More video/audio production completed; with a special thanks to the Ke Kukui Foundation and Tommy O's

Courtesy of Greg Shine and his iPhone

Another major round of video/audio production is finished (completed on Aug. 18), with more than 50 people now contributing to the Fort Vancouver Mobile project to date. Momentum certainly is building!
Before we move on to the next production mountain, I want to acknowledge and thank everyone who worked so hard this week.
That list includes the Ke Kukui Foundation, especially Deva Yamashiro and Kapuanani Antonio, who recruited and organized about two dozen performers for various roles, featuring: Frank Van Waardenburg (William Kaulehelehe), Virginia MacKenzie (Mary Kaii), Kaloku Holt (soloist/dancer), Hono Yacapin (dancer) and Tommy Owens (dancer). When the video shoot went late, into dinner time, Owens also generously catered an impromptu meal for the cast and crew from his restaurant, Tommy O's, one of the best bistros in the area. We highly recommend Tommy O's, which has one location near Esther Short Park in downtown Vancouver and another in east Vancouver, off NE 192nd Avenue. (Thanks again, Tommy!) In addition, the Ke Kukui Foundation, through its halau Kaleinani o ke Kukui, performed various chants in Hawaiian that we plan to use in the piece, recorded in its studio, including "The Lord's Prayer" featuring soloist Bully Magsayo.
The Fort Vancouver National Historic Site, under the supervision of chief ranger Greg Shine, provided generous support for the project in many ways, too, from arranging the ideal setting and props to the organization of volunteer performers, assisted by Kimm Fox-Middleton. That included the recruitment of historical interpreters -- Douglas Halsey, Aaron Ochoa, Dan Ochoa and Roma Len -- to portray soldiers of the period (pictured above with Frank Waardenburg). Those five graciously endured the heat in heavy wool costumes, take after take, and the soldiers even stuck around to be in the background of the hula scenes.
As for all of these costumes, the fort's costume shop, under the direction of Eileen Trestain, also delivered timely and high quality assistance for several days leading up to the shoot.
The invaluable media specialists, and production workhorses, were videographer Troy Wayrynen and assistant director Jonathan Nelson, while Dr. Dene Grigar from Washington State University Vancouver's Creative Media and Digital Culture program also assisted on site with storyline development and production management.
That is an amazing list of supporters, added to the many other people who also have been contributing so far. I really can't say it enough, but mahalo, again, everyone!

William Kaulehelehe and Mary Kaii

The first phase of the Fort Vancouver Mobile project will be to produce a multimedia piece that illuminates the story of William Kaulehelehe (and wife Mary Kaii).

Here is some background material on the couple, contributed by the Ke Kukui Foundation's Kapuanani Antonio: Kaulehelehe bio. 

Are here are photographs of William and Mary next to the performers (an image also provided by Kapuanani Antonio) Frank Van Waardenburg and Virginia MacKenzie:

Audio equipment donated to FVM by Bart Phillips and the Clark-Skamania Fly Fishers

Bart Phillips

A hearty "mahalo!" to Bart Phillips, CEO and president of the Columbia River Economic Development Council as well as a member of the Clark-Skamania Flyfishers!
Phillips and his Clark-Skamania Flyfishers organization worked with Washington State University Vancouver's Creative Media and Digital Culture program recently, through a Digital Technology and Culture 476 class, under the direction of Dr. John Barber, to create this website: Clark-Skamania Flyfishers.
Pleased with the results, Phillips and his group donated money to the program for purchase of hardware and software, some of which directly paid for much needed production equipment for the Fort Vancouver Mobile project. 
That included a lavaliere microphone, reflective panels and audio equipment rigging, all of which arrived the very day, Aug. 18, of the most extensive media creation portion of the project to date. The timing couldn't have been better. This equipment as well as other portions of the donation bolstering CMDC labs also will be used in various WSU Vancouver classes, including DTC 354.02, Digital Storytelling, this fall, a service learning project at the Fort Vancouver National Historic Site involving mobile devices.
So thank you, again, Bart Phillips, Clark-Skamania Flyfishers and CMDC's co-directors Dr. Barber and Dr. Dene Grigar for investing the money in this project.

