Asian American / Asian Students: Aspects of Social Interaction – Workshop 3-B

Thomas Tam: Alright, [inaudible]. And, this is a very informal workshop, and basically we are trying to set up…in the summer, we are going to set up many different workshops, and the workshops are being funded by the Verizon foundation. They are basically trying to set up a high-tech bridge between academia and community, and a lot of the times community agencies need volunteers, and at the same time there are students from the colleges who need tutoring experiences. So, we approached Verizon Foundation, and we said, why don’t we try to set up such a training program. All it takes is, say, two weeks, and four hours per week, and we believed that with that, we are able to put up your presence on the web, you will be able to use as some simple audio-visual equipment, and you will be able to do many kinds of so called high-tech approaches.

This is like, you can learn how to drive without really understanding how the automobile works, and so that’s basically what we are going to do. We have with us Anthony Wong, who is the audio-visual specialist with AAARI, and he’s going to show us how some of this can be done. It really is very, very simple. But in order to do it, you probably should come to the workshop itself because here we only have about thirty minutes, forty minutes or so, and so we just want to show you how it works. Want to see something, Anthony? Anthony is a graduate from Hunter College, he’s an English major graduate, now he is studying for his MBA at Baruch College and also he’s responsible for all the technical, audio-visual kind of stuff at AAARI, the Asian American Research institute, so, take it away.

Anthony Wong: Okay. Basically, at the group workshop, students will be able to learn how to take pictures, take video, use camcorders and audio-visuals, and also learn how to look. At the institute, what we basically do is, when we put on an event, such as this, we also videotape it, so for those people who are unable to attend this conference, they will be able to watch it online on our website. Our web design person is supposed to be up here, but basically students who come to the workshops, these five different dates, each one is four hours each, you will be learning web designs, digital photography, and video presentations. People can come with no knowledge at all, and we’ll teach you how to do it. First we’re going to do the most basic thing a website needs, is a picture, so each one of you is going to take a picture of the person next to you.

[chatter, crowd disperses to take pictures of one another]

Female Audience Member: What are the requirements for someone to participate in one of your workshops?

Anthony Wong: Well, basically this workshop is for community agencies and student clubs, because community agencies, they’re all spread out across New York City, and many of them are unable to obtain volunteers in order to gather people together in order to make their events possible. So our hopes of this workshop is to bring community agencies here to our workshop, create a website, make their presence known, get students from the city university and volunteer, and help out. Student clubs themselves are spread out across CUNY and many of them don’t have any websites and are not known, so they can create a website of their own also, and gain more presence.

[random chatter]

It’s targeted at community agencies and student club members. But that doesn’t mean that… [inaudible]. You can come too. It’s not exclusive, but we want to target these people because they’re unable to obtain the resources in order to make these type of things possible, so they can use us, the institute, in order to make a website, do video presentation of their events, post up updates, you know, the whole shebang.

[random chatter]

Thomas Tam: I think that what we are doing right now is that Anthony is going to take the pictures that you’ve just taken, he is going to bring it up to the web, so in other words, it’s very, very [fast].You can even do it by printing, you know, and that kind of thing, with the internet it is immediate. So in other words, he is able to take the digitized information of all the pictures, feed it into the computer, and send it out to the web.

But I believe that the Graduate Center has some sort of a firewall around it, meaning that it is not very easy for other people outside to come in and then get information and take it out. And that’s why what we are doing right now is sort of localize it, we got the information, digitize it, we put it in the computer so it is right now situated within the computer itself. By the time the conference is over, we’ll get back to the office, and then we can put it back to the internet, and then you should be able to look at it this evening when you get home, if you are that diligent. So basically we just wanted to show you that [inaudible] right, right, while you can actually watch some movies on our web, actually, if you’re lucky you can win two tickets plus free popcorn, so it is a good thing.

So now Phillip is going to, while Anthony is putting the material into the computer, Phillip is going to show you how something called “Movie Magic” can be made. Sometimes you have a very, very small office, and it’s so crowded that you don’t even know what to do with yourself. Still, you can make very, very impressive internet presses by using something called Movie Magic.

And what it does is that you can sit at a little corner over there, and then with a green background, which can be transposed to all kinds of backgrounds, so you can be giving the report within the White House, for example, even if you’re sitting right here in the corner. And Phillip Li, who is a student, graduate from Brooklyn College from television and radio and is working as our camera and field camera operator, is going to demonstrate to us how that is done.

Phillip Li: Basically, if you’ve seen any newscasts, what this program can do, it’ll let you make a, like you can be an anchorperson if you want, or you can make your own news report or presentation. Have you ever seen how the weatherman reports his weather? Basically he’s using almost the same technology. What’s good about this program is that it brings the power of the studio into your home, so it’s very convenient. The first thing I would like to do is get maybe a volunteer, anyone want to volunteer? Do you want to volunteer?

