Verde Smoke

How can participatory media tools be adapted for grassroots strategies to seed more forward-focused institutional memory practices? Can we use these tools, supported by strategies such as reflective practice, participatory action research, and participatory development communication, work in real-time in both the university and community? Can these efforts benefit the practice of both student and community organizers to facilitate two-way flows of knowledge toward truly shared narratives?

The MIT@Lawrence Story Project is a reflective practice exercise that aims to not only document and reflect on the progression of M@L as a university community partnership, but also as a conversation starter and discussion space for our partners on both sides of the @ sign. We’re adopting a multi-layered approach to capture the story, including one-on-one interviews, panel discussions, and student reflections, all feeding into a website that will include a short documentary, an interactive and multi-themed timeline, and a physical summit of M@L stakeholders and friends. The goal is to create both a reflection of the lessons learned and a conversation about what’s next in our endeavor to create sustained engagement mechanisms for university and community that lead to transformation of both planning theory & practice academically but also community-based action.

More info at http://mitatlawrence.net/matl-story-project/

Watch the documentary:

Weaving Our Collective Narrative: the M@L Story Project from Danielle Martin on Vimeo.

Explore the timeline at: http://lawrencestory.org

M@L SIMILE Timeline Adaptation - Timeline (simile.mit.edu/timeline), a javascript library developed by the MIT Simile project, allows for the simple depiction of events plotted on a web-based timeline. Using Simile’s Timeline as a base, MIT@Lawrence is developing a web interface to create a tool for sustained engagement and collective storytelling. The goal of this experiment is to create a tool that can not only capture the initial timeline of events for our interventions as partnership and visualize them for participants on both sides. In this first phase of the project, the intent is to use our existing partners and participants as a pilot community to create a space for reflection of the lessons learned. It is also a test to see if a new collaborative visualization tool can spark a conversation about our vision to support sustained engagement mechanisms for university and community to work together to transform both theory & practice. This will culminate in an event on April 27th in Lawrence, MA and presentation at the C4FCM conference in June. In the second phase, we hope to adapt and release a tool and set of guidelines for other community-wide coalitions to implement to change the local flow of knowledge, news, and interaction in geographical communities.

Timeline coding and design by Nick Iuviene & Matt Hockenberry

The M@L Story project is supported by the MIT Center for Future Civic Media, Community Innovators Lab, and the Department of Urban Studies & Planning.