Last weekend the Open Video Conference hosted by FIT brought together an eclectic and inspiring group of leaders from the fields of business, activism, education, and art to talk about the present and future of online video. The conference’s topics ranged from the latest technological advances with html5 (new tech that’s helping creators re-imagine media for computers and mobile phones), the past year’s video memes and what made them so incredibly popular, to new open source tools in education, and the impact and security issues associated with the growing ubiquity of cameras and human rights video. The 2nd day of the Conference focused on the latter two topics, tools for education and human rights video, and it was this day of the program that interested me particularly given the focus of Dd’s programs on new media literacy, and the production of our online interactive TV series DdTv.

The day’s opening keynote by Mike Wesch, a cultural anthropologist, was an inspiring way to start the day, a magnetic speaker, Wesch spoke about the exchange between teacher and classroom, and how video and the internet can change a classroom from a lecture-based atmosphere into an exchange of ideas, a means of engaging students in ways not done in the past. He closed by saying that “the best teachers are the ones who learn along with their students”, and I couldn’t agree more, especially as we continue to develop our Project Einstein curriculum, using photography, video and mapping to create conversation and collaboration in the classroom and online. The panel on education provided further inspiration, including the introduction of some new open source platforms being developed which integrate video archives in the classroom. Open Vault – WGBH’s media library and archives – enables students to search the thousands of archived video, cut out specific clips from this video and annotate these clips. Mediathread from Columbia’s Center for New Media Teaching and Learning, using Open Vault, takes it a step further, enabling students to create project pages using this archived video while also bringing in a discussion board, a newsfeed showing updates to these pages, and the ability to bring in material from Youtube and Flickr. What an amazing way to revisit historical records while also re-inventing them. It’s great to see the creation of these open source platforms, projects that could potentially be very useful as we continue to develop and launch Project Einstein in Indianapolis high schools this fall.

The afternoon’s focus on human rights video began with a panel focused on the ability for people around the world to use video due to the growing availbility of mobile phones with video capabilities as well as other inexpensive devices. This topic is particularly relevant to Dd, as our series DdTv is filmed entirely with mobile phones and flip cameras, and this inexpensive, small, and easy-to-use equipment enables ease of filming, access, and security on the ground as we’re launching our programming. The panel lead into a workshop, Building Solutions for Human Rights Video, of which I was one of the featured speakers. One of the issues that arose dealt with the safety and security of those filming and of the subjects in video, and so it was important for me, while speaking, to highlight the specific challenges Dd faces as we work with video and work to build trust with our partners and their communities around the world. Of course, building trust is one of the most important elements when working with a new community, and it’s also extremely important to give the people and organizations we work with the opportunity to tell their often inspiring personal stories and have these stories viewed online in a public forum by individuals around the world, but in a way that does not compromise their own safety.

Sam Gregory, Program Director of Witness highlighted the issue of ethical responsibility that one has when filming, to not, through this filming, re-violate a person (who’s potentially been a victim of a human rights abuse) by failing to get the consent of the subject. This point is crucial to filming human rights video, and hits home with me as an issue that we confront head-on in the field. Whether it’s women who have been a victims of gender-based violence in Haiti, or former political prisoners from Burma, both of these subjects and people have been highlighted as part of DdTv episodes, and both groups are working with us as we develop programming that enables them to report abuses similar to those of which they’ve been victims. It’s important to make sure that those being interviewed and filmed know exactly where that video will be shown and in what context. When we film, we make sure it’s clear to each person that we film what we’re doing and what it will be used for – and ultimately the relationship between our team and our subjects makes for more compelling interviews and more powerful viewing experience, and also, and importantly does not have a negative effect on the programming that we’re building within these communities. When possible, we also screen the videos that we have produced for the communities that we’ve filmed, and in doing so, this increases the transparency of our organization for our partners.

If these precautions had not been taken then the risk of hurting the subject due to lack of information about the distribution of the content could be potentially dangerous, and reverse any positive results that could come from the video. In a conference setting like OVC, with hundreds of people looking on, and many that are making video of all kinds, it’s particularly important to highlight these issues, to spread awareness throughout the community of people contributing to the constantly expanding presence of video online. As video technologies are constantly changing it’s exciting that people have the ability and inspiration to highlight the issues facing their own communities through this medium, and equally important for those of us who have and continue to work with video, and know these risks, to educate people about the security issues that go hand-in-hand.