Just so everyone doesn’t get your necks all cramped up turning your head over, you can look up here to see what’s going on the screen. Basically [inaudible], this tray right here, [inaudible], this is called digital communicator. This tray right here, this tray right here is where you’re gonna have your script, basically. If you have a script you could place all the words and they’ll be over here. This tray over here is all your visual actions.

Thomas Tam: Sir, may I add, just some information. What you’re looking at is what Mr. [Xuan] is looking at. He will be looking at the little computer and on top of the computer is a camera, so what he is looking at is the monitor of the computer, and this you’re looking at exactly the same thing, except since the camera is pointing at him rather than at you, you see his image. Therefore, when he starts talking about reading the script, you can see how simple, easy it is to make television presses, let’s say.

Male Audience Member: How much is it?

Phillip Li: It’s around 600 dollars, if you buy it individually.

Male Audience Member: Where do you get it?

Phillip Li: You buy it at J&R. J&R Music World, it’s by city hall. Or you can order it from their official website, [seriousmagic.com]. But then the benefit of this workshop is, you don’t gave to go out and spend 600 dollars, you can go to us and do the presentation at the institute, put it on your own website, and there you go, you have your event. After you produce your own show, you can put this online, it’s like any movie [inaudible].

Thomas Tam: In other words, if you are starting off, and you don’t have a lot of money, not that we have any money, we will be able to provide you with that presence. You’ll be able to create, from our website, a sub-website that is of your organization, and from that sub-website you can do things like this, you can create web pages, you can create announcements, you can even create interactive stuff. What we are providing is a forum for you to do that, and the training, and the support.

Male Audience Member: Do I have to pay for the website?

Thomas Tam: No, you don’t have to pay for the website. But if you want to contribute, we accept.

Phillip Li: Okay, let’s get back to the thing. Basically, this part right here in the middle, in the upper middle section, is the teleprocessor, the action tray is to the right hand side. On the bottom, that’s the content tray, which is where you get your pictures and movies and audio, sound. Towards the left hand corner, where you see that thing go up and down, that’s where you can direct stuff, that’s the studio control for this whole thing, and of course the monitor on the top is where you see yourself at. See behind this gentleman right here? It’s a green screen, on the computer it’s projected as, you can’t really see clearly, but it’s a bridge, it’s a bridge so…

Before we get started, since this one has a little text, you click on that little picture over here, and you click edit, you go to the control menu over here and click edit, and then you just write in your information, like your name and your organization. Write your name.

[inaudible chatter]

Now what we’re gonna do is, you’re going to rehearse your lines. Basically, when the words scroll upwards, there is this transparent pink bar on the top. When the words get there, that’s when you have to read the sentence that’s going to come up, so, yeah, it’s similar to what newscasters do. So, are you ready, Harris? Put the microphone on. Okay, so it’s going to count down, about three seconds.

Harris: Welcome to the community academia high tech bridge demonstration. My name is Tony, and I am…. This workshop is brought to you by Verizon, and people like you and me will learn how to design webpages number one, number two, do webcasts, produce miniature shows just like this one. High tech workshops are scheduled to take place this summer on Thursdays from 1-5, located at Times Square, 25 W. 43^rd Street between 5^th and 6^th Avenue, on the 18^th floor, Manhattan. Very good location, so please, come and join us.

Anthony Wong: Okay, you just rehearsed it right? So now what we do is, we’re going to do the actual recording, and afterwards, [inaudible]. [chatter and instructions]

Now, the thing is, you have to publish it now. [inaudible] Then publish your video for the internet or email usage. Click next.

[instructions continue]

Male Audience Member: Is it true that, for example, four months from now, if I want to do something like this, I can come to you, and [inaudible] workshop?

Anthony: Well, first you come to our workshop. Afterwards, if you need support, you can come once a month, get it? So you have to come to two workshops, spend 8 hours to create your basic web page with basic information, and then if you want to update, you come to us once a month by appointment, and then you can have access to equipment, we’ll let you do it.

Male Audience Member: [inaudible].

Anthony Wong: Just as long as you don’t overwhelm us, we’ll be able to handle it. Who wants to be the next volunteer? Everybody gets a try.

Thomas Tam: Anthony, did you create a webpage for all the pictures of everybody to this point? Okay, maybe if you need, for example, names of different people, place it under the picture so that we know who everybody is. [chatter and instructions]

Thomas Tam: Okay, let’s just do, maybe one more, okay?

Male Audience Member: Just read up to here. You want the next person? Anyone else? This lady here is, definitely I can tell, she is smiling, come on up here. What’s your name?

