James’ interactive podcasting sounds amazing to me (although I’m not sure this project is to be opened to the public). As I mentioned in class, I always try to find video lectures and podcasts to supplement my scholarly insufficiency. I have indeed learned a lot via those media. Yet, there has been an insatiable element of them – engaging. I personally think questioning and participating in discourses are the most imperative parts of pedagogy. For that reason, I’ve been looking for some online methods to engage in some dialectic activities with other people, but it hasn’t been easy. I bet there are some online communities and platforms where people can do so like Lynda (it seems like you can at least ask a question there.). But another problem to a lot of people like me is “finding” them. They are not well exposed or advertised among non-academic people. Now that I’m in an academic school, I’m always surrounded by intellectuals and informative sources. But before I came here, as a fashion designer, finding educational sources was really tough other than books. When I tried to find them online, I couldn’t help being skeptical about “credibility of the information and knowledge” I found there since I was simply unfamiliar with those. Anyhow, the bottom line is.. Not only developing this project well but also efficiently exposing it to the general public ought to be one of our primary concerns.. I think.. I’m very interested in publicizing fashion design/making education as well as providing core materials such as garment patterns (Patterns are some sort of 2-D paper blueprints of garments to be cut with cloths before sewing. They are one of the most important parts of making clothes.) and fashion history with a preponderant amount of visual data. If James’ project becomes true, it’ll be tremendously convenient for me to start this project!

Another thing crossed my mind as I was listening to Juliana’s project was rearranging and reorganizing existing data must be another mission of DHers.. I think.. For example, NYPL’s online picture collection website that I posted last semester on our blog is a great example. They have a fabulous and prolific collection of images which is really hard to find just by googling – their costume collection is AMAZING! The only problem is its interface is not so convenient or user-friendly. Also, there are no further explanations or descriptions about the images other than the titles of the images. Again in terms of fashion pedagogy, providing well-organized, informative and user-friendly visual data/sources are one of the most significant elements.. I think.. Reinforcing (with further information) and redesigning (as a user-friendly interface) NYPL’s online picture collection website would be really helpful not only to design/art students but also to historians and other intellectuals.. Just a thought..