News About Nformation Systems Throughout MIT
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News about nformation systems throughout MIT Volume 14 • NumberI 1 S e p t e m bS e r / O c t o b e r 1 9 9 8 . Berliner sehen Lets Students Hanno Baethe, are combined with an . Explore Two Neighborhoods extensive archive of texts, images, and . historical audio and video documents. Lee Ridgway . Students explore the material through . contextual links and from differing . IS Training Services Offers . W hen it comes to harnessing perspectives with no set pathways, . Several New Courses This Fall ........... 2 . technology for innovative approaches with each student discovering her or . to foreign language learning, MIT’s his own themes or threads to pursue. Software Spotlight . faculty continue to pioneer the way. Since Berliner sehen is not organized Adobe Photoshop 5: History, . as a linear narrative or along any pre- . Their development of learning envi- Type, Magnetism, Color ...................... 3 . determined plot lines, the possibilities . ronments for foreign languages and . cultures began about ten years ago are limited only by the student’s inter- Network Notes . with A la recontre de Philippe (Meeting ests and inquisitiveness. Stopit Still Tackles Electronic . Philippe) for French, and No recuerdo While Berliner sehen takes advantage Forms of Harassment ........................... 4 . (I don’t remember) in Spanish. These of recent technologies like DVD-ROM Computer Corner . (high-density digital storage) and the ................................... 4 . were followed by the Star Festival in . Japanese and further projects in French Java programming language, it’s the MIT Computer Connection/ . and German. content that counts. Crocker and Fendt, Bits and Bytes . The common thread through these aided by Baethe, came up with the IS Supports New Products . language projects is interactivity: concept of going into two neighbor- from Apple, Dell, and HP .................... 5 . students can follow or create various hoods, one in former East Berlin and . one in former West Berlin, and filming Y2K Today . paths through videos and other mate- . the residents within the neighborhoods Year 2000 Team Provides . rial. The idea behind these tools is to . give a more natural experience of the in conversation with each other. Resources for the Community ............ 5 . language and a more realistic cultural These conversations take place . Publishing Pointers . and social experience of that country. during daily activities, as residents . Don’t Overlook Meta Tags: This . Making its debut in the German talk about their lives, work, and rela- . tionships – of how things are changing HTML Element Has Many Uses ......... 6 . classroom last spring was Berliner sehen . (Seeing Berliners seeing themselves), a and how things were in the past. Given Telecom Talk . hypermedia documentary coauthored the locales of the neighborhoods and . On the Phone Front: Caller ID . by Ellen Crocker, lecturer, and Kurt the backgrounds of some of the people and a Switch Upgrade .......................... 7 . Fendt, research associate in MIT’s For- involved, it’s not surprising that the . conversations often include a consid- MIT “Blue Pages” Now Online........... 7 . eign Languages and Literatures section. erable amount of politics and history. Getting Help ........................................... 8 . Inside Berliner sehen The Berliners converse as people . Berliner sehen . The basis of is thirteen do everywhere: in colloquialisms and Surf Sites: Learning Foreign . hours worth of short (45 seconds to . dialect; with unfinished sentences, im- Languages............................................... 8 . three minutes) video clips of conversa- . plicit understanding, hand gestures. tions. The conversations, captured in . ▲ . the summer of 1995 by Berlin filmmaker continued on page 2 ▼ displayed in the periphery of the in the periphery change accordingly, BERLINER SEHEN viewing space. The eight main figures providing a new context for the video continued from page 1 represent a real cross-section of their clip. No order of viewing is presented communities, including Herr Tapp, or presupposed. It is up to the student to The student hears and has to make a former Communist party official in decide what videos to watch (repeat- sense of everyday German, not aca- the eastern neighborhood; Frau Sipp, edly, if need be, to better understand demic classroom German. a single mother in the western section the conversations). The workspace lets As Crocker and Fendt began editing who runs a well-known bakery; and the student collect clips and other the initial 28 hours of film that covers Jana, a young stage set designer whose materials for future reference. about 50 people, they settled on eight personal ties and family history extend Through this back-and-forth view- main figures, four from the east and into both neighborhoods. ing, the student begins to discover four from the west, as the focal points In addition to the main figures, connections between the stories told for the student’s