Ho`ike & Hawaiian Festival, FVM featured in the program

Our cultural partner on Phase 1 of the Fort Vancouver Mobile project, the Ke Kukui Foundation, is offering its annual Ho`ike & Hawaiian Festival July 29-31, 2010, in downtown Vancouver. More details are on the group's website, but here is a draft version of the part of the event's program that features the Fort Vancouver Mobile project (mahalo, Kapuanani!):

Video clips from The Village opening

Courtesy of Forrest Burger, RiverBend Productions (thanks, Forrest!). These will be the basis of a mobile media module we will be working on in August, to test the technological systems of the mobile app in place but also to experiment with what we can do on site with video, including examining download speeds and optimal compression formats:

Village Opening:



Necklace Giving:



Drumming:



Fort Vancouver National Trust president Elson Strahan:



Fort Vancouver ranger Victoria Nakamura:



Fort Vancouver Superintendent Tracy Fortmann:



Artist (needs ID):



Walk to Village:



Ranger (needs ID):



Vancouver Mayor Tim Leavitt:



Fort Vancouver archaeologist Doug Wilson:

New screen shots have arrived

Fort Vancouver Mobile coding whiz Joe Oppegaard of Montana Banana Design has been working hard this month on creating the backend framework for the FVM (thanks, Joe!), and here are excerpts from his latest report:

"home_screen.png - You'll see the new icon and updated text for the app name."

"welcome_screen.png - This is the first screen that comes up when you load the app.  I just kind of took a stab here at some text, mainly just to show that text can go there. ... This welcome screen can have all of the formatting of a web page, such as tables, bold, italics, inline pictures, etc. I do think we should keep it short, so the user can see all of the text/images without scrolling, if possible."

"resources.png - Notice the new Resources tab on the top (you can see it highlighted on this image and not highlighted on the welcome screen screenshot.  Like the welcome screen, this content can have all of the
formatting of a web page.  Clicking on the links will open the web browser and take the user to the site (as you would imagine)."

"internal_html.png - This and the formatting I mentioned above are one of the big updates to the back end of the system.  This is a local HTML page with images that is actually a part of the application itself, so the user doesn't have to be online to view it."

"external_site.png- This is an example of a trigger taking a user to an arbitrary external site.  In this case, I have it going to the YouTube page for the previous sample video I made.  As at this point it's basically just a web browser, everything works as you would expect, and I was able to view the YouTube video."

Joe also said he has written the code to get cell phones on site to vibrate at the various points of interest, based on GPS location. I suspect that each magic circle will have a roughly 10-meter (30-foot) radius, but maybe we can adjust that smaller or larger as we go and test.

Among the other notes, he has switched to XML coding (or a universal file coding, instead of hard coding just for this version), so that the content can be read by any other application. He is working on the Android version first, so XML should allow fairly easy migration into the iPhone version (or any other version we want to produce). Next on his list is the pop-up dialogue boxes. An impressive chunk of production by Joe, and we might even have the chance to demo the app on July 21.

Anything else, coding-wise, on the wish list before July 21? ... Post it here, and we'll talk it over.

Also, we can start creating the first designs for the pages. Any thoughts on that, for anything you see here?

The Village opening, a video preview

Videographer Forrest Burger of RiverBend Productions and I spent some time Saturday, June 19, at the Fort Vancouver National Historic Site's Brigade Encampment, which also was the official opening of The Village.

The Village is where the Fort Vancouver Mobile project is focusing its efforts this summer, and here is a rough preview video that Burger created to give a glimpse of the kind of multimedia material we gathered:

Burger and I and app designer Joe Oppegaard, maybe others on the team, too, will be working in July to create a mobile module of this event that will begin to demonstrate our larger mobile media plans for the site, in tangible forms.

If you want to try it out, send an email to FortVancouverMobile@gmail.com, and I'll put you on the list of beta testers.

Audio tours in Carlsbad Caverns / Roswell, N.M.

On my most recent trip to West Texas, in May, I decided to swing through southeast New Mexico to tour Carlsbad Caverns, an amazing World Heritage Site, which also was the research lab for the following academic article:

Novey, L. and T. Hall (2007). "The effect of audio tours on learning and social interaction: An evaluation at Carlsbad Caverns National Park." Science Education 91(2): 260-277. 

