November 8, 2004
Interdisciplinary Pedagogy, Multimedia Possibilities
Recently, I had the opportunity to participate as an instructor in the "Florida Public Space Project" a University of Miami semester workshop. Bringing together architects, urban planners, civic officials, historians and technologists, the interdisciplinary seminar was organized by Dr. Greg Bush, Director for the UM Institute for Public History in an effort to learn from each other with regards to projects for "Public Spaces". This entry reflects on this workshop's methodology with regards to interdisciplinary pedagogy and multimedia possibilities in learning and digital library environments.
Miami is one of the few cities created without an urban plan. Because of rampant development and not an overly accountable municipal government, "public space" within Miami-Dade county has been largely overlooked or worse, seen as a commodity sold off to high bidders. This interdisciplinary workshop brought together various stakeholders and audiences. How can civic involvement be spurred with regards to public spaces? What are the social recreational needs of a populace? How is it possible to instigate a process of civic involvement and architectural redesign with regards to a large urban populace.
Architecture Professors and Urban Studies professors were brought in to introduce topics of urbanism and public space, sustainablility, public involvement, organizing a redesign and 'charrette' and the politics of growth management. Panels were also organized from the department of Geography on mapping and asessing public spaces. Participants were shown how to research and document histories of Miami-Dade's various public spaces from historians. Panels were organized for media attention and reporting on public space issues with regards to civic involvement.
As an organizing tool for the synthetic ideas being generated, I presented on "Visual Literacy and Website Construction". This 'digital' and multimedia portion of the workshop was done in tandem with Prof. Ted Evangelakis" of Architecture. The technological digital library framework allowed participants begin thinking about providing a multimedia and networked forum for the ideas presented. By using digital video and the networked capacity of the internet, integrative 'digital archival' public space histories of these largely undocumented debates will be created regarding public spaces. In creating an interdisciplinary methodology, a cross fertilization of ideas was achieved. The enabling potential of technology and multimedia provided both a common discussion forum and product/project base from which disparate entities could air ideas in a collaborative manner.
Posted by at November 8, 2004 1:05 PM | TrackBack