“Saddam tried to use the indictment of Bill Clinton over the Monica Lewinsky scandal to show how shameful and perverse the United States is. The message that Iraqis heard was that in America, no one is above the law. Not even the President.” ~Anes (trainee)

I recently returned from a trip to Erbil, Iraq, a city in the north stationed in semi-autonomous Kurdistan. I was invited by Small World News to join them as technical trainer in a project they were performing for IREX on new media and technology.  My own question was whether these tools actually matter in a war zone.

Erbil currently exists as an anomaly in an otherwise dangerous country. I saw no major military presence, no hummers, and even found myself bowling one night. However, the trainees had driven by car from other parts of the country not nearly as quiet like Basra, Kirkuk and Baghdad. Reminders of the war mainly took the form of rolling electrical blackouts and foreign investors from China. All said, not much different from a developing world context.

I was paired with Louis Abelman, a web producer at The New York Times. Between his knowing how to innovate within an old hierarchical structure and my technical skills within a closed society developing context, we made for a good pair. He also made a beautiful film, Lumo, on rape as a tool of war in Congo.

Quickly we ran into problems unique to the country. For instance, there are three mobile providers with minimal interoperability. Having several SIM cards and or phones is common. Until a few months ago, Kurdistan was actually a long-distance call from the rest of Iraq, given it’s autonomous standing. A picture of the power lines (below) should give a sense that power is generally unreliable as well, failing often with rolling blackouts. Generators are rare and fuel surprisingly expensive.

Problems with the mobile provider proved to be a good lesson for our training on FrontlineSMS. After installing the system and showing it’s Arabic version, the demonstration failed when messages couldn’t be sent or received. After some head scratching, one of the participants realized that SIM cards get canceled after a certain amount of time, and replaced the SIM in the USB modem with the one in his own phone. Problem solved. The whole group jumped to celebrate an Arabic SMS sent through gateway also translated in Arabic. For me as a trainer, I’m going to purposely make sure the SIM is expired or doesn’t have money to encourage the solution coming from the trainees.

#IraqTech Training

Our Ushahidi training was similarly greeted with intrigue. The simple complexity of a text to map interface captured their imaginations. We first taught the, about GitHub and social coding. I’m a big fan of using this to explain transparency and accountability through code. And it puts the power into the users hand where they can fix problems rather than waiting for the company to release an update. Installing it as a  web app offline using XAMPP demoed this further.  While fairly complicated, everyone got it to work, some after tweaking the MySql database a few times, others after going into the PHP and adjusting a time zone error. While the group was technical, some even with programming experience, none had a good PHP editor. Syn was a good and quick FOSS solution. And of course FileZilla as a free FTP application.

A game to create the best looking and most interesting crisis map held over one half of the group while the others hacked the code to get it to work. After demoing Small World News projects like Alive in Afghanistan and Digital Democracy ones like Handheld Human Rights and Future Now. What they came back with was pretty astounding, from documenting instances of stolen oil and mapping media centers throughout the country, to loading layers showing green zone borders and tracking instances of violence.

An added benefit to installing a web app like Ushahidi means a small learning curve to learning other web app installs like WordPress and Drupal. To go over the details of blogging, we initially set up techiraq.wordpress.com after talking about the benefited and detractors to some of the other blogging tools. A wide consensus kept coming back to the issue of localization being crucial to adoption. While many trainees were of Kurdish descent, I was surprised that there wasn’t more knowledge of the system since word press actually exists in Kurdish (though they don’t speak the Sorany dialect).

My favorite thing about installing web apps in Iraq was shouting LAMP stack! Explaining the Linux – Apache – MySql – PHP stack that makes up so much of the web these days was particularly fun in the land of  The Book of One Thousand and One Nights because I could keep referencing Aladdin’s magic LAMP. Mnemonic devices are different depending on context and this one certainly makes me smile.

Freedom Fone is an interactive audio programming system that allows for info dissemination beyond the barrier that some groups face: illiteracy. Unfortunately we ran into an additional barrier that prevented us from demoing a full-on install: Windows 7. How does one get to the root or boot from an external drive? I still have no idea.

