With the evolution and growth of the Open Source Pachyderm community, the NMC’s role is winding down. As of February 2010, we are no longer taking on paid hosted accounts, and current accounts will be available for their full year. We will continue to provide membership benefit accounts to people from NMC Member organizations (contact your local NMC liaison to request an account) as well as to members of the Marcus Institute for Digital Education in the Arts (MIDEA).

All MIDEA and NMC Member accounts as of December 2010 will be created on our new Pachyderm 2.1 MIDEA server. Anyone with an NMC member account on the Pachyderm Services server will have until March 2011 to finish projects, and can request an account on the new server at any time.

The 2.1 version fo Pachyderm as added many enhancements, templates, accessibility features and stability. New documentation and videos are available. In fact, you do not even need to run pachyderm on a server anymore as it can be installed (with a little elbow grease) on a desktop computer.

Please join the Pachyderm Open Source Community to keep in touch with the latest news on Pachyderm.

Thanks for the ride.

http://go.nmc.org/pachyproblem

Up to now, people have emailed various NMC staff people, and usually we need a little more information to identify and address the issue- this form is designed to get the details needed to start the process.

The form instantly notifies us of your report, and having this information in one place helps us track common problems and solutions.

The stories behind the objects are interpreted in a variety of ways and through many different digital media.  You can read or listen to the story or legend told orally, or you can watch an ASL interpreter sign the story.  Historical information about each culture and extensive classroom materials for K-12 educators are also available through the site.

Please take a look at the extensive site at: http://mag.rochester.edu/PicturingTheStory/

We are planning to be installing the new software the end of August, and over the next few months will be working on migrating existing accounts to this new version

There is a file in a published presentation called sounds.swf that contains all of the sound effects.

You can replace it with a copy that has no sounds (download no-sounds.swf, rename it sounds.swf, and replace the same file in your published presentation. Note that when you republish your presentation, you will have to repeat this step in your final set of files.

If you know Flash, you can edit the source sounds.fla file to selectively remove unwanted sounds (download the full package (2.9 Mb) with the no-sounds.swf file as well as the source file sounds.fla).

The focus of the conference is to bring together Pachyderm authors, developers, and others in an ongoing conversation about how to communicate effectively with digital media. The conference provides a forum for beginners to learn from established experts, and for those with more advanced skills to exchange ideas and gather inspiration from their peers.

The theme of this year’s conference is the power of story. Highlights will include final details about the next release of Pachyderm, as well as a special showcase of presentations that demonstrate the deep connection between story and audience.

This year, the conference will take a form that involves the audience in ways much like the “unconference” model. The unconference model allows room for spontaneous presentations to come from the audience.

“We are hoping to hear from attendees before the conference about the kinds of things they would like to see and do,” explains Rachel Smith, Vice President of NMC Services. “Of course, we are very much looking forward to the topics that will arise at the conference itself. We are also asking for people to send us links to current projects they are working on, especially those that tell a story effectively, for an online showcase.” Links and suggestions may be forwarded directly to Ms. Smith at rachel@nmc.org.

In addition to informal or on-the-fly “unconference” sessions, a variety of more traditional session types will take place, such as keynotes, panels, and showcases.

Further information about the conference is available on the conference website.

Accounts are priced at a yearly subscription rate of $99 (Basic Account) or $149 (Premium Account; includes access to the Help Desk). To activate a new Pachyderm authoring account, or for more information, visit the Pachyderm Services Sign-up Page.

The program offers two categories of services — hosted accounts for teachers, students, museum professionals and other individuals; and hosted server solutions for institutions and departments. The new unit will provide a variety of ways for individuals and institutions to have hosted Pachyderm authoring accounts on a yearly subscription basis designed to match any budget.

“Pachyderm combines interactive multimedia, digital storytelling, and clean, simple design in a way that lets authors focus on the content they want to share,” notes Rachel Smith, Vice President of NMC Services and Pachyderm Project Director. “Photos and video can be recorded with a basic digital camera, edited with free or low-cost tools, and placed into Pachyderm quickly and easily. This really is a tool for people who don’t have access to expensive equipment and software.”

Designed for people with little multimedia experience, Pachyderm is accessed through a web browser and is as easy to use as filling out a web form. Authors upload their own media (images, audio clips, and short video segments) and place them into pre-designed templates, which can play video and audio, link to other templates, zoom in on images, and more. Once the templates have been completed and linked together, the presentation is published and can then be downloaded and placed on the author’s website or on a CD or DVD ROM. Authors may also leave their presentations on the Pachyderm server and link directly to them there. The result is an attractive, interactive Flash-based multimedia presentation.

“Pachyderm is perfect for students, from grade school through college,” according to Kris Wetterlund of Sandbox Studios. “We have seen museums create kid-friendly pieces that blend art from their collections with classroom concepts in history, literature, mathematics, and science. Putting Pachyderm in the hands of the kids themselves is going to be a powerful way to let them express themselves and really work with the content they are learning,” she adds. “I can’t wait to see what they do with it.”

Edutopia, the online magazine of the George Lucas Educational Foundation, described Pachyderm as “multimedia authoring for peanuts” (“The Elephant in the (Class)room: Pachyderm’s Multimedia Tool,” Edutopia, August 29, 2007). Basic subscription accounts are available for $99 per year; premium accounts, which include unlimited Help Desk access, are $149 per year. No special software is required to author in Pachyderm—the service runs entirely in a web browser.

Dr. Larry Johnson, NMC’s CEO, notes, “The aim of Pachyderm Services is to provide options to schools and museums, especially the smaller locations that simply don’t have the technical staff to support an installation of their own. With Pachyderm Services, museums and schools don’t need to install a thing to be able to support multimedia authoring for the web—no servers to maintain, no need to train technical support staff—it’s all done for you.” Johnson also notes that organizations requiring large numbers of accounts can save money by leasing a dedicated Pachyderm server for as little as $5 per account per year.

Hosted Pachyderm accounts and server solutions are available immediately. For further information or to request an account, please visit pachyderm.nmc.org.

The specification will be released on PachyForge in early November, and a call for developers will go out to the Pachyderm community shortly after that.

The Council is currently working on the timeline for the release of 2.1.0, which will include new templates, code fixes, and an upgrade path for 2.0 installations.

Learn more about the Pachyderm 2.1 specification….

A joint effort of Pachyderm Council Chair, Scott Sayre, and lead developer Joshua Archer, PachyForge will host discussion forums, list current Pachyderm installations, and serve as a focal point to bring the community together. PachyForge is scheduled for official release in November 2007, but is available now for those who want a preview at http://www.pachyforge.org/