Female Audience Member: Nina.

Male Audience Member: Nina, okay, Nina, go for it. It’s only ten seconds, you know, welcome to the…. [chatter and instructions]

Male Audience Member: I noticed that there’s a, Tom, maybe you can respond while they’re doing this. I noticed that there’s a delay in the sound versus the movement of the lips. How big is that, and is that something that is built into the technology, or is it something that can be….

Thomas Tam: I think that when it will be published, it should match. And if it doesn’t match, that’s the limitation of the technology that we have.

[chatter]

Nina: Welcome to the community academia high-tech bridge demonstration. My name is Nina [inaudible], and [inaudible]. This workshop is sponsored by Verizon.
Thomas Tam: Of course, I mean the script is typed in by you. Whatever, it helps you because sometimes when you are facing a camera, it is a little bit nerve-wracking, so by reading the script it helps. So, we are going to try to show them, right Phillip?

Phillip Li: Yeah, it’ll be just a second. James is going to take care of the pictures though.

Thomas Tam: Umm, okay. At this point we are limited to just that one way kind of communication, meaning that you’re able to put on the web the parts about your organization, so there will be text up there, there will be pictures up there, there will be some sort of design up there that we will show you how to do, which is really very simple. Then, in addition to those static images and text, you’re also able to get moving pictures, such as the announcement, for example, of the announcer talking about the organization, etc.

Infact, you can use that frame to show many other activities, that you care to shoot. Once you get into that, then it becomes an issue of the size of your file. At this point we don’t have the big problem about that, but later on I’m sure that if too many people are interested in doing this, then we have to make some sort of a limit to, say, what can be put on the web. So what you are going to be able to get is this. First, you will be able to use our website to put on information about your organization, static ones and moving ones, [audially] and visually. There’s also, from the internet, the possibility of some interaction. For example, in our website right here, if you go to Chatham Square, [enunciates] Chat-ham Square, and so you are able to join the discussion groups wherever [inaudible] come on, and so that’s interaction, for example. But at this point the interaction will be pretty much part of the AAARI website.

So in other words what we are doing, really, is this. We give you the website so that you can use it to promote your organization and your activities, and we also help you to do maintenance updates of that on a monthly basis. That’s pretty much it. And if later on, you’re able to get [inaudible], maybe we will create a separate kind of website that’s good for all Asian communities. So you have a big forum and everybody can just go there and put on their own thing.

Are we, yeah, let me know if you’re ready, okay?

Male Audience Member: Okay, we’re ready, we’re going to put everybody’s name first with this.

Thomas Tam: Okay. So, you have to announce yourself, so we’ll put the name up. What we are going to do is this. We are going to put this up on our web, so when you go home tonight, you click on www.aaari.info, you’re going to be able to see it, and that will be sort of like what you will do. Brian Chu, okay, are you typing it in? Okay, next…

[chatter and instructions]

Thomas Tam: Are these all the pictures? Don’t we have more pictures than that?

Male Audience Member: The lady over here was cut off, Julian is going to take her picture.

[back to chatter and instructions]

Female Audience Member: I kind of straddle two roles, I’m a grad student and I’m an adjunct counselor, and I perform in a group called Sammy, and we have a website [inaudible].

Thomas Tam: Right. You can make links to the different websites, and what we can do is provide space for you. It’s like a newspaper, and so we have our own New York Times. Within the different pages, we can give you a few pages to do whatever announcement sand work that you want to do on a static basis and on an audio-visual basis. But you should, you have to come and join one of those workshops, and it’s really a very simple thing.

[low discussion]

Thomas Tam: I think that the high-tech situation has really made it very easy for small organizations to reach out to people and to do different things. Things like this become so easy now, where I think a few years ago, it’s quite unthinkable that you can do this. And I think that what we are talking about is one step beyond, and with internet presses, you can really reach out to a lot of people that you can never imagine. We have set up our website not very long ago, and since then we’ve been increasing our web visits almost 1,500 every month. So these are unique visitors who somehow, on the web, they type in things like “asian”, Google or Yahoo or whatever, they channel them to us. And we are able to get visits from people from everywhere. Strangely enough, we have quite a bit of visits from Australia. That’s very strange, but that’s what we do when we are able to have the web, it just makes the whole world much, much more smaller. Are we ready?

Okay. It doesn’t have to be that big, does it? Can we make a little bit smaller? Generally what you have is something like this, that is what is going to appear on your web page. Volume is not loud enough. The volume is not magnified, so for the individual people, they can listen, it’s just that we are unable to magnify it so that everyone can listen.

We’ll do better next time, we’ll figure out a way of magnifying it.