I can’t stress the importance of having an integrated approach to trainings and explaining the various aspects of these tools, such as security. Handing over these systems without going into protection from the dangers in addition to leveraging the opportunities is irresponsible. We were able to cover the basics of security and anonymity, explaining how internet systems are structured and how to use the knowledge of that system to get to content that matters or hide oneself from being targeted. I was surprised that most had not used Proxies nor VPNs and did not even have a sense of SSL encryption. Their IPs are hopefully a little safer, and those with android phones feel a bit safer knowing about the Guardian Project.

“But there is no censorship.”
“We don’t have security issues.”

Two popular refrains that are unfortunately more lip service than reality. After a bit of prodding, people started to talk about a famous case from the previous year of a Kurdish blogger, Sardasht Osman, who was killed for speaking out. Despite writing under the pseudonym Sardo Zardasht, this didn’t protect him. His final words are a haunting testament to the process of democratization, a place where one can be killed over a poem.  In a transitioning society it is always important to remind people that a relative lack of problems doesn’t mean that they don’t exist. When describing our work in other closed societies and the reasons why open source is important for security, there were many nods of understanding throughout the group.

Low bandwidth is another issue like security that is rarely addressed in contexts where they’re most important. While lecturing and walking around the classroom, I noticed people looking at CNN, YouTube, Al Jazeera. 15 people feeding off one WiFi node in a hotel with one connection. And the IP of that connect was listed in Somalia at that. Needless to say it was crawling. The USB modems that were handed out didn’t help either. Introducing RSS feeds, readers & podcasts are key. Download in the background, overnight when Internet is fastest, and without ads. Plus, RSS can be useful for other sites, such as Ushahidi.

Our Twitter for techies overview included signing everyone up mostly to explain API architecture, how desktop apps function, and interoperability with other systems. One of the nice things about Ushahidi is that it takes and spits out info through the system. But what about a plant with a USB stick in the soil that is connected to Twitter and let’s you know that it needs to be watered. I said this referencing a conversation with John Tolva from IBM who noted in a recent talk that by 2012 we’ll have more sensors online than humans. At mention of this, a collective hush fell over the crowd. Something I look for in trainings as a sign that I’m doing something right. How else can it be used? Synapses started firing. We started the hash tag #iraqtech to keep the conversation going

One of the participants, Saad, brought up an interesting challenge.  He has website that has no domain name, just IP address. The reason being a mafia-type system whereby since most Iraqis don’t have access to credit cards, they need to go through go-between who can order an international domain. One of the problems is extra charges but another quickly becomes security and efficiency. Want to create an independent citizen election monitoring site? Good luck explaining that one to a local man running a business. And Iraqi domains (.IQ) are currently tangled in a big web of state controlled bureaucracy (yes I will be buying MyBelinsky.IQ for a hilarious new startup once it changes. Think Myers-Briggs meets tongue-in-cheek).

To demo the social power of Twitter, I sent a message about the domain problem on my own Twitter account:

@mbelinsky: Hosting sites in Iraq: pay a local in cash to use their credit card for Swedish host. Profit by then holding it hostage #iraqtech

The response I received was from a friend doing MapKibera in Kenya:

@mikel: @mbelinsky same ridiculous problem here in Kenya. we’re waiting for mpesa integration for domain registration

The fact that a potential answer to an obstacle came almost instantly from halfway around the world was a powerful (and unplanned) testament to the new ways that the world works. Overall, the #iraqtech conversation that I started was joined by people in Netherlands, Morocco, USA, Egypt, and Italy, and followed by many others.

A key part of our training of trainers program was to push a Do It Yourself (DIY) model. Introducing “Let Me Google That For You” (Arabic version) was a fun way of taking tech support people and showing them that they can be so much more by applying their technical skills to more than just doing search queries for the people in their company. We disseminated some coding cheat sheets to better acquaint them with HTLM & PHP and introduced http://W3schools.com/ for easy web tutorials that the group can use to test themselves.

Overall it was a fantastic start and I’m excited to see what these initial seeds will sprout into. With elections coming in October and the US military (eventually) pulling out, I’m hoping that tech can be one of the factors that leads to increased stability, sustainability and peace for the people of Iraq.