explorations. These students can select among nine content in the conversations and between the main “characters” relate within and categories, that express what Crocker people themselves. Depending on his sometimes across the two neighbor- and Fendt call “notions.” Among or her interest, the student may wander hoods, either through knowing each the notions are Ich (self) and Andere about, getting acquainted with the other or sharing mutual acquaintances (others), Öffentliches (public sphere) neighborhoods and the people, or or pasts. Thus, the raw material is in and Privates (private sphere), and delve deeply into ideas or topics. The place for the student’s encounter with Tun und Machen (activities; what uniqueness of Berliner sehen is that the Berliner sehen. people do in everyday life). One of student can repeatedly reconfigure the The Student Experience the key notions is that of Kiez, literally relationships between clips and other Berliner sehen can currently be meaning community, but in Berliner related documents. This encourages launched from networked workstations sehen encompassing how the residents the student to explore cultural and in the Language Learning and Resource see or think of their neighborhood. social issues from different points of Center (in its new home in 16-644). The To view a video clip or related ma- view through the eyes of people who main interface is comprised of a view- terial, the student drags a thumbnail live in that culture. ing space, a navigation panel, and a from the periphery to the center of the workspace. A student can start by se- viewing space. When a video clip is in A Look at Language Projects lecting among the main figures and the center, additional notions are high- For overviews of Berliner sehen and aspects of the content, which then leads lighted in the navigation panel to in- related projects from MIT’s Foreign to a selection of materials involving dicate other ways of relating people Languages and Literatures section, see that person. The clips are represented and content. When the student clicks http://web.mit.edu/fll/www/ as a collection of thumbnail images on a highlighted notion, the materials projects/ ø IS Training Services Offers • Year 2000. The Y2K team is offering Several New Courses This Fall a noontime seminar and hands-on MIT Information Systems course to help you prepare your computer for the next millennium. IS Training Services has added new Managing Editor The seminar (October 27 and De- Robyn Fizz computer courses in three topic areas: cember 4) outlines how to locate Writer/Editor • Macintosh OS 8. This three-hour potential problems and how to ap- Lee Ridgway hands-on course (offered November proach upgrading your hardware 10) is intended for those coming and software. The hands-on course i/s is published six times a year. MIT faculty and staff receive copies through campus mail; i/s is from a Windows environment or (November 4) focuses on known also available in lobbies around campus. Indi- upgrading from earlier versions software problems and solutions, viduals at MIT may subscribe by contacting the of the Macintosh operating system. and includes actual practice up- managing editor. Topics include file management, dating the systems on the class- Send comments or subscription requests to: customizing the desktop, shortcuts, room computers. MIT Room N42-290b, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, system maintenance, and Personal Cambridge, MA 02139-4307 Web Sharing. Full Schedule Phone: (617) 253-0540 You can view the entire IS Training Electronic mail: <[email protected]> • Photoshop 5. Photoshop 5 Basics is a schedule of Quick Start classes, noon- i/s is also published online at two-day course (November 16–17), time seminars, and hands-on courses at http://web.mit.edu/is/isnews/ covering the capture, enhancement, http://web.mit.edu/is/training A companion Web site, i/s NewsLink, offers and publication of black-and-white frequent news updates. It’s located at and color photographs. The half-day This site also offers skills assessment http://web.mit.edu/is/newslink/ tools, course outlines, and online reg- Photoshop 5 Update course (Novem- All product names are trademarks of their ber 30) focuses on new features, in- istration for hands-on courses. manufacturers. Note: IS Training Services is now an cluding the History palette and brush, © 1998 Massachusetts Institute of Technology easy-to-edit type, automatic effects, SAP Internal Provider, and accepts req- and enhanced image-editing tools. uisitions through SAP and SAPweb. ø . 2 . i s . Software Spotlight Adobe Photoshop 5: History, By default Photoshop 5 tries to correct Type, Magnetism, Color this “distortion” when loading old im- ages by converting them to a generic Oliver Thomas RGB color profile, which it then trans- lates to printer or display color profiles W hen Photoshop 4 was released, as appropriate. If you don’t want this it lacked quite a few of the features process to happen automatically, you users had hoped to see, and many con- can disable it by following these steps: sidered it a relatively minor upgrade.