Community Informatics Multimedia Archive

Greetings to CII from Honolulu, where I’m attending the annual meeting of the Medical Library Association (ask me about lei’s, spam and medical librarians). The keynote speaker yesterday was Adam Bosworth, known for his work at Google on GoogleHealth and XML creator (http://adambosworth.net/). He described to us his vision for computable health action plans which he believes looms large on the future of health care. Personally, I am more interested in people before they become patients. That said, I wanted to share with you his ideas because they could be embraced by CII. First, he concurs with Martin that the future is also mobile devices (which, in his opinion, makes the Internet and health information available to all sectors of society including the medically underserved (that’s my take on it).

He says that electronic health records and personal health records will not solve the problem [of the debacle of the present health care system]. They don’t contribute to a health status. He challenged us to imagine that every time a provider had a “health encounter” with a patient, that data flowed dynamically and in a computable form. From a patient perspective, he images that patients could get weekly advice, reminders and attention from providers which are relevant and specific to their situation including nutrition and exercise advice, relevant lab work and a personalized interpretation.

If/when these health action plans will function like prescriptions. a perfectly tailored and personalized health action will help people avoid medications and promote e-visits which might take 6-10 minutes at the most. Further, he imagines paid e-visits which are backed up by the data present in the health action plan.

What is it? It is online; operated by computable rules which take into account the users health data, preferences, progress and other “relevant data”.; it has questionnaires, tools to collect user-relevant data not otherwise known, like ‘when was the last time you had the energy to clean your home?’ or ‘when was the last time you burned your food?’, indicators of functionality; it has sequencing: ways to ensure appropriate preparation, training and follow-through post treatment; and actions: things that users need to do to improve their health.

More later on Mr. Bosworth’s ideas and plans. Do his thoughts resonate with CII capabilities?

Next blog: http://www.ahrq.gov/questionsaretheanswers.

This post is an adaption of the paper I wrote for my Ubiquitous Learning class this past semester.  It’s relatively short and explains a stop-motion learning series I ran at the Rantoul Public Library.

• -The stop-motion videos (instructional ones and those created by the kids) can be found at http://www.youtube.com/CommunityInformatics
• -A complete guide for how to run this workshop, complete with links to demo videos, storyboarding materials and more can be found at http://www.communityinformaticsprojects.com/files/DigitalLearningSeries_StopMotion.pdf

To read about how it went, click the link below!

(more…)

written by CII research assistant Safiya N.:

“RAP SESSIONS: Hip Hop Leadership In Post Civil Rights America” took place on April 28 in Gregory Hall to an almost full house. The Bruce D Nesbitt African American Cultural Center co-sponsored for this event, featuring Dr. Oliver Wang, Toni Blackman, Invincible, Davey D, and moderated by Bakari Kitwana. Produced by Dr. William M. Patterson and sponsored in part by the Graduate School of Library and Information Sciences and the Community Informatics Initiative.

“Hip-Hop activist and artist Invincible, second to right, speaks alongside ambassador Toni Blackman, left, activist Davey D, second to left, and Dr. Oliver Wang, right, about the role of hip-hop in the new youth generations in Gregory Hall on Tuesday April, 28, 2009.” Brenan Salgado, The Daily Illini (byline and photo credit)

GSLIS’ sponsorship is part of our developing Community Informatics Initiative, where grad students are engaging in grassroots action research in African-American communities, including the launch of a “Hip-Hop as Information Science” course that will be taught in 2009-10 by Will Patterson. If you are interested in the course, watch the blog and CII website for registration information.

Today I stood outside the Native American House as a volunteer to answer questions from passersby about the art installation, “Beyond the Chief,” by Edgar Heap of Birds. This role could either be called a docent (in a museum setting) or a librarian. “Beyond the Chief” is a series of twelve signs posted on both sides of Nevada Street on the University of Illinois (UIUC) campus, where the Native American House and American Indian Studies offices are located, along with Asian American Studies, La Casa Cultural Latina, African American Cultural House and African American Studies. The theme is one effort by an internationally-known artist to address the damage wrought by over 80 years of a sports mascot at UIUC known as Chief Illiniwek, a racist depiction of a fictional chief, invented by a band leader in the 1920s to support the “Fighting Illini” teams. Genocide and land theft are among many other deeds and ideas that the European invasion wrought on indigenous peoples.

Heap of Birds’ red and white metal signs, which at first glance look like official informational signs, include the words “Fighting Illini” written backwards, over the words “Today your host is…” and then the names of twelve tribal groups. This area was the homeland of Peoria, Pienkesaw, Wea, and Kaskaskia peoples. Others passed through what is now Illinois, including Kickapoo, Odawa, Sac, Peoria, Ho-Chunk, Potawatomi, Myaamia, and Meskwaki people. The signs line both sides of Nevada Street, starting at the corner, on the lawn in front of the Department of African American Studies, and then they are placed near the sidewalk so that one can move along to view each one.  The Pienkesaw sign in front of La Casa is in Spanish; other signs in English, Japanese and Korean, if I remember correctly. While Heap of Birds has produced these textimages on other campuses, this is the first time he has used languages other than English.

As Heap of Birds has written: “As we install these 12 sign panels, we walk forward on the University of Illinois campus to honor these ideals and intertribal brothers and sisters from a circular position of respect.” The signs will remain through December of 2009, unless the university purchases them.

My friend, the writer Carol Spindel, who wrote Dancing at Halftime: Sports and the Controversy over American Indian Mascots (NYU Press, 2000), joined me for our two-hour “street talk.” She stood on the corner by a stop sign, and I stood between two signs across the street, in front of Native American House. Carol seemed engaged in quite a few conversations; I myself talked with sixteen people, singly or in pairs, over the course of a sunny afternoon. ShinJoung Yeo, a doctoral student in Information and Society, inspired this “street docent/librarian” idea when we had dinner together last week. She described a group that she helped start in 2004, Radical Reference. Volunteers basically took to the streets during the Republican National Convention in New York City and helped people get the information they needed—from where the nearest bathrooms were, to how to find a lawyer, to where there were clashes with police. People who weren’t on the street provided information via cellphone to those who were fielding questions. I thought it was a brilliant solution to everyday people’s needs. ShinJoung also mentioned the work of Professor Clara Chu, an information science professor who publishes in the area of critical race studies and librarianship.

Last week, artist Edgar Heap of Birds returned to the UIUC campus because his signs were vandalized three times since their installation in February. Director of American Indian Studies Robert Warrior invited him back for a brief visit for a forum to address the campus climate and vandalism. Sadly, this is the first campus installation in which his art has been damaged. Professor Heap of Birds encouraged those of us in the audience to take action, to make offerings to honor those who have gone before, to bring gifts to tie to the signs to help protect them, and to talk about the art around campus. Thus, ShinJoung’s idea of a “street librarian” prompted Carol and me to stand by the signs and interact with those pedestrians who paused to talk with us. While I didn’t have lengthy conversations, it was good to be able to talk with people about their thoughts about the art, and answer a few questions about the artist. I hope to do this again regularly in the fall.

Cross posted and further thoughts on the art of Edgar Heap of Birds at http://www.sharonirish.org/blog/