More Open Video Notes: Production Best Practices

I’m impressed by how well-connected Peter is; the quality of the speakers, the packed room and the lovely catering presentation (low-budget while coming across as expensive) attest to great conference planning. The audience started out a little dead, but by the afternoon there were not only lively Q&As with the speakers, but also active discussions among audience members.

Continuing on with a few notes - and please, errors are mine:

We heard from Margaret Drain from WGBH, which produces much of the PBS content. They designed "we shall remain" project to engage young native Americans. " The citizen storyteller." Give them new cell phones that you can record and edit on.

Name of the project comes from this touching quote, which practically brought tears to my eyes: "The Master of Life has appointed this place for us to light our fires, and here we shall remain" – Tecumseh.

We saw an attractive presentation, reviewing efforts on sharing climate and astronomy data online and making it interactive, showing simulations, etc. This was given by Thomas Lucas, an independent producer working with the NCSA.

Curtis Wong from Microsoft Research "Next Media" spoke next – runs a small group developing services 4-6 years down the line; in his spare time he does educational technology work. 20 years ago he worked at Voyager. Standard DVD stuff. Then Corbis. He shows a trail of his work at these places over time.

What is he working on now at Microsoft? Using the "world wide telescope", hopefully to be released sometime this fall, Curtis showed us how you can browse satellite pictures of the sky much the same way you would zoom in to satellite pictures of your neighborhood on Google Earth.  The data comes from the Sloane Digital Sky Survey and the Hubble Telescope. Very cool.

Comments

[Russell Nelson]

NASA's WorldWind already has the Sloan Digital Sky Survey data incorporated into it. Microsoft "innovates" again.

[Rocket]

Google earth has already incorporated Google Sky into its application, using the Google sky zooming around the universe and zooming in on galaxies and star clusters and red giants (using photographs from Hubble and NASA). Microsoft, as usual, is playing catchup. My Prediction, Google will one day offer an operating system incorporating all its applications and be the definitive rival to Microsoft.