week 2 : 10 Jan
possible projects
- Our group (Meg, Drew and Andrea) had an idea to do the class website on the immigration experience to Seattle. The site could highlight different people and their stories. Each student could find a person/culture (or tell their own story) that they wanted to highlight and decide to do a video, flash presentation, podcast interview, written article, etc. on the person and their culture. The website would act as a resource to recent immigrants by having blogs where people could connect with others, share ideas about resources and/or share their stories. Similar to the March of Dimes website, www.shareyourstory.org.
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Shanna: I strongly feel that we should do a project that would help a nonprofit
organization out that does not have the resources for a website. It would
be preferable to do something that the entire group is passionate about,
however it isn't always possible.
An organization that is linked to UW would be great. At this time I only have suggestions for one website: www.ciesam.org . They are not utilizing the power of the web at this point!
KEG: There are advantages and disadvantages to working with nonprofits. The chief disadvantage for us is time, if we are planning to work with the nonprofit: find out if they are interested, set up system of communication, goals, deliverables, etc. -
Brian: I had an idea for the class project. The project would be "I Remember" and be audio/video and typed transcripts of rememberences from the Seattle community. The memories could be from yesterday or 50 years ago. Basically we'd ask people from all areas of the city to tell us something they remember about Seattle. This could be anything that happened in/around the city and could be personal memories, not just "I remember when the QFC on 15th was Food Giant" (but that's good too). It's similar to the neighborhood website we looked at in class. I thought this would be a good way for people interested in Journalism to get to interview residents and also provide a good window into the thriving asian community in Seattle with our Chineese speakers in class. Those interested in film/video could do the filming/editing of clips, sound people can work on recording he sound and compressing it for the web and Drew can write a 30 page narrative on "What is a memory" starting with Paleolithic Man (just kidding Drew!).
I like the Dog Park idea too as long as we can call it www.doggoneseattle.com -
Meg: Andrea, Drew and I were discussing a site geared to helping immigrants with limited English navigate the system. I thought of it as a community newspaper or the farm channel of a radio station. Sort of low key, not just about navigating the government and social services but also opening it up to help with the mundane things that are so hard to figure out. Original idea was Drew's and he (no surprise) wants to draw people in by having an area where people can tell stories about themselves, country, faith etc. I suggested we have a section where more settled immigrants could give advice about doing this or that and where newcomers could ask for ideas about whatever.
I have only begun looking up websites for new immigrants and there are many. There are also many community newspapers. That said, I think we could use this idea, if it doesn't work for the immigrants for another group of under served folks. That is kind of where we headed, finding a population of people that are undeserved but could still gain access to online at public areas such as the library and then seeing how we could serve them.
Class this quarter could start with a small section of the site and development could happen over many years and be ongoing. -
Jyotsna:
Three different story ideas as a broad "theme" for a class website:
1. Class website on another generation: To interview family who are not of your generation. We could decide if we want to do grandparents, parents or teenagers... could be fun.. might even lead to a complete individual family website for each student eventually.
2. Do a website completely unrelated to humans - on animals :) Tons of scope for sound, pictures and off the beaten path stories.
3. Do a class website on our class as individuals - each could look at oneself from a unique perspective and tell a short life story. For eg. I could tell the story of my life in the United States as am immigrant. Or I could tell a story of what a bad cook I am... something unique, quirky about each one of us and the lives we lead... -
Igrid:
One thought my group had last week - an idea that came from the Central Park website was doing a site on the Greenlake community here. There seems to be many things to cover as well as being a site for community members to contribute to. Sections could be: Sports and Recreation *Jogging groups *Pickup b-ball teams, soccer teams, tennis groups *Crew, rowing *Swimming *City offered lessons Food and nightlife *Restaurants and bars *Coffee shops Romance *"I saw you's" *Bulletin board *Online postings for walking and jogging partners Educational/Amusement *Spanish Guy who teaches Spanish *Bathhouse plays *Fishermen community Park Information *Map of greenlake *History *Stats of users (supposedly the most used park in the state) *webcam (weather, crowds) *Rules and regulations *Bus stops *Trees and foliage *Fish in the lake Employment opps. at Greenlake businesses This site would help folks that go to, live near or think about being part of the GL comm. It wouldn't be helpful for those that aren't interested in it or live far from N. Seattle. It would be fun to produce, just not sure how impt the site would be for society...
- Reading and reflective blog post.
- Review class member thoughts on the project - we will decide next week.