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Using Technology
Go to the Use of Technology section in the Community Guide for complete details on:
- Why and where technology plays a role in the project
- Planning for the use of technology
- Managing data
Why Technology?
The Listening to the River project is predicated on young people experiencing and learning about the watershed. While not central to these types of experiences in general, technology does play a critical part in this project. It:
- Attracts "technophile" young people to the project;
- Allows them to do more than just listen to a nature guide while they are outside;
- Allows them to document their experience, and show it or tell it to someone else;
- Provides a means for others to experience what the young people heard, saw, etc.
It is important for communities deciding to undertake a project such as this to understand technology, its use and limitations, and to have a plan to deal with it.
Technology, as applied under LTTR, can be grouped into three areas.
- The equipment used to "capture" watershed experiences - things like microphones, audio recorders, cameras and GPS units.
- The storage media - technology used to store collected data from the cameras, recorders, etc. These include digital video tape, flash memory cards, external hard drives, etc.
- The software and hardware used to manipulate, edit, and publish the data - primarily personal computers, editing software and publishing vehicles like radio or the web.
Planning for Technology: Things to Consider
As with most activities, having a plan for the use of technology in a LTTR program helps ensure success. Knowing ahead of time what you will need, when it will be needed, who can use it, etc., can make life a little easier during the program delivery.
Equipment
In choosing and using equipment for capture, publishing, editing and storage, consider:
- Desired final products
- Cost and/or local availability of equipment
- Age and/or technical experience of participants
- Weight and bulk of field equipment and type of outings
People
Your community partnership should have someone who can coordinate the use of technology. It will be important for that person to reach out into the community, find out what technical resource people are present, and determine how they can best be utilized.
Data Management
Deciding what your end product will be (i.e., radio piece, slideshow for the web, video for cable broadcast) will data management task more manageable. You will need to consider:
- Different file types (e.g., sound files, video, photo, etc.)
- Different storage media (e.g., miniDV, compact flash, SD, etc.)
- File naming conventions
Our Story: File Management
We primarily had youths work in teams of two. Teams were selected at the first meeting and named consecutively Team 1, Team 2... etc. Teams were issued capture equipment, portable storage media, an external hard drive with their team number, and given a "team" space on a network drive.
Multimedia data for us existed in three forms - raw, edited and complete, and these forms provided the basis for our file naming conventions. So, when returning from the field and saving newly captured data, kids were given instructions to navigate to: V:\{session name}\{team name}\Raw and within this folder, they would create a folder named yyyymmdd{Place}{Media}. Similarly, when editing, they would save edited work to a folder in the following directory: V:\{session name}\{team name}\Edits and finished pieces to: V:\{session name}\{team name}\Complete.
For a complete Technology Planning Timeline and Checklist, click here.
Support Materials*
- Equipment Check Out/In Process and Forms
- Equipment Loan Agreement
- Photo Processing and Editing Instructions
- Downloading and Saving Field Data 2009
- Preparing to Edit Media 2009
- Editing Audio with Audacity 2009
- LTTR Technology Planning Timeline and Checklist
- The Tool Kit - What's in it and How Does it All Work?