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by Francine Schwartz
Take the Ignacio exit off 101. Ride
through what seems like an endless lineup of housing units for the
military personnel of Hamilton Air Force Base. Homes painted in faded
green, each a drab monotonous clone of the one before it, stand like
tired vestiges from another time. Occassionally you see a bicycle, a
parked car, laundry hanging on the line or other signs of life. People
do still live here, but overall the area looks and feels deserted.
 Then, suddenly a breath
of fresh air. The feeling shifts to something altogether different. You
enter an enchanted wood inhabited by deer, foxes and other woodland
creatures. Amid this is a cluster of redwood buildings, some under
reconstruction, which make up the Indian Valley campus of the College
of Marin, a place that until very recently seemed frozen in time since
the mid-1970's, when it was built. Unlike its overcrowded Kentfield
counterpart, Indian Valley, which is relatively close to the Sonoma
County border, has been pathetically underutilized. A lavish facility
that includes an Olympic-size swiming pool and two theaters, it is a
space that has been awaiting transformation. And the transformation has
finally begun.
In December 1993, while scouting
possible locations for the annual North Bay Multimedia Association
Christmas party, Steve Kirk visited the old officers' club at Hamilton
Air Force Base. In the back of his mind were memories of a cooperative
vision from the '70's that had fascinated him - the Solar Village - a
vision that had almost become a reality at the base. The village was to
have been a place where businesses worked together, where the people
from those businesses lived and where cars were exchanged for a light
rail system. The military base was to have been transformed into a
cooperative community - an idea born of the communal ideologies of the
'60's.
Kirk was also looking for a new space
for his company, Sage Interactive, an instructional development company
that specializes in the use of technology to enhance the learning
process. Several ideas merged into one in Kirk's mind. He didn't have a
name for it yet, but was to become the Digital Village.
Meeting of the minds
Meanwhile, James Middleton,
president of the College of Marin, was interested in finding a high
tech program for the Indian Valley campus. Steve Kirk had by this time
approached Hamilton Field with the idea for the Digital Village, but
without any real success. He and video and television producer Lee
Callister, then-president of the North Bay Multimedia Association, met
with Middleton and proposed that the college make space available for
small business and educational purposes. Middleton was receptive, asked
for a proposal and in April 1994 the Digital Village concept took its
first step from
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At the Village (left to right):
Mike Gonzales of PG&E, Mickey Mantle of Broderbund, Don Means of
the Digital Village, Gary Lamb of PG&E and Lee Callister of the
Digital Village
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idea to reality. The four original planning
partners were Joe Oakey from Autodesk, Middleton, Kirk and Callister.
Don Means of Chiron Associates, a technology projects consulting firm,
later joined the original team as project coordinator.
Reaction from the community was almost
immediate. Broderbund became of source of fudning as did Mindscape, the
Marin Community Foundation, Memory Chips and Larry Brackett, the
president of Frank Howard Allen Realty.
In late summer '94, the Digital Village
hosted an "electronic picnic" at its new home in Novato. The emphasis
was on education and games. More than 1,500 people came to the event,
many of them children. With a background of live rock music, multimedia
aficionados and novices alike enjoyed a dy in the sun, checking out
assorted CD-ROMs and multimedia presentations.
Light years from light shows
Back when the Ignacio campus was
still being built, when Warhol was alive and LPs were still being sold
- multimedia
meant film, slides, loudspeakers, music. Most people now think of it as
another name for CD-ROMs, but according to Callister, this is changing,
and the Digital Village will change with it.
"The Digital Village is a multimedia
development center, an environment where business ad education work
together and coexist for mutual benefit," says Callister.
At the Village, small businesses can
find collaborative partners and access equipment and educational
resources as well as information resources through the New Media Center
(part of the Indian Valley campus library). Some business like Silver
Mountain, a CD-ROM publishing company, have already moved into the
Vilage. Other companies have put in their applications and stilkl
others have expressed interest in doing so in the future. But in the
first year of the Digital Village's existence the educational end of
the project has led the show.
In the first year, 25 noncredt
multimedia courses were offered at the college. Says Middleton,
"Multimedia is quickly becoming an instructional center of excellence
that is revitalizing the Indian Valley Campus." In the fall '95
semester, two credit courses in multimedia will be offered. These are
the first of a group of courses that will lead to a new associate
degree in multimedia. Pending formal approval, this major will be
implemented in fall 1996.
A signifant departure from traditional
computer instruction will take place at the Digital Village's
interactive laboratory. Instead of placing students in front of
computer screens and making them labor through routine teacher
assignments students will be grouped into teams and given specific
projects to work on using multimedia tools They will learn how to use
the tools and subsequently work at computer stations optimized for
video production, audio production, CD-ROM development, or whatever.
Students will then pool the individual elements to create a finished
project, just like in the real world where video producers, sound
engineers, writers, etc., team up to complete a project.
"This kind of approach is at the heart
of what we're doing," says Callister. "The New Media Center will also
include a network of computers with access to the Internet, other
online resources and a library of CD-ROMs. The students will have
access to everything that's out there in the world."
Walden III
Nothing else like the Digital
Village exists, the partners claim. The closest thing to it, according
to Callister, is the Digital Media Lab at the University of Hawaii,
"but it's not a development center." And development is a major
function of the Digital Village.
"We will be looking to work with all the
major players in the North Bay to help design the long-term educational
program," he said. "We want to create an educational program that is
useful, something that will teach people the skills that they say they
need." The partners are looking to local companies like LucasArts,
Broderbund, and Mindscape to assist in the planning and execution of
the educational program as well as to assist in acquiring necessary
funding, whether through direct financial support or by attaching a
prestigious name to the effort.
Yet another dimension of the Digital
Village is its designation as the first of four planned multimedia
centers in a regional gorup called the Bay Area Multimedia Partnership,
a nine-county multimedia initiative. The Village was named the North
Bay regional hub on what is called the "digital diamond." The other
multimedia centers will be in the East Bay, South Bay and San
Francisco. Already involved in this partnership are familiar payers
like LucasArts, Minscape, North Bay Multimedia Association, Broderbund,
Autodesk, Pacific Bell and Coopers and Lybrand.
Be seeing you
The partners have set no limits.
They see the Digital Village as a model, a place where ideas and
resources come together as new possibilities emerge. At this point a
walk through the Digital Village is largely a walk through virtual
reality. In spite of all that has happened in such a relatively short
time, the project is still in its infancy But even as this is written,
the village is transforming into a reality. "It's all coming together,"
muses Kirk.
For some, the spirit of the '60's lives
on in the high tech world. One is not necessarily alien to the other.
On the contrary, technology can be a vehicle for cooperation. In the
future, this won't be a possibility, but a necessity for survival.
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