2012; Thanks to all our workers, volunteers, followers and supporters during 2011. We will be providing some final reports on the #mosialong project over the next few weeks to sum up what we have learnt about using social media for participation in cultural activities; learning stuff and creating digital artefacts through new/old forms of story telling (see Aggregate then Curate for more on our ideas). We also have a few more open sessions in January and February.

MadLab; Thanks to the inventively irrepressible Steven Flower we are planning links with MadLab Manchester to run 2 or 3 sessions in 2012, the key one being Net Tuesday on February 21st 2012 with a focus on Digital Storytelling. For the geeks on Level 6 we will also be discussing Emergent Learning and digital curation theory, practice (such as participative curatorial strategies) and build in January; check in for updates.

ARCSpace; We will be running two sessions of Social Media surgery at ArcSpace on Wednesday January 18th probably from midday to 6 pm. It will be a drop in session but if you want to confirm a place with them then contact ARCSpace directly. We will be using www.xtlearn.net too

Social Media Training; Will be offered by the #mosialong project on a number of occasions this Autumn. We will offer basic social media training in various tools, Twitter, Blogging, YouTube, searching and tagging; and the social media participation model Aggregate then Curate (invented here!) If you are a mosialong partner, involved in community groups, Manchester or Salford institutions or City Camp Manchester, or just interested come-along and get some free training,

November 3rd WEA; We will run the first social media surgery at the WEA Offices at Crawford House on Thurs 3rd Nov  from 10.00 – 1.00 in the WEA Training Room. This will involve our social media expert Lisa Jeskins from MIMAS, Fred Garnett from MOSI-ALONG discussing Aggregate then Curate, and others from the project. 

Social Media & Digital Learning Champions; We will be providing training in social media skills to help anyone involved in any Manchester or Salford project use social media for their own purposes. However we are also looking for Digital Champions and Digital Learning Champions who we will train so that they can help others to structure their use of social media using the Aggregate then Curate model. This is a key element of the MOSI-ALONG project and is designed as part of a process to make Greater Manchester and Ambient City.

Documentation and Resources; We will provide guides and training resources to support all the training provided and they will be published on this blog.

MadLab Friday; Fred Garnett and Cormac Lawler are hoping to work with MadLabs, perhaps with Steven Flower, to provide drop-in Social Media Surgeries on Fridays. We will update that information here.

We could do the second session – with Teresa doing the videoing and Pat talikng about Community Learning Champions the follow Thursday – shall I book that as well and check with Gary Teresa is free?

Background; A recent discussion with JISC has allowed us to run #mosialong until the end of 2011. We will use this time so that we can test our social media participation model,  Aggregate then Curate, and develop the Ambient Learning Manchester project. We met last week to discuss how we would develop links with other projects and events in Manchester and Salford, and develop and train Digital Learning Champions. We decided to focus our story-telling around the upcoming Festivals this Autumn.

MyFestivals; This follows the myMOSI and Digital Cabinet of Curiosities approach we developed for the first phase of #mosialong and will allow people to tell stories about themselves in the context of the festivals.  We will be running monthly competitions for the best MyFestival story, with a Zoom camera as the prize.

Digital Learning Champions; We will work with our main partners LSEN and Peoples Voice Media to both organise training and provide trainers for this programme. Contact us if you want to be trained as a Digital Learning Champion. LSEN are based at the WEA offices. 

October; We will work with City Camp Manchester to link to other emerging city-based Web2.0 initiatives. We will work with Madlabs to link into alternative communities, and provide drop-in sessions. We will work with WEA to promote the Peripheral Visions project and co-ordinate social media training and surgeries. We will work with ArcSpace to develop community archivists. We will work with “I Love MCR” to develop stories around communities.

November; We will work with Digital Corridor to develop broader ideas of the city of the future, smart, ambient, intelligent, community-focussed. Can streetlife drive inovation and regeneration. Can we treat Manchester and Salford as Greater Manchester.

December; We will work with the Christmas market at the Manchester Craft Centre to capture peoples stories about crafts and Christmas past.

Event; We had a great afternoon at the Cornerhouse last week. The star turn was the Salford History Group who produces several runners up in the Competition. We did promise to announce the winners on this website on Monday from the short list of the best five.

