I. WHO ARE WE?
A. Urbanowicz
the Anthropologist.
B. Crowe the Media Production Specialist
(Writer/Producer/Co-director).
C. Fernandes the Technology and Learning Expert.
D. And Clark Brandstatt, another Media Production Specialist and
Co-director.
E. And Martha
AcuÒa the Costume Shop Manager and Design Genius!
F. And Chris Ficken the Graphics Wizard!
G. And Randy
Wonzong the Theatre Authority!
H. And the voice of Lynn Elliot and many others!
I. And modest funding from CELT/Office
of the Provost for the April 1996 videotaping!
J. Truly, a teamwork and collaborative effort!
II. WHY DARWIN?
A. British naturalist/scientist (1809-1882).
B. On The Origin Of Species}
Evolution by Natural Selection.
C. Exploration + Enlightenment + Evolution = Anthropology!
III. WHEN/WHERE DARWIN?
A 19th
Century genius.
B. British Isles +
Round-the-world-voyage & the
Galapagos Islands.
D. Down
(Kent, England)/Wesminster Abbey.
IV. HOW HAS DARWIN EVOLVED?
A. Slides and transparencies & multimedia precursors.
B. October 1990 "Appearance" on campus (Urbanowicz paper in
MLIB).
C. January 1991 trip to England.
D. February 1993 Videotape via (then) ITFS
out of MLIB 27B.
E. Recent web paper (http://www.csuchico.edu/~curban/Darwin/DarwinSem-S95.html).
F. Chico
Anthropological Society Papers.
G. April 1996 studio production and Urbanowicz as Darwin!
H. Digitized "Quick
Time Movie" for the web.
V. CONCLUSIONS?
A. Work-in-progress on twenty-minute videotapes for campus use.
B. CD-Rom and self-paced instruction and....
C. Grant Submission[s]: The
Gal·pagos and England and....?!
D. The year 2009: Bicentennial of Darwin's birth and Sesquicentennial
of On
The Origin of Species.
E. Alphabet Soup} P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, and W!!
This presentation deals with the ideas of Charles R. Darwin
(1809-1882) in a contemporary multimedia format. Although dead some
114 years, Darwin's ideas continue to have an impact in numerous
areas of contemporary thought, from Anthropology and "Evolutionary
Psychology" to the world of business (James F. Moore, 1996, The
Death Of Competition: Leadership & Strategy In The Age Of
Business Ecosystems). Indeed, Frank J. Sulloway (former MacArthur
Fellow) makes Darwin the central character of his 1996 best-seller
Born To Rebel: Birth Order, Family Dynamics, and Creative
Lives and he ends his 635 page tome (fully one-third being
Appendices and Notes) with the following: "The best way of
understanding creative genius is through the remarkable insights that
Darwin's own theories provide about the human mind" (1996: 456).
Howard
Gardner, another MacArthur Fellow, also used Darwin as a prime
example in his own 1996 publication entitled The Eight Human
Intelligences.
The rationale for the creation of DARWIN EVOLVES was an
attempt to convey the context and impact of Darwin's ideas to
contemporary University students and help them (and others)
understand that impact. In many respects, it is an attempt through
the use of multimedia to convey what Freeman Dyson wrote about Albert
Einstein in the 1996 publication (by Alice Calaprice) entitled The
Quotable Einstein: "This book shows him as he was--not a
superhuman genius but a human genius, and all the greater for being a
human being" (1996: xiii).
Today's Anthropology
Forum presentation discusses the ideas and techniques concerning
(a) knowledge, knowledge-making, and creativity, (b) delivering
effective lectures (utilizing the specifically-made videotapes), (c)
the importance of faculty-staff research activities, (d) conveying
the amount-of-time and teamwork which is necessary for such a
project, (e) the post-production editing, and, finally, (f) a
discussion of the goal to convert the content of our special purpose
video program into an interactive CD-ROM. We all need to make the
time for
teaching, learning, and playing (and/or TLP)
and ending with the words of Goethe (1749-1832) we write: "One ought,
every day at least, to hear a little song, read a good poem, see a
fine picture, and, if it is possible, to speak a few reasonable
words." Another way to think of multimedia?