The same tour that Novey and Hall studied was offered, so I took it, and had a chance to reflect on their findings. In short, the caverns are part of a huge cave system that features many beautiful examples of underground rock formations, from stalactites to stalagmites and everything in-between. At certain times of the year, more than 1 million Mexican free-tailed bats live in this area, and they all leave the cave around dusk each night (pictured above, a fascinating event to watch). It is very difficult to describe any of this in words. But understanding the place in context to humanity is important for sense making.

There are many books and displays in the visitors center, including an Ansel Adams exhibit in which he expressed frustration over not being able to capture the essence of the caverns on film. But there also is the audio tour, which involves carrying around a two-foot long wand, with a keypad on the front. There are 50 signs placed along the main cavern path, and visitors simply type in the corresponding number and then hear a couple of spokespeople, a man and a woman, chatting about what is around that spot. 

Novey and Hall found that this tour significantly increased visitor knowledge about the caverns. On the negative side, it also decreased the amount of time visitors interacted with each other in groups, illustrating a common concern about incorporating mobile technology in such situations. There are connections made in the digital world and disconnections in the physical and social surroundings. 

One aspect of the study that doesn't seem to be taken into account is the quality of the audio tour. While it is professionally produced, and the speakers clearly are trained broadcast types, the generally inane patter between the two reminds me of the warm-up for the meteorologist on the nightly news. 
If this audio was transcribed and coded, I suspect it would be remarkable only in its inefficiency of actually sharing useful information, particularly in transferring knowledge related to the specific location where the sign is located, which seems to be the point. A lot of the scarce information ends up being redundant, and the corny jokes are mind numbing. But this audio tour also shows glimmers of promise, when it mixes period music into the background at times, and especially when it includes interviews with experts or expert commentary on the caverns. Those few clips typically were chatty but also dense with information.
While I was in the area, I also stopped by the UFO Museum in Roswell, N.M., and took its audio tour. 

That tape (yes, it was delivered via cassette tape) featured just one speaker, a highly informed and engaged expert, who delivered virtually nothing but dense information, complemented by an occasional radio clip from one of the witnesses to the incident. The content was a highly rhetorical argument for believing the case presented by the museum, that something strange happened in Roswell in the summer of 1947, involving aliens from outer space.
The audio also periodically would include music in the background, to emphasize the emotions of the moment, or to set a scene. It made its argument but also encouraged listeners to explore the material and the ideas for themselves, so there was a moderately open-ended nature to it. There were a variety of production flaws as well, from editing glitches to a lack of location markers and audio guides, which led to disorientation with the material or missed references to objects on display. The tape just played on and on, without explaining where the listener was supposed to be, or when it was time to move to the next exhibit. 
More than anything, these experiences just reinforce to me the high value of the researcher having control over and being part of the creation process for the mobile content being delivered and studied. It is more work, of course, but it seems so much more valuable to be able to determine the effects of mobile media when one feels comfortable and confident in the design of that material.
Otherwise, it seems that the research is tainted to begin with, by a faulty tool. I suppose anyone can follow along and criticize whatever content is created, making this argument potentially circular. Yet the quality of the content driving the user experience being studied should be considered, too, and judged as part of the whole, just like methodology and all of the other aspects of the research. Have you seen any studies that do take such facets into account?

The Village officially opens at 10 a.m. on June 19

The newly reconstructed Village area of the Fort Vancouver National Historic Site officially will open at 10 a.m. on June 19. Hope you can make it!

From the press release (photo courtesy of Greg Shine, National Park Service):

"VANCOUVER, WA - Superintendent Tracy Fortmann has announced that the Fort Vancouver Village Grand Opening Celebration will take place at 10:00 a.m. on Saturday, June 19, 2010. This free event will be held at the site of the historic Village, located to the west of the reconstructed stockade at Fort Vancouver and north of the Land Bridge.

The event will coincide with the first day of the annual Brigade Encampment special event, and will officially open the new trails and replica employee houses in the Village area." ...