Powerlines in Kurdistan by Steve Flamingo

********

Special Bonus:

I came to learn about Small World News through their amazing Alive in Baghdad project which employed Iraqi journalists to produce video packages each week about a variety of topics on daily life in Iraq during the war. If you haven’t seen it, the short episodes will surely make an impression on you. Some of my personal favorites are:

• Liquor Shops Open for Business
• Fake Pharmacies Plague Iraq
• After Saddam, Building Amarah

Little Brother - Burmese Cover

When brave people risk their lives for the greater good. When they’re accidentally giving an aggressive military a full roadmap to their extended contacts and friends, it’s unfortunate. Given Facebook’s recent breach of trust, allowing for more private data to leak out than people are comfortable with, there has been a growth in people knowing about their digital rights. This 21st century literacy is crucial.

But in places where data leakage is most risky, I’ve found that it’s also least understood. Cory Doctorow’s “Little Brother” is a compelling book about a teen and his friends who use technology to challenge an authoritarian regime. Using real-life technologies, the book is more than a thrilling story, but it can also become a viral training manual for activists who need to use technology to do their work and can start to do so more securely and effectively.

If you haven’t read the book yourself, I recommend buying a copy or downloading one for free to see what all the fuss is about. Why free? He talks about the benefits of publishing for free online over at the Guardian.

Thanks to all those that supported our Kickstarter campaign, I’m happy to bring to you the first in what will be our serialized release of “Little Brother” in Kachin, Karen and Burmese languages. To our partners at ABITSU for the translation. And thanks to Jonathan P. Berger for his cover design and overall inspiration.

Comments and questions from you are always appreciated. Our question is, when “Big Brother” is watching, who is watching back? This is another step towards answering it.

Little Brother - Kachin Cover

Little Brother - Karen Cover

Digital media & learning are intrinsically tied and Digital Democracy is looking to use free and open source tools to support the future of education around the world. One of these projects is called Roebling – Bridging international cultural and social divides among refugee youth and their classmates.

The Digital Media & Learning competition and conference was recently held and we were proud to submit an application, and thrilled to be one of the  contenders with the most comments. Thank you to all who have contributed. While commenting has ended, we want to be transparent in our process and learn from the skills that all of YOU bring to the table. If you weren’t able to comment then, please comment now. Your thoughts are extremely helpful as we move forward in thinking about how our programming can have the biggest impact.

Our proposal

Named for the builders of the Brooklyn Bridge, Roebling is the first educational platform targeting the tens of thousands of refugees that are resettled into the US every year. Empowering marginalized youth through community storytelling, Roebling connects schools in the US and in refugee camps through a multi-lingual platform that facilitates collaborative projects, equipping them with the tools they need to be 21st Century global citizens.
Internally, Roebling is a free and open source online portal built on Open Atrium, a Drupal-based content management system. The Drupal community offers thousands of add-on modules for student-led design and localization. Functioning as a secure intranet, Roebling is a lightweight safe space is a sandbox for students and teachers, with an easy and fun user interface. This online platform is coupled with a cross-disciplinary curriculum that emphasizes participatory learning and new media literacy, using mapping, photography, and video. Students share media, blog posts and homework assignments. Through the skills they develop, Roebling affects studentsâ!TM academic performance in math, sciences and the humanities and encourages civic participation through mapping cultural landmarks and resources in their communities.
Externally, Roebling encourages offline exhibitions and connection to social media. Projects finished can be filtered for interaction with online communities like Flickr, Facebook, Myspace & Twitter and virtual worlds like Second Life & Open Street Maps. Coding sites like GitHub will spread youth- initiated innovations, and interactive gallery exhibitions will allow viewers to text comments, bridging offline and online community involvement. Initial projects have been launched at schools in Haiti, Bangladesh, Thailand and South Africa. Roebling is piloting to connect a school in a Thai refugee camp with resettled refugees and their classmates in Indiana. Other partners include development teams at MIT’s Center for Future Civic Media and Eyebeam: Art & Technology Center, plus sponsorship from Nokia.

Comments

Written by Ejacobi 2 days ago This educational exchange has the power to transform students into engaged global citizens. Check out the work our team has already done …
Eyebeam – the leading center for art & technology in the US – is creating transformative projects that merge technology & art with new educational practices – http://eyebeam.org/
MIT’s Center for Future Civic Media is a leader in developing technologies that support community media - http://civic.mit.edu/
Digital Democracy has pioneered educational exchange, conducting trainings with refugee youth in Bangladesh & Thailand, and marginalized youth in South Africa & Haiti. http://digital-democracy.org/
How do YOU think refugees & their classmates around the world can be connected through technology ?