Digital Cabinet of Curiosities; In fact the judges all picked different winners, but overall we decided that 8) Betty’s Curiosities was the winner, so Betty wins the iPad2. Betty wasn’t present so George Clooney accepte the prize; be careful if he offers you Nespresso Betty! This was a creatively presented series of household objects with descriptions and context provided, and proved to be an excellent example of a digital cabinet of curiosities;  

Commendation; In many ways 13) Teresa’s cabinet of curiosities, was the exemplary digital cabinet, but as she worked for a project partner, Peoples Voice Media, we didnt feel she could be the prize winner. Teresa’s brilliantly curated digital cabinet included computing artefacts, travel iron and darning mushroom, picking up on different themes that we explored in #mosialong. 

There were several possible runners up, mostly from the Salford History Group like Fay and May, but we particularly liked the resonance of 12) May Harrison’s family photographs and stories: 

Films; Veronique’s film about The Grand: her new Manchester home, which used to be the Grand Hotel was a well thought out film made by a Franco-Macunian newbie that many people liked. But the surprise hit of the event was 7) Daniel Rylands’s stories of his SEGA Mega Drive. Everyone was impressed by how well Daniel discussed an object that was older than him but was resonant with family stories and experiences tied to his growing up. A lovely film :

David Roberts discussed his 2) A history of Manchester in 100 objects which was a collaborative entry via GoogleDocs which he curated. He showed Pascal Venier’s short film of the riots which triggered his project and showed, with time-lapse docs, how his list of 100 (164) objects grew, which prompted the sharing of very modern riotous stories. David got the most votes online for his contribution, but the runner up in the competition was the compelling podcast by Bernard’s of his living and working recollections of Blackley,

Judging Criteria
1. Creativity and originality in developing a myMOSI story
2. Relevance to Manchester (the ‘Science and Industry’ element is open to interpretation, but there does need to be a cultural, historical, industrial, or personal link to Manchester)
3. Interest; how compelling is the story, or presentation
4. Technical quality (we are not expecting full Hollywood-style productions but all other things being equal, a film that is in focus, well lit, decently edited and audible will be judged more favourably)

We have had many interesting entries for the myMOSI Social Media Festival today. Below is the long list of entries, and at the start of the event at the CornerHouse Annexe today, September 23rd 2011, we will announce a short list of the best 5.
Winner to be announced at the end of the Festival and posted on this website on Monday September 25th. Please come along to the Festival and vote for your favourite
Thanks to Beth Powell, our star organiser for co-ordinating this and suggesting the evaluation criteria.

Judging Criteria
1. Creativity and originality in developing a myMOSI story
2. Relevance to Manchester (the ‘Science and Industry’ element is open to interpretation, but there does need to be a cultural, historical, industrial, or personal link to Manchester)
3. Interest; how compelling is the story, or presentation
4. Technical quality (we are not expecting full Hollywood-style productions but all other things being equal, a film that is in focus, well lit, decently edited and audible will be judged more favourably)

 Long List of 20 myMOSI stories

1) Veronique’s video about The Grand:

2) A history of Manchester in 100 objects. Collaborative entry via Google word doc

3) Podcast of James describing using the Commodore 64

4) Podcast of Bernard’s recollections of Blackley:

5) Phil shares his childhood memories of Castle Mills in Wythenshawe:

6) Fay Wall’s Evening Chronicle from 1918:
 & Fay’s hairdressing equipment:

7) Daniel Rylands’s stories of his SEGA Mega Drive :

8) Betty’s Curiosities; a series of objects with descriptions and context; 

9) Joan Jones’s Palestinian Chocolate Box:
& Cameo necklace
& 1950s Radio
Photograph album

10) Lesley Whitehouse’s metal boxes:
& South London Chronicle from between the walls

11) Edna Bowka’s Last for cobbling shoes:
& Toy Mangle:

12) May Harrison’s family photographs and stories: 

13) Teresa’s cabinet of curiosities, includes computing artefacts, travel iron and darning mushroom:

14) Julie Spellman talks about her Atari:

15) Cormac’s comment on MOSI Sinclair ZX photo:

16) Alezed’s comment on MOSI Sinclair ZX photo: “We had a game for children that came with a Ladybird sized story book it was about a farm.. the game consisted of putting sheep in pens….”

17) Kendersrule’s comment on MOSI Sinclair ZX photo:

18) Moo.sh’s comment on MOSI Sinclair ZX photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mosi_along/5805023208/in/set-72157626899782848/

19) Manchester Ship Canal via Fred Garnett’s Facebook photos:

20) Tweet from @Anthillel: “@mosi_along both Marx and Engels visited the city and Manchester was a major influence on Engel’s political thoughts #mosialong”

The favourite #socialmedia entry in myMOSI online Poll was…

2) A history of Manchester in 100 objects. Collaborative entry via GoogleDocs; curated by @DavidCRoberts

We are very pleased to invite you to MOSI-ALONG’s first Social Media Festival: to take place on 23rd September 2011, from 2-7pm, in the Annexe at Cornerhouse, 70 Oxford Street, Manchester, M1 5NH.

