An example on my Life Wall Pro version with some locations I have current profesdsional contacts with is at: View Life Wall Pro – Google Map Element

Some background to the XML used for KML Placeholders is here:
https://www.wiki.ed.ac.uk/display/Informatics/Google+Maps+Placeholder+in+KML

bat Life Wall v2 2011-09-22

The elements of the Life Wall have been encouraging me to dig out all sorts of stuff that was buried away, and recall events and dates (sometimes with the aid of my wife and others) which were already only dimly there.  But they have been brought back to vivid life through developing my personal Life Wall.  I assume everyone will want photos of them when very young on their Life Wall… there are few events in life as important as being born! The baby photos of me at a few months old and age 1 year are up there now. Did I look cute then?

The live Life Wall is at http://atate.org – Hover a mouse over a tag or clipping for more detail. Click on the thumbnails for some larger versions of the images.

Life Map

I had already added a link to a “Life Map” on which I think a lot of life’s experiences could be noted through places visited and dated events.  I feel this element of the Life Wall could be so valuable, that I have adjusted the clippings column that will map to one HD screen of presentation to allow for an embedded Life Map directly on the main display.  There is a link to a larger map which could then be shown over 2 X HD displays when clicked.

Life Map Pro

The Life Wall idea and presentation could also be adapted to professional purposes, e.g. to collect together and present a researcher’s entire scientific contribution. It could allow then to look at their work and relationships. They could bring in professional contacts and the mappings between people, projects, organisations, tools, etc. Displays could include professional social network and project relationship diagrams (e.g. CMU Catalyst), FOAF, knowledge asset roadmaps (Macintosh, Filby and Tate, 1998), etc.  I am developing this aspect now.  As for Life Map Personal I hope to make the approach reasonably general and create an empty Life Map web area which others can copy and adapt to use themselves.

Reference

Ann Macintosh, Ian Filby and Austin Tate (1998) “Knowledge Asset Road Maps” Proc. of the 2nd Int. Conf. on Practical Aspects of Knowledge Management (PAKM98) Basel, Switzerland, 29-30 Oct. 1998, (U. Reimer, ed.). Available from http://www.aiai.ed.ac.uk/project/oplan/documents/1998/98-pakm98-roadmaps.pdf

bat Life Wall v1

Origins

The Life Wall came about in September 2011 as Austin Tate was exploring social web and community tools for introducing students to one another on the Edinburgh MSc in e-Learning. WallWisher was used to let people post media clippings to show their interests. But other forms of exchange were also useful.

Rationale

Life Wall is an exploration of use of tags and clippings, links and annotations in a number of visual and layout styles to look at your life story, things you have done, people who have influenced you, etc.. Elements are included to encourage reflection and recall. Emphasis elements encourage reflection on the impact on your life of the things you include. The Life Wall encourages archiving of older and non-computer-based material.

Life Wall is designed to be placed on two main displays, designed for presentation on 2 X side-by-side HD displays (1920×1080), but should be viewable on other screens.

As with all forms of social media, ensure you only show what you wish and do not disclose information which could pose a security risk.

Alternative name: Life Story

Life x N

The Life Wall concept could also be used for a couple. Developing the wall with your partner could be a fun (or surprising) experience and let you recall joint memories. Extensions to an entire family “Life x N” are possible.

Life Lines and Life Style

The displays are designed to be flexible and customisable. A CSS style sheet (“Life Style” – life.css) is used to allow for simple changes of font, style and colours of headings, bullets, etc.

1. One display panel can include a pin board for media clippings, images, videos, audio files, etc. WallWisher is one possible choice for this panel.
2. A second display supports a tag cloud with tags meaningful to you, and with a relative weight in terms of style. A regular style is adopted for each “Life Tag”:  tag weight : url link : hover text : visible text
3. A left column may show an image of you, and provided suggestive links, which you can customise or remove. Suggestions include:

• Life Links
• Life Map
• Life Style
• Life FAQs
• Life To Do

BAT Life Wall v0

I have been inspired by the WallWisher and ideas for creative media in some of the course guides for the MSc in e-Learning… and have begun to think of ways to explore the use of tags and clippings to let someone tell their life story in unstructured, time line and narrative ways.

I wanted to look at the idea of your life in 2 x HD screens of display space.  My trial setup is called 2 x HD x bat (my initial and long time computer login name). Spoken in a spelled out way as “two” “times” “h” “d” “times” “b” “a” “t”.

This might be useful for some of the assignments on the Digital Cultures course too