To read the rest of the story, click here

WSU Vancouver supports the FVM project through a "mini-grant"

Just received news today that Washington State University Vancouver will provide $3,000 in grant funds to the Fort Vancouver Mobile project. This "mini-grant" is part of an annual drive by the institution to support faculty research, and Dr. Dene Grigar, co-project manager and PI for Phase Two, put together the application and shepherded it through the process. This grant will help to fund Phase One, the proof of concept for the project, which we will begin producing later this summer. More details to come. ... Thanks for all of your hard work on this, Dene!

Another FVM app iteration: GPS coordinates trigger mobile phones on site within 3 meters

Lead code writer Joe Oppegaard of Montana Banana Design has generated another early iteration of the Fort Vancouver Mobile app, this one demonstrating the GPS triggering of mobile devices within 3 meters at the fort site, as shown here:




The text blurbs in this example can be replaced by any form of media, including audio, video, animation, etc., and set to push to users on site and play when they enter the designated 3-meter (roughly 10 feet in diameter) hot zones.

Some comments from Joe on the coding process before and during this iteration:

"I found an open source QR Code reading library, which means that we don't have to link to another QR reading app, we can actually have one built in. It looks easy to use, though I haven't implemented it yet. The other piece of that puzzle is grabbing an image from the camera on the phone, but I assume that the Android libraries make that easy.

Secondly, I've also been catching up on accessing GPS data from the Android as well, which also isn't too hard. So that means hopefully pretty easily I can implement the "if the GPS loc is X, then vibrate the phone and fetch video Y. ...

The development environment allows me to feed GPS data to it, so I actually test it all out as if I'm actually walking around the Fort."


From a later message:

"I successfully have the app listening to GPS data and have set it up so that unique code will execute when you get 3 meters away from any specific lat/long pairs.  So for example, if you walk within 3 meters
of the opening to the Bastion, the "Bastion" code will execute (right now all it does is tell you where you are, but is just a stub for where the video or informational page will show up later).  When you get within 3 meters of the door to Chief Factor's house, the "Chief Factor" code will execute, etc.

I got the lat/lon coords from Google Earth. ... I would suggest using Google Earth (or go down there with a GPS) to grab all of the coords for any place that in the future you think you might want to have something happen at.  We can always add content as we get it and place holders in the mean time.

The QR code library is looking to be a bit harder to integrate, so my suggestion would be that for now we focus mainly on the GPS auto-detection part of the app on the Android.

The phone emulator allows for setting up a "path", so I can feed it gps coords for testing as if you're walking around.  I'm going to try and do a video of it tonight to show you what it's looking like."

A QR code tour in Long Beach, Wash.

Stumbled upon a QR code tour of Long Beach's boardwalk this weekend, including a short text block about Clark's Tree (where William Clark, of the Lewis & Clark expedition, apparently gazed at the Pacific Ocean for the first time, then carved his name into a tree, in 1805). 

Here is what this particular location code gave me:

This bronze tree represents one on which Captain Wm. Clark carved his name in 1805.

The original tree lasted until nearly 1900. Commissioned by the City of Long Beach, the bronze replica traveled by barge in 2003 from Clarkston, WA., on the Snake and Columbia Rivers, stopping at various ports over a 4-week journey.

Local sculptor, Stanley Wanless, cast the tree in Utah, but it was sent on the river route to follow the final leg of the Corps of Discovery journey to the Pacific Ocean.
Once the barge arrived in Ilwaco, the statue was moved by crane to a trailer which hauled it along Pacific Highway and placed it at its present location.

The setup looked like this: With the plastic sign posted to the top of a wooden post nearby. As you can see (forgive the image quality; it was taken with my phone on a bright sunny day), someone already has tried to pry the sign off, or maybe just pounded on it for fun.

Fort Vancouver has been experimenting with QR codes, too, under the direction of Chief Ranger Greg Shine, and these can be helpful and effective. In short, all I had to do was open up a QR code reader on my Android phone, point it at the code and the code directed me to the URL, which displayed the custom page.

It was interesting to learn about the sculpture's background here, but I also felt like I had so many more questions at this point. I really would have liked to have received much more content, particularly content that engaged me beyond simple Chamber of Commerce newsletter type information. It sounds like this tree had an amazing history, and I suspect preserving it, or at least the memory of it, was a significant community issue. I was impressed that a town the size of Long Beach was using this sort of technology, but I have to say this sign raised my hopes for an experience much higher than what was delivered. Maybe a few lessons learned by all of that.