Since our launch in April, the MOSI-ALONG project, in association with the Museum of Science & Industry, MIMAS, LSEN and People’s Voice Media, has been working with community groups in Manchester to uncover local and personal history stories, and sharing them using social media.

On 23rd September, we will showcase some of the work that’s been done, and share our experiences of using social media for learning. We will also unveil the project’s plans for expansion in collaboration with Manchester’s students, pupils, museums and the BBC.

The event will also host the prizegiving ceremony for the myMOSI competition, including an iPad 2 as first prize! There is still time to enter, the flyer is attached.

The day will be an informal festival, so you are very welcome to attend all or any part of the day. Here’s a draft agenda (for updates please see the blog page):

From 2-3pm, we will welcome guests and introduce the project.

From 3-5pm, participants can explore some of the contributions displayed and projected in the room, and discuss the project and social media with team members and future partners.

From 5-6.30pm, we will announce the winners of the myMOSI competition as judged by a panel, and explain how these contributions fit into the wider aims of the project.

Teas, coffees and cake will be available throughout.

Please RSVP via mosialongproject@gmail.com We look forward to hearing from you.

EVENTBRITE; http://mosialongfestival.eventbrite.com/

Many thanks,

The MOSI-ALONG team.

After the riots which, if I read Dave Haslam in Manchester, England right, seem to have historical resonance with the Exchange Riots of 1812, rather than Peterloo in 1819, being an inchoate expression of frustration, Manchester has been cleaning itself up and asserting a civic identity with I Love MCR. The Manchester Evening News has promoted this with Jenson Button, the Helen Carter of the Guardian has written about it and there is the famous wall in the Arndale Centre, like the one in Peckham and elsewhere, where people have expressed there love for Manchester, all of which MOSI-ALONG love. You can follow or join in with the campaign on Facebook. 

#Hashtags Most interestingly for us has been the development of the #100objmcr & #100mcr hashtags and some postings on the web of ‘A History of Manchester in 100 Objects‘ which are personal histories and memories of Manchester. Put together by David Roberts, Frances Bell and Pascal Venier (I think) they have, by remembering many stories related to place and images, add meaning and character to their memories of Manchester.

Cabinet of Curiosities; MOSI-ALONG (see the rest of this blog) has been involved with developing histories of Manchester through peoples engagement with the artefacts of economics (the objects in MOSI, such as the Baby Computer and the Avro plane, and much else) and community, the Cabinets of Curiosities that Peoples Voice Media have been filming.

September 23rd; So we happily align #mosialong with I Love MCR and hope that our Social Media Festival at the Cornerhouse on September 23rd can add more, new, positive memories to Manchester’s ever-evolving history…

Participation; As part of the process of engaging interest in the MOSI-ALONG project we have looked at a number of strategies concerning participation in content curation, telling stories, using artefacts, bringing people to MOSI and creating “mini-MOSIs” as Drew Whitworth calls them, using a Cabinet of Curiosities approach.

Social Objects; This artefact based approach to engaging participation, the Cabinet of Curiosities, was stimulated by Nina Simon’s discussion of object-centred sociality in The Participatory Museum. We have used this metaphor as an engagement strategy, but it requires users to develop confidence in using social media in a range of cultural contexts. One of our project partners is MIMAS who have a brief to develop a technical approach to underpin the use of social media. We have had a number of conversations on this and have developed a model called “Aggregate then Curate“ 

Aggregate then Curate; Along with Shiraz Anwar at MIMAS we have jointly developed this process to allow people to engage to a greater or lesser degree in  MOSI-ALONG whilst allow the widest possibilities for their interest, skills  and activities to develop and have purpose. We have developed a 7-stage process to capture this recorded here in outline. Full information on the attached document. Updates to follow as we test this in more detail;

Aggregate then Curate; It is possible to describe this process in more detail.

1 Physical Creation; In some respects this might not be seen as a separate stage but it is included to both reflect the start of the social object continuum identified by Nina Simon and also to recognise that the objects being used in this process belong to the participant and not to the project or to the partner institutions.

