Greg Shine, Chief Ranger at the Fort Vancouver National Historic Site, talked at length in August about the Fort Vancouver Mobile project as part of the National Park Service's
first Digital Media Webinar, which I joined asynchronously through blog posts here and synchronously through Twitter. This time around, in late January, the National Park Service was kind enough to invite me to participate directly via a webcam presentation, asking me to talk about the project and on the subject of mobile media. Another 60 or so employees from throughout national parks in the U.S. & territories (such as Virgin Islands, American Samoa, and Guam) joined the Webinar, looked at clips of the project and talked about its potential as a model for mobile media interpretation at historic sites throughout the agency's system.
Some of the comments from the chat stream included:
* "I like that the ranger is learning along with the visitor!"
* "It really gives the visitor the idea of being there as the archeological discovery is made."
* "I like that the visitor is part of the discovery"
* "good catchy intro to get you to want to watch more"
* "it's great how much is conveyed without narration"
* "Without the use of much audio there is still a lot of emotion, the quality of video makes a big difference too. This is not homemade-Waynes world made"
* "Great way to interpret"
* "great for kids"
* "the students would not only be empowered to put their own expression into it, but they would also make their own connections to the resource"
* "save trees"
* "people are asking way more for app creation!"
* "Inspiring brett"
* And, best of all: "Wow!"
Thanks again, NPS, for asking me to participate. I really enjoyed the experience.
