaknesses to this approach?
3.) Do you think this approach is sustainable?
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i lead the TVET menimimidia club.that now i face many strangle.