Phillip Li: Well, if you have any more volunteers, we’d like to try…

Thomas Tam: Now, the webpage that you talked about, how is it going to look at the end of the day? Are we going to have a picture of, say, participants at this workshop, and we have some people there, and we put on that page, for example, [inaudible], and then they can, well I think what I would like to do is to actually create a page so that, the page we have all the pictures and the names of everybody. And also on that page, if they click, they will be able to see the announcements, so that everybody will try to look at it when they go home.

I want to thank you for joining us today, and there will be a summary of different workshops downstairs, and at the end of that we will have raffle tickets and there will be a reception, so please stay with us, okay?

Phillip Li: [inaudible] link to see the pictures later on, and videos?

Thomas Tam: Okay, whatever that is easy for us to do, let’s save, so people can look at it when they go, alright? Yeah?

Female Audience Member: Can you explain a little bit about interactive websites, i.e…

Thomas Tam: Okay, the interactive website, basically it will be just like our discussion board. If you go home tonight and you get on the computer, go to something about discussion, I think that is what it’s called, and on there you will find different kinds of topics. If you type in something, you get a title, then it will be posted right there. Let’s say that somebody else, Nina, wants to answer what you have to say. Then she type in something. All she has to do is hit your article, type in something, and say, reply. Then it will be put on there, and then if you want to reply back, [inaudible], the whole thing is on the website. It’s not immediate, no. It will be put up there, and then if, let’s say the two of you are there at the same time, you can actually have a communication that way, by looking at the discussion board. It’s basically what we call a chat room, where you talk about…internet, you mean talking to each other, no. Maybe in the future we can do that, because the technology is really very simple. Here, it will be on this page. And then if you click on here, I want to find out what’s been said, then click on that, see, these are the things that people have said, things [inaudible] talked about the hiring discrimination in hiring of distinguished professors, and then somebody else made some comments. So that’s how you get on there.

We have tried [inaudible], the conference should have been organized in a different way, etc. [inaudible], we won’t censor it.

Male Audience Member: You go to the main page [inaudible] AAARI discussion forum and that’s where it is. This is the main page, aaari.info, [inaudible] and once you’re here you can just go in the discussion forum.

Thomas Tam: Click it, see, and then you go to that page. And then, if you want to find out what’s happening, you click the bottom one. If you want to already say something, just click the first one, click it. And then the subject is where the title is going to be, and then from, I think that maybe, it’s a good idea to give your real name, but it’s okay if you don’t, and then your comment will be here. And then at the end, just click here, “Post Article”. The whole thing will be posted.

Female Audience Member: Can we just go into CUNY and find your website, or do we have to go to AAARI [inaudible].

Thomas Tam: You can go to CUNY, it gets very complicated. You go to CUNY, and then CUNY goes to Colleges, and Colleges goes to Queens College, and Queens College goes to Centers and Institutes, and then from Centers and Institutes you can find Asian American Asian Research Institute. And you click. So the easiest way is to just type in www.aaari.info, and you are right there, it’s express.

Female Audience Member: But then people have to know your website, in that case.

Thomas Tam: Right, it’s simpler. Otherwise, you can try this. You can go to Google, and you type in, let’s say, “Asian American Asian Research Institute”. I think that you can probably get to us immediately. Oh, we can do it right away and see if I’m right or wrong. [inaudible]. We are proudly…where are we? Is that it? Ah, yeah, click it. There we go. We are number four. We will try harder.

Male Audience Member: May I make a very big comment on being number four. One of the technical points that I drew actually, and I am a search engine expert, is [inaudible] so I may be a possible volunteer to make you, absolutely, unconditionally, number one, no charge. [inaudible] study, [inaudible] how Google works, and there’s no problem, so when you say you want to be number one, [inaudible], no problem. For you, no charge.

Thomas Tam: Thank you. Okay, so we look forward to seeing you…by the way, you can register online here for the workshop, so you can go to the, can you do a registration, James? Do we have a high-tech thing right there? Go to high-tech workshop, click on it, and it should get you to the web page that talks about this. Now, workshop registration, you click there, and there you go. This is interactive. You enter information down there, scroll down please, scroll down. So then, no, this is Chinatown Workshop, scroll down, keep going, we have a very good workshop series. You missed it, right there, see, here. Right, right. We did not put in the dates yet, but we will try to put in the dates by this weekend. And then you can list, and then you type in the different things, and then when you click submit, that’s what you get. And then if you click high-tech, the high-tech row will be indicated and then we know that somebody has registered for the high-tech. And then we are going to try to make it so that there are four or five or six workshops, so that we will know which one you are signing up for, and so we have a sense of what to prepare for you. So that’s what we’re going to do. Okay. Tell your friends about this. Thank you. That’s it. We’ll see you downstairs.