What is particularly compelling about this project is the connection between online collaboration and offline classroom-based curriculum. Students will have the full benefit of connecting to their peers around the world, while also connecting to the communities in which they live. By increasing interaction offline, as well as providing a connection to other communities globally online, this program limits social alienation/exclusion of these student participants/creators. The program provides a way for resettled refugees to become engaged with their new communities and culture, without losing the culture and sense of place from which they came. How do resettled refugees view their new communities? What can American and refugee students teach each other about their differing and similar world-views through the use of community mapping and the creation of video projects? It is with this program, that these questions will be answered. With the use of skills and technologies that are only now developing and improving, the program will provide a forum that will give these youth a voice, and enable them to be future leaders.
Written by Agoldberg 2 days ago Amazing work. I love how this project is using ICT tools and new media to develop youth diplomacy and engagement with the world. And Roebling, what a great name!! I look forward to seeing this develop…
Written by Emmalloyd 2 days ago This is a project based on the belief that through the spirit of openness, creativity and innovation are fostered, challenges are overcome and real change happens. The platform is a vehicle to share open source technology, skills and peer to peer feedback thus creating informed global youth who can participate in shaping the world they are inheriting. It aims to provide them with the tools, expertise and support to become not just consumers of culture but change makers. Roebling, built on cutting edge open source software is determined to break down borders, whether they be technological, financial or physical.
Written by Danwalmsley 2 days ago This project sounds amazing. I’ve worked building education software in Australia for many years, and this kind of open platform is the way of the future. Time and time again we saw closed platforms enter the marketplace with slick features, only to chain teachers, schools and kids to an inflexible platform that was quickly out-of-date.
A project like this will provide a great example to the world of how educational software _should_ be done.
Written by Mushon 2 days ago This project can switch reality on its head.
Refugee youth are dealing with the harsh reality of growing us away from their culture often misunderstood in a different and not always welcoming environments. Using communication technologies and constructive collaboration tools Roebling can turn a marginalized immigrant kid stuck in some small neighborhood to a leader in with a global outlook on her role and potential in life.
This is a brilliant and inspiring project. I do hope it gets the support it deserves.
Written by Leducmills 2 days ago A really inspiring project with a lot of potential to do good in the world – especially with such an interesting collaborative team – MIT, Eyebeam, and Digital Democracy all have their own strengths and together one would assume that this project is actually going to get out into the world and fundamentally change how refugees tell their stories and how other people receive them. Very cool.
Written by Pazonada 2 days ago What I especially like about this project is its potential to connect youth in completely different places by utilizing the latest technologies and allowing kids to do what they’re already doing — taking pictures, using phones, chatting, connecting with one another via social networks — but on a platform that aggregates that content for the purpose of bridging cultural divides. I would have loved to have had this as a teenager, especially the opportunity to connect with refugee youth in other countries as digital penpals. Great to see how kids will use this.
Written by Ewiles 1 day 16 hours ago I have 12 New York City high schools already interested in hosting it in their classrooms and developing curriculum with it. It would be a blessing to our New York City public high school youth if this project received the support it deserves. Our kids and our communities are eagerly waiting…
Written by TimBulkeley 1 day 14 hours ago I am a tertiary teacher who has visited the Mae La camp twice (a month in 2008 and three weeks in 2010) this project sounds great. Bearing in mind the social and physical conditions both in the camp and previously in Burma I hope that the plans include adequate support for the young people in Mae La to use the system effectively, and to maintain the infrastructure needed so that they can continue to use Internet based means of staying in contact after the competition is over. Please don’t misunderstand, I think the project is great and could have large benefits at both ends, I love the way refugees in Indiana will be involved I am just a little concerned that the project does not raise expectations that will later be dashed.
Written by Corrine 1 day 13 hours ago Beautiful project with endless potential, can’t wait to see what these kids are able to do with these tools!
Written by Bentonc 1 day 9 hours ago The most challenging aspect of Roebling may make the most powerful impact. When refugees flee to America, connecting with their community will likely be dangerous or at least technically difficult. When social structures and tech infrastructure back home are in disarray, the social media element of Roebling could be as vital for the refugees and those they left behind as the education component.
Written by Cjzed 17 hours ago As a teacher working with refugee youth and adults, I see this as a powerful tool for refugees now living in the US, especially students making the transition into public schools. It could also have great potential as an educational tool for non-refugee students and teachers. I’d also love to see this extended in the future to include adult education programs for refugees.
Written by Srduncombe 17 hours agoFantastic project. I hope it gets the support it deserves.
Written by Callaghan1964 15 hours ago Groundbreaking + very important – deserves every bit of support possible. Related pilot activities between hard-to-reach NYC/Liverpool young people and communities proved incredibly successful and truly inspiring for all those involved. Global hyperlocal is where its at…
Please fund this internationally significant creative initiative!
Written by Fungalicious 15 hours ago This is a very worthwhile project. An online and offline connection is important to secure participation. Open source module-based structure invites future community developments. This project deserves support to realize their goals! This is great. I look forward to seeing their result.
Written by Rbrown 13 hours ago This is a fantastic project – a great way to use new technologies to bring together members of the diaspora and empower students to tell their own stories and recognize the importance of the experiences. This initiative has the potential to inspire and support a generation of marginalized youth by bringing them together into supportive networks so that they can learn and enhance their own skills and confidence.
Written by Rid1O 13 hours ago This is an amazing project which will be looked down as phenomenal. A great way to bring people together.
Written by Ytorf 11 hours ago Really excited to see this project come to fruition, and to see what it does for these kids. It’s an engaging way to teach teenagers about emerging technologies and what it means to be a creator, not just a consumer. It will also be just as important for the non-refugee students in broadening their worldview.
Written by Robran 10 hours ago A beautifully conceived project that will have an extraordinary impact on the lives of young people. WHO
Written by Mounton 10 hours ago I’m a creative writing and literature teacher and really recognise the value of such an exciting project. It will certainly open up new worlds to the students and create wonderful opportunities.