Fort Vancouver's other digital efforts to open up the historic site to a broader audience

Fort Vancouver Mobile is just part of the national historic site's efforts, led by Chief Ranger Greg Shine, to incorporate digital media into historical interpretation.
There are podcasts available on site, and here are some other links that you might find interesting:

FOVA Flickr Site: http://www.flickr.com/fortvancouvernps
Images can be uploaded and accessed by the public. Shine has been geotagging images as well, so they show up on the "map" feature as well as via augmented reality smartphone programs such as Wikitude, Robotvision, Layar, Geodelic, etc.

FOVA Twitter Feed: http://www.twitter.com/FtVancouverNPS
Site updates, media releases and other timely notices or occurrences.

FOVA Facebook: "Fort Vancouver National Historic Site"
People can become a "fan" of Fort Vancouver NHS and post images, updates, etc.

FOVA Foursquare: http://www.foursquare.com/venue/245388 A location-based/geosocial networking program for mobile devices, it lets the user "check in" at places; earn points, badges, and mayorships. And share that information with friends. The fort, Village, & VC are officially set up and available for folks to check in and become mayor, etc.

Audio equipment list

Here is the list of audio equipment we plan to purchase soon to help with content production on this project:

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/wl/33A3B893B0

This roughly $6,500 purchase is being funded by a Clark County Historical Promotion Grant (thanks again, Clark County Commissioners!). At the end of this project, the equipment will be donated to the Digital Technology and Culture program at Washington State University Vancouver (soon to be the Creative Media and Digital Culture program). Fort Vancouver Mobile videography specialist Tom Turner compiled this list of our needs (thanks again, Tom!).

A second lavaliere mic is part of another grant request. ... Anything else missing?

Beta testers needed

We're looking for a few beta testers to work with early prototypes of the Fort Vancouver Mobile project. This particular stage of testing requires people to be in the 18 to 65 range, who are technologically savvy (preferably with experience using mobile devices) and interested in history (preferably of the 19th century era). If you are available, want to be involved and fit that profile, please send your contact information and availability for testing to: fortvancouvermobile@gmail.com. Thanks!

Developing separate graphics for our behind-the-scenes work on this project?

When corresponding about this Fort Vancouver Mobile project (writing grants, sending letters of inquiry, etc.), it would be helpful to have letterhead and other graphical support to give our materials a professional appearance and continuity. Dr. Dene Grigar of Washington State University Vancouver has designed this logo draft, with such goals in mind. What do you think? Should we have a separate look for our behind-the-scenes materials, like this? If so, what feedback would you give on this draft?

What do you think should be the first Fort Vancouver Mobile image users see?

Of the button choices below (or make another suggestion), what do you think should be the initial entry point for the Fort Vancouver Mobile application? What words should be below the image? Why? ...

Button candidate No. 3

The National Park Service arrowhead. Broadest appeal, the least local flavor.

Button candidate No. 2

The Fort Vancouver logo. ... Iconic local image.

Button candidate No. 1

The Village logo. Our initial work will be focused in The Village.

The button!

Well, we had to start somewhere with the coding of this project. So we, or I should say Joseph Oppegaard of Montana Banana Web Design (based in the Seattle area), took a Fort Vancouver logo and turned it into an app button for the Android platform (third row down, just to the right of email). It was a test more than anything and the text needs to be trimmed, but it is the first official digital artifact in this proof of concept stage. So hurrah! Or, I should say, Huzzah! ... For the real button, do you think this Village logo should be used, or should we start with a Fort Vancouver logo (that shows the stockade) or even the iconic National Park Service arrowhead (which Chief Ranger Greg Shine has OK'd for our use on this project)? I'll post all three individually, so you can look at them closer.

