Neighborhood Narratives invites students to examine the city as a virtual and mixed reality space and investigates the complex means by which cell phones, GPS, mobile recording devices and social network games effect their knowledge of and relation to lived space. Using mobile web 2.0 applications, students construct parallel realities, mediated representations, sound maps, installations that integrate radio and other communications technology, and networked audio/visual tags to create new community histories that capture life in their neighborhoods. By creating an internationally networked learning environment linking students in the United States with students in Rome, London and Tokyo, Neighborhood Narratives is a mechanism though which students can explore neighborhoods across the globe while developing transnational connections. By examining the similarities and the differences of their “neighborhood narratives,” students begin to develop heightened understandings of the effects of globalization both at home and in other nations.