Written by Natty148 hours ago With this project a new world of opportunities would be open for those who don’t get the chance to share their stories. this could be what we’ve been waiting for,m hope it gets all the votes needed.
Written by Lizslagus 7 hours ago Introducing youth to technology is not enough. However, a project that not only allows youth access to technology, but also encourages community, resourcefulness, creative/critical thinking and sharing via technology and literacy is a project that WILL have impact and make a difference in the lives of the refugee youth for which it has been developed.
In addition to this project’s beautiful commitment to open access and supporting youth to support themselves and their peers, I believe strongly in the partners involved. Each one engages in social issues via creative technological applications and solutions with heart and passion.
Written by Raydot 5 hours ago What a fantastic idea! When so many schools are having trouble figuring out their digital strategies, here’s a project that really makes sense. I think the potential for what could follow is endless — it could help inner city schools close the digital divide, for instance. Can’t wait to see what comes out if it.
Written by Treasurecrumbs 2 hours 58 minutes ago Highly capable, creative and ambitious team. Fantastic project.
Written by Pdip 2 hours 4 minutes ago This is a very promising and necessary project. I am pleased to see that the team has an understanding that this online initiative has to be synergistic with education groups in the trenches. This is by far the best proposal I have read, with the most appropriate use of technology as it applies to an “online pedagogy”.
I believe that education is one of the most sustainable practices we can invest in, and if I were in a better position to do so, I would help bank roll this project personally.

The Competition

HASTAC and the MacArthur Foundation are excited to launch the third year of the Digital Media and Learning Competition. Today, young people are learning, socializing, and participating in civic life in dramatic new ways and assessing information in ways never before imagined. They are reimagining learning on a daily basis and are engaged in what is called “participatory learning.” The 2010 Digital Media and Learning Competition challenges designers, entrepreneurs, practitioners, researchers, and young people to put participatory learning to work on behalf of science, technology, engineering, math and their social contexts in the 21st century.

The Digital Media and Learning Competition, created in 2007, was designed to find “and to inspire” the most novel uses of new media in support of learning. Projects explore how digital technologies are changing the way people learn and participate in daily life. Awards have recognized individuals, for-profit companies, universities, and community organizations using new media to transform learning.

The 2010 Competition, launched in partnership with National Lab Day, challenges designers, inventors, entrepreneurs, practitioners and researchers to build learning labs and/or learning experiences for the 21st Century, environments that will help young people interact, share, build, tinker, and explore in new and innovative ways.