Wireless Internet system idea on hold

In talking to the fort's Chief Ranger, Greg Shine, about the potential of creating a wireless Internet system in the fort's Village, he made me aware of the federal policy at the site that specifically prohibits just such a system from being built on National Park Service land. There could be alternatives, such as working with the nearby Vancouver National Historic Reserve to rebuild the wireless system that group (or a previous incarnation of that group) once had, to create a cloud large enough to cover The Village. But with no money for that cloud (probably a $10,000 start-up cost, plus $50-$60 a month in service) and a significant amount of discussions needed to make it happen, plus the October launch of Phase One coming quickly, it seems prudent at this point to just design Phase One for 3G and gradually build toward the larger goal of Wi-Max coverage throughout the reserve. I'll update when anything changes on that front. Thanks again, by the way, to Forrest Burger for his help in investigating this possibility!

Internet access in The Village

As we develop mobile content to embed in The Village, an additional task that needs to be completed is bringing reliable Internet access to the area, so users easily can explore that content.

Colleague Forrest Burger, founder of RiverBend Productions, and I met with general manager Jason Paulson and area manager Jeff Choi of ClearWire this week to talk about the possibilities of creating such a delivery system.

Basically, there are four options from ClearWire's perspective:

* Create a WiMax cloud in the area through physical infrastructure investments (roughly $7,500 - $10,000) that would allow anyone we choose to get a 4G Internet connection, ideally to access our content. This is the coffee shop model, in which we create a local Wi-Fi system that anyone in the area can access.

Positives: Reliable and consistent Internet connection throughout the grounds that could be password protected, for use only with National Park Service-related programs; monthly costs would be minimal, maybe $50-$60 a month for 4G access for virtually unlimited access to users. Offers powerful signal, covering the entire National Park Service property, turned on all of the time, that we could control, and it could be delivered to virtually unlimited users at once through their mobile devices (Campfires and Candlelight attracts about 5,000 people on a single night; this is essentially the only way we could handle a large load of users like that at once); 4MB download speeds are roughly four times as fast as standard Wi-Fi.

Negatives: High up-front costs; technology will be obsolete and need to be replaced or upgraded in a couple of years; it's not clear if the National Park Service would even allow such a system to be installed on its property (although projecting from Pearson Airfield might be an option); many different devices accessing the content means many design headaches.

* Rent Wi-Max devices and have users check them out, Mondai Viewers built by HTC, that could be preloaded and customized to deliver content via 4G connection.

ClearWire offers these Mondai hand-helds at a group rate that could be relatively affordable, buy 10 at $50 each, or $500 for a fleet of 10. A warranty on the devices is available for $5 a month per unit, meaning for $50 a month, $600 a year, if any of these "walked away," Clear would replace them for free. Also can download tracking software on them, in case they are "lost." Wi-Max Internet access would cost an additional $25 per unit, per month, meaning $3,000 a year in service costs. So for the first year, with 10 units, the total commitment would be about $4,100.

Positives: Having 10 devices on hand would probably meet initial demand, except during special events. By leasing, technological upgrades would be absorbed by Clear, not us; these devices would have cameras and Internet access, meaning user-generated content could be collected on site and live; knowing the precise device and being able to preload some content on those would make design and implementation (and accessibility) much easier.

Negatives: These devices are not GPS enabled, meaning location-awareness would have to come through such site-specific techniques as QR codes. The cost of two years of leasing roughly would equal the costs of setting up a permanent Wi-Max system. These devices can't easily receive text messages or voice mails, which cuts out two key delivery methods.

* Boost the current Wi-Fi system in the area. The costs to boost the current intermittent Wi-Fi system in the National Historic Reserve would be relatively minimal, if we can find who exactly owns and operates it, and if we could create such a partnership. There still might be territorial issues, in terms of where repeaters are placed, and if the National Park Service will allow that. Forrest Burger already has made a couple of attempts to track down this information on the Wi-Fi system that occasionally floats into the Reserve, with little success. Would need more leg work, but considering the other costs this project is facing, that might be worth a few more calls.

* Use Wi-Max plug-ins -- We didn't spend too much time talking about this option, because the plug-in Wi-Max devices (basically USB sticks) would be unwieldy, easy to misplace, and they wouldn't be compatible with a high percentage of devices currently in circulation.

So, from here, we need to determine how much we can spend on bringing Internet access to the area, and what kind of flexibility the National Park Service offers in terms of placing equipment on the site. Then, we need to think through the first year or two of the project, its needs and goals. Which would be the better alternative? Or are there other options? What do you think?

