Freedom Center launches Digital Backpack project

Forget those school backpacks loaded down with old, dog-eared textbooks. Cincinnati’s Freedom Center just a launched a “digital backpack” project to offer its visitors a new way to learn and spread the word about the Center. Interested guests form a “production team” before their visit and reserve one of the Digital Backpacks (designed for the project by Higher Ground in Ann Arbor, Mich.)  Each pack contains an Apple MacBook Pro notebook computer, iPod classic with voice recorder, digital camera, high-def digital camcorder and tripod — enough tools to creatively express their perspective on their visit to the Center, a place that is all about the quest of societies to define freedom. These perspectives are then captured as a digital movie, archived at the Freedom Center, and published to a special section of an iTunes channel that the Freedom Center plans to launch in May 2008.
 
John Pepper, co-chair of the Freedom Center board, says the project “will allow students to investigate the importance of freedom in a new and innovative way, facilitate deeper dialogue about freedom issues and provides opportunities to express their view of freedom and share it with the world.” The reservation-required project was developed with support from KnowledgeWorks Foundation, and advice from the University of Cincinnati.

Writer: David Holthaus
Source: Ellen Turner, National Underground Railroad Freedom Center