2 Physical Aggregation; This stage is prompted by the project social aggregation concepts of ‘cabinets’ and ‘history’ and is the start of the narrative process of telling stories or providing the histories of the object. Currently this is a social process carried out by the participant and a support worker such as a Community Learning Champion.

3 Digital Creation; Once objects have been identified and brought along to the project by a participant then a digital representation can be created. Currently this is carried out by Peoples Voice Media and their ‘Community Reporters’ in order to guarantee that a sufficient amount of digital resources are created within the project time frame so that we can learn more about the aggregation and curation process. In the second phase of the project Digital Learning Champions will directly support participants as they create their digital artefacts which means that they can begin to develop participants digital literacies in various ways.

4 Digital Aggregation; The more interesting, and complex, phase of the MOSI-ALONG project begins as we attempt to aggregate the digital content produced using different social media, such as Twitter and YouTube. This process of the participant ‘collecting’ digital resources in the aggregation phases may be supported by a Digital Learning Champion, or carried out with the help of Peoples Voice Media.

5 Digital Sequencing; Sequencing is when the aggregation process takes on a more structured form and may involve working with third party sources, such as others with similar interests in, say local history groups, or the museum MOSI itself. This is when coherent stories might told by individual participants, or perhaps broader narratives might be addressed collaboratively through the aggregation process. We expect participants, either individually or collaboratively, would be supported by Learning Champions at this stage, and this would reflect not only another development stage in participants digital literacy but, more deeply, in terms of their information literacy in a community context.

6 Social Media Aggregation; The use of a social media aggregator, such as a blog or a wiki, or perhaps a more dedicated social media aggregator offered by a provider, would represent a shift in the participants mastery of a range of social media. This would indicate that they have a sufficient range of effective digital skills so that they might use them to curate digital content, as well as negotiate with a number of third parties including groups, such as local history societies, as well as cultural and educational institutions.

7 Learning Accreditation; To complete the Aggregate and Curate process as a learning process that can be recognised by third parties, it will also be necessary to identify accreditation strategies, which will be carried out by LSEN and Manchester First in the forthcoming Academic Year 2011/12.

Background; As well as Cabinet of Curiosities, both digital and real, we are also looking at crowdsourcing the curating of digital representations of computing artefacts for which MOSI have cleared the copyright for use.

Flickr Community; MOSI have provided a gallery of images of computers in their collection for which we have the copyright to use and discuss. MOSI have created a Flickr Group in which there are 18 images, nearly all computers with a direct link to Manchester due to their provenance at the University, or because they were made by Ferranti or by ICL in Manchester.

Digital Curation; We would like to check, and possibly update, the online information concerning each computing for which we have a digitised image on Flickr over the next few months as a form of crowd-sourced curation.

Using Flickr; you will need to create an account with Flickr if you havent used it before and then you will be able to add comments and your stories about the computers in MOSI’s collection.

Examples; Cormac Lawler is looking at the Sinclair ZX and Fred Garnett is looking at the ICL OPD both to provide examples of digital curation and to tell stories. This should give us a set of questions and possibly guidelines on how to digitally curate these images.

September 9th; We are planning on this being a crowd-sourced digital curation Hack Day when we try and update the records for all 18 images in the collection, and any other that may be added meanwhile.

Issues to Address

1. Are the wikipedia entries relating to these computers accurate and fully informative?

2. Is there a QRpedia entry for this computer?

3. Are there #mosialong or #myMOSI stories about the computer represented?

4. Is there useful information available relating to the social and cultural impacts of these computers.

5. Is there an identified expert relating to the history and use of the computer

Comments Welcome; below please

MOSI; Artefact Curation. Following the model established by the RunCoCo project we will have a Curator Day on July 14 where the Science Curator will discuss her work at MOSI, view the collection and review those computer artefacts that have been booked in for the session. This runs from 10-12.30 on Thursday July 14th at MOSI.

Photos from the MOSI-Computer Collection; These can be viewed on Fickr and we will endeavour to produce a brief QRpedia-like description for the computer in each photo, and also to gather stories and memories from people who used them and have stories of various kinds to add to the QRpedia description.

We plan to crowd-source the curation of these photos on July 14th and we will set up a process to support this beyond the Flickr Communities on the day. We will update this web page as we develop the process. We will be working with GLAMwiki expert Cormac Lawler (@cormaggio) as we do this. We will update changes and provide new information using the MOSI-ALONG Twitter account (http://twitter.com/mosi_along) during the day.