Students Develop New Web Site for AIDS Resource Council of Rome

Berry communication students recently had the opportunity to step outside the classroom and put their skills and knowledge to use for the benefit of the AIDS Resource Council of Rome (ARC). The result is a new interactive Web site featuring videos, photography, interviews and an updated logo.

“The students who did the work were just marvelous, and the end product is something that we are very pleased with,” said Jeanne Cahill, ARC executive director and a 2007 Berry alumna.

The ARC’s new Web site was developed by 11 students in Dr. Brian Carroll’s “Digital Storytelling” class, which cross-trains students in multiple media. After classroom discussions, the students decided to work with the ARC to redesign their Web site, picking up where a previous class had left off.

“They really wanted their Web site to be more user-friendly, to be as interesting and engaging as possible to get more traffic,” said Dustin McCormick, a visual communication major who graduated in May. “We wanted a good quality resource for the people in Rome.”

While catering to the needs of the organization, the students developed story ideas that incorporated their interests in video, writing and photography. Student teams attended ARC events throughout the spring to gather content for the Web site, observing the ARC staff in action at AIDS testing days, health fairs, fundraisers and board meetings.

“With today’s interest in media and electronic connections, we felt we needed a good Web site; the one we had was established in 2004 and was never changed or updated,” Cahill explained. “What the class did was completely revamp the Web site. The result is a very interesting and evolving resource for the local community.”

Through the experience of collaborative Web site creation, students were given a real-world understanding of how to successfully meet the needs of the organization.

“The class was one of the best teaching experiences I've had at Berry simply because of the teamwork and collegiality of and among the students. They really came together to make it happen,” Dr. Carroll said.

The new ARC Web site can be viewed at http://www.aidsresourcecouncil.org.

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Arts Across Georgia

Making Aquariums and Museums More Accessible

Georgia Tech researchers are using music to aid the visually impaired in understanding the movements and displays featured in aquariums, zoos, museums and other dynamic facilities.

The research is using technology that tracks movements; in the case of an aquarium, it tracks the fish and interprets the movements into music and automated commentaries and narrations.

“We have three main components to this research,” said Bruce Walker, associate professor in the School of Psychology and the School of Interactive Computing at Georgia Tech. “The first is tracking the animals, the second is interpreting it into music and the third is making a seamless and interactive human experience.”

According to Walker, there are several challenges associated with these research goals.

“It is challenging to automatically track animals when they go behind rocks or venture to other parts of the environment,” said Walker. “The music and narration also pose a challenge because we need to make sure that it is pleasant and interesting, but also communicates what’s happening in the exhibit. Our final challenge comes in trying to coordinate all of this technology into a seamless, real-time experience for the aquarium visitor.”

Walker is leading an interdisciplinary team to put the pieces of this research puzzle together. Gil Weinberg, director of the Georgia Tech Center for Music Technology, is focusing on the interpretation of movements into music. Tucker Balch, in the School of Interactive Computing, is leveraging his expertise on tracking the movements of animals. Researchers Carrie Bruce and Jon Sanford of the Georgia Tech Center for Assistive Technology and Environmental Access (CATEA) are working to evaluate the effectiveness of the resulting multimodal exhibit. The Tech team is also collaborating with the Atlanta Center for the Visually Impaired (CVI), and with staff at local zoos and aquariums.

Walker says that tracking moving objects and then communicating the dynamics to someone who cannot look at, or cannot see, the actual moving items has broad application in biological research, entertainment and sports, and tactical situations.

The technology is still in the research stage, but Walker and his colleagues are excited about the potential of opening up a whole world of new experiences for aquarium and zoo visitors who have vision impairments. Walker says, “There are lots of possibilities. We chose to begin by making exhibits more accessible to people with low vision. We’ll see where this leads after that.”

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