Annie Archbold
I hope to work with a team of individuals to design, document, and present a "non-concert" event where a diversity of documentation skills come into play. An important part of the class will be working with the IDT team to plan, organize and develop the site. The diversity of skills that each of the IDT team bring to the effort will provide a fascinating classroom and laboratory experience.

With the production, I hope to capture the critical needs of the webcast experience and its relationship to other public events that I've worked on - festivals, exhibitions, and concerts. It will be interesting to determine what skills are applicable soley to webcasting and what skills are generic to the presentation of public events.

Adam Arrowood
Things I hope to take from the class include: more experience working with a larger group of people on a single site (most of my WWW experience is solo or with one other person on the "team"), some more hands-on editing of video and audio for the Web (though I have done some of both, I really wouldn't call myself "experienced"), and as the server administrator, use this chance to learn even more about server administration (particularly, --warning, GEEK ALERT-- about backups, RAID, performance tuning and monitoring, etc. under AIX).

Derek Bambach
The web is essentially very new and in many ways, untested. The chance to participate in a project that is attempting to define a particular area of information delivery on the web, specifically "webcasting", or the web delivery of a specific, time-based event, is very compelling. I hope to bring a variety of skills to the project, including large-site overview and design concepts, production design and implementation skills, and artistic and graphic design and manipulation of visual and auditory media. Within these areas I hope to be able to help produce a well-rounded and interesting site that not only delivers a variety of content, but also sparks an interest in the material and a dialogue between the visitors to the site.

What I would hope to take away from a project like this is a better understanding of webcasting as a concept, as well as a clearer vision of the practical aspects of delivering this type of content to a target audience. One of the hallmarks of the web at this point, is the "interactive" nature, or more precisely, the possibility of direct and instantaneous user feedback. Hopefully a well designed site will generate the feedback we are looking for both to gauge whether or not the users are having a worthwhile experience, and also to help direct my (our) understanding of webcasting and content delievery so that my conceptual design skills will be advanced.

Mona Brown
I hope to learn a lot about the group/ team dynamic when working on a project such as this. I imagine groups of technical (as in hardware), graphical, and interface "experts" all thrown together to produce something outstanding. This seems to parallel what's happening in the real world nowadays and getting first hand experience with this dynamic is key for me.

I am also extremely curious about the technical options available to individuals who are putting something like this together. From audio and video streaming to a extremely intuitive and efficient design, I am anxious to play with our many options and be able to make very comfortable and educated decisions on such equipment and software in the future.

And third, the prospect of taking something so complex and making it not only informative but intuitive, useful and fun for the users is a humungous challenge. I am perhaps most intrigued with the end result of this aspect.

And finally, the thought of spending the next three months in a computer lab with this group of people is something I absolutely cannot pass up!

Christa Fioresi
I hope to get 2 basic things out of the Webcasting practicum:

• A basic technical understanding of how to implement a Webcast.

  More specifically, I hope to learn about streaming audio & video technologies and how to integrate them onto a Web site.

• An understanding of the planning that needs to happen to make a Webcast successful.

This includes knowing the different functions of a Webcasting team, how much time a project this size will take, and what kind of equipment will be needed among other things.

Valerie Guth
I hope to bring to the class my experience with interaction design, and look forward to putting into practice some of the HCI theory I've learned in class over the past two years.

I hope to learn more about visual design for the web, and about working with digital video and audio.

Debbi Levin
I hope to bring to the webcast my experiences in broadcasting and marketing live, interactive events to national and international audiences as well as my skills in video production and editing and web design. During the webcast production period I hope to be able to explore my interests in web-based live interactive chat mechanisms and to understand the implications of these on the future of the web. As well, I would like to gain a greater understanding of how live web events fit into our existing media infrastructures.

Dr. Anne Balsamo
Unlike a webcast that would stream live video or live audio, we will do most of the creative work after the fact. We have tried to cut into the conference as much as we can and capture the themes foregrounded throughout the weekend. After we look at the material that we have - audio, video, papers, and digital photographs - we will remediate it and have a multi-layered, hypertextual website.

Sandra Beaudin
McLuhan wrote that "all media are active metaphors in their power to translate experience into new forms." With the Performance & Technology Conference webcast, I had hoped to experience the creation of a new form and present the re-mediation of a past event. With every webcast, as with every team endeavor, much is to be learned: planning, technical skills and team interaction. The Performance & Technology webcast has been enriching. Together we have been successful in thinking of new ways to use the Web and new ways of presenting media.

Information Design & Technology Program