This week is Social Networking and Digital Mapping theme week at In Media Res.

In Media Res is dedicated to experimenting with collaborative, multi-modal forms of online scholarship.  Each day, a different scholar will curate a 30-second to 3-minute video clip/visual image slideshow accompanied by a 300-350-word impressionistic response … Our goal is to promote an online dialogue amongst scholars and the public about contemporary approaches to studying media.

The first video for the week is from Radhika Gajalla (Bowling Green State University).

Watch it here.

In it, the founder of Etsy (think ebay, but handmade) talks about value, innovation and sustainability in an interesting way.  Gajalla writes:

In the way that Kalin talks about innovation – specifically marketing innovations through the digital interface … he is suggesting that we recover handmade production processes … He is talking of re-introducing “older” technologies such as hand-spinning, loom weaving, knitting, crocheting, handpainting, crafting, carving and so on … His vision of … the literacies and skills we need to acquire to be a part of such online communities include learning to DO “handmade”.

The questions for discussion are: “How might this reconfiguring practices of marketing, production, communication, identity and business?  Is what we see in these digital environments actually a possible reconfiguring of economic and social practice?”  It is worth adding education, teaching and learning to those questions.

There are a further four videos scheduled for this week.  Also worth a look is the archive of themed weeks  which may provide some useful teaching resources for those in the social sciences.

Filed under: Innovation, Learning and Teaching Resources, Social Networks by Agnes Bosanquet