Of course, there is always the 3G network and creating content for now that simply can be accessed by that. 

- Brett

Getting Internet access to The Village

The first obstacle for Fort Vancouver Mobile to overcome: Getting strong Internet access to the area in which we plan to embed content (The Village). The Village is in an urban setting, adjacent to I-5 and state Highway 14,  but surprisingly not covered by any source of WiFi. There is a weak open signal that intermittently appears in The Village, but there is no way we could rely on that for content delivery. So one of our first tasks is to set up the infrastructure with the goal in mind of being able to deliver high-quality video to anywhere in that area. Forrest Burger of RiverBend Productions has been leading that effort and has identified ClearWire, a WiMax-like carrier service, as a possible solution. We'll meet with them soon while exploring other options. This is not an optional step. So the sooner we can get this resolved, the better.

Resource needs for 2010?

After many months of planning and groundwork, the Fort Vancouver Mobile project I'm coordinating at the Fort Vancouver National Historic Site is starting to emerge into public view. That's because the first of what I hope to be many financial backers, the Clark County Historical Promotions committee and Clark County Commissioners, recently awarded the project a $8,900 grant. This in turn triggered the project's official sponsor, Washington State University Vancouver, to link a fall 2010 class in the Digital Technology and Culture program to this project. I also have been surprised at the volume of interest generated just from the grant announcement in the local newspaper and various WSU publications. It's clear that people are highly intrigued by the idea of offering engaging mobile content at the site to share historical information and stories through devices, such as the iPhone or Android phones. What other resources do we need to gather in 2010? Definitely more grant money to support the project team. We need a few more pieces of equipment, too. But at this point, I think, we're ready to at least make the proof of concept.

The Research Question

It's time to get serious about not just a research question, but the research question, the one that will shape my work on the Fort Vancouver Mobile project and be the engine of my dissertation. Since I like to work transparently, I thought I might as well post the drafts and progression of that question here, for feedback (and in case it might help someone else develop ideas of their own).

I have to start somewhere, so here are my initial thoughts on the question.

This project, at least at this point, is expected to be an experimental study intended to validate the hypothesis that mobile devices offer unprecedented potential for delivering immersive and interactive narratives. That, of course, is too broad, even for a dissertation, and it doesn't really say anything. "Potential" takes me nowhere, and what I really want to study is the creation and audience response to mobile content, compared to other kinds of media.

Just producing mobile content right now, in a form that is usable and coherent and accessible, could be a complex and exasperating undertaking. There is no industry-standard platform to deliver mobile interactive narratives. There aren't even many good options in that regard.

And then the questions start emerging about a genre of place, where setting takes on a level of importance potentially equivalent to character and plot, or maybe even more important than those pillars of storytelling, because place / space is what distinguishes mobile as new and different than any other medium. It seems like the most important questions about the field will be focused on place / space in a mixed-reality environment, with one foot in the real world and one in the digital universe. These devices now allow awareness of location but also of spatial relationships to other things and context of all sorts, from user profiles to environmental conditions. How is that different than anything else humans have experienced before? The potential paths of discovery appear endless.

To create a descriptive and analytical study of this sort invariably will mean also leaving a lot of work for later. That is a liberating perspective, I think, in that I don't have to answer every question I can imagine. I just need to start by answering one good one.

I originally was inspired by this field not because I love talking on my cellular telephone. In fact, that is my least favorite ability of the mobile communication device. Instead, I find it endlessly fascinating that virtually all of the information of the world can be delivered to me wherever I am, illuminating whatever intrigues me at that second, especially in relation to something I am experiencing first hand in real space. From my extensive study of narrative, and belief that it is the core perspective through which humans view the world (or as each person sees the next event as the next chapter in a life story), I also am curious about what the combination of that information delivery style with such omnipresent data could lead to, in terms of immersion in knowledge and generation of wisdom. Delving into such territory alone, though, like sitting in the back of the library reading book after book from the shelves, doesn't seem nearly as interesting as an interactive environment could be. Each additional person brought into the story could dramatically affect the dynamic of the content, the interplay, the experience itself. How could collective intelligence in such a situation accomplish amazing feats that we could never even approach individually?

More pragmatically, I wonder what this environment will look like, be like. A game? That thought keeps coming back to me. If it's not a game, at least in the broad sense, with familial relations to other games, as Wittgenstein envisioned that term, then what motivates users?

It seems to me that the concept of edutainment starts to enter the picture here. Before I continue this thought, a bit of background. The Fort Vancouver Mobile project does have certain parameters in place to make it attractive to a variety of partners, including the Fort Vancouver National Historic Site. In that regard, the content to be created and studied needs to be based on either the historical importance of the site, which was the end of the Oregon Trail in the early days, or the regional and national significance of the area related to the reign of the Hudson's Bay Company and the initial U.S. Army presence in the Northwest. So while some people in this field are looking purely at fiction within mobile games, and creating interesting projects like that, my intent is to work as much as possible in the realm of nonfiction, with some creative flexibility inherent in historical reconstructions. Back to the edutainment concept, I envision people coming to the Fort Vancouver site wanting to learn more about the place. That information can be delivered in many ways, from brochures to ranger lectures to living history presentations. A mobile content experience could be another option, and, in that respect, I want to find out how such material can be delivered most effectively and powerfully while also learning about how it is received, hopefully identifying best practices for increasing motivational interests. In other words, how can interactive mobile content be developed best, enriching the visitor experience in unique ways, while encouraging further involvement in this type of content, compelling deeper and deeper exploration of the material?

Those are some of my initial thoughts. That covers a lot of ground, not all of which I will be able to study. And here is a first draft of the research question, a starting point in such an investigation:

Does the intersection of place and space, as accessed through mobile interactive narrative, increase a user's interest, engagement and motivation toward related knowledge about a subject?

Fort Vancouver Mobile: Mission Statement

As part of organizing the Fort Vancouver Mobile project and turning it into a highly successful grant magnet, I need to develop a strong mission statement that presents a clear purpose but also illustrates how this project manages the change in the world generated by mobile technology.

In brainstorming this thought, I started by simply playing around with mission as an acronym (lame, yes, but a starting point nonetheless):


M – Mobility and movement, users are moving around the space; what makes this project so fascinating and new is that elaborate digital content now can be delivered to users on demand, or by the author's command, based on an awareness of location, spatial factors and context as those evolve in real time as people move around in a mixed environment that simultaneously blends virtual and real spaces.
I – Interactive, users respond to the machine, the author, the content and each other and participate in creating the experience, including collaboration that could develop into classifiable collective intelligence ... generated on the fly.
S – Storytelling, all of this really happens as part of a larger story. Purely informational content, the signposts of the digital world, are not nearly as interesting as the ways in which mobile content can be packaged as interactive stories and games. Focus needs to remain on the story, the characters, the plot and the setting; maybe the setting in this new genre takes on more importance than in any other form before.
S – Simplicity, this should be simple to use and simple to get started and simple to engage with; usability has to remain at the forefront of a user-centered design to get people to even try this out. I don't want to challenge people with the technology. I want to challenge them with the content, and how and when they receive the content, and how that affects their experience. I don't want users to be stuck and frustrated just trying to get this thing to work.
I – Immediacy, the goal is media transparency, with the user's space not limited to the screen or reality but a perfect blend of both. Ideally, the mobile device eventually would begin to feel like another tool for navigating and understanding and appreciating the space on a more evolved level of humanity.
O – Occurring simultaneously, a hybrid of real and virtual space interwoven; this content shouldn't encourage the user's eyes to be endlessly locked down on a screen or be so useless that users never think about it. Maybe it should be like a friend along for the journey, one you want to keep chatting with about what you are doing and seeing.
N – Numin-ousity! Inspired by this journal article: Cameron, C. and J. Gatewood (2003), "Seeking Numinous Experiences in the Unremembered Past." The authors state that numinous (new term to me) experiences at historical sites are those that create deep connections with objects and places. That's part of our goal, too!


Now, can I boil those sorts of ideas down to a single statement in support of this project?
How about this for a first draft: "The Fort Vancouver Mobile project serves as a cutting-edge research laboratory for developments in mobile content creation that emphasize location, spatial and contextual awareness in relation to interactive and mixed-reality storytelling experiences, particularly those that take advantage of the new abilities of mobile technology to illuminate important regional and national historical narratives."