screenshot from USIP Certificate Course in Interfaith Conflict Resolution

Last year I worked on the U.S. Institute of Peace’s certificate course in Interfaith Conflict Resolution.

Just this week my client emailed me:

“Good news.  Our Interfaith Conflict Resolution Course has won a Best Practices Award from the U.S. Distance Learning Association.  Very nice recognition.  A lot of elements went into it, the narrative, the videos, etc., and you contributed in a variety of ways.  But the photo selection in particular brings life and originality to each page.”

In their own words, the editors “do our best to celebrate what is going right, question what is going wrong, and suggest what could be done better. Cute pictures of children with shiny new laptops don’t keep us from asking tough questions.”

OLPC News has been running on Movable Type since launch, and now runs Movable Type Pro, version 4.21. I have years of experience with Movable Type, so I was happy to help make some recent small changes to the templates and to the CSS. Here is how I was able to help:

• Added automatically generated (tag-based) list of related entries at the end of each entry
• Changed search results so that clicking on a tag brings up a list of entry excerpts (instead of full posts)
• Visually differentiated comments by the entry authors
• Visually differentiated the recent forum posts and recent comments in sidebar
• Formatted trackbacks to look more like comments
• Adjusted the header text and image slightly

I’ve granted permission to Professor Emeritus Alvin O. Thompson, Department of History & Philosophy, University of the West Indies, Cave Hill Campus, Barbados, to use this photo. Dr. Thompson is writing a small book entitled Confronting Slavery: Breaking through the Corridors of Silence. The photo was taken in the courtyard of the Maison des Esclaves (Slave House) on Goree Island, Senegal.

The first is of cliff paintings in Songo, Mali. Songo hosts an excision ceremony every three years for all boys of age. For better or worse, it is also attended now by many tourists and international journalists.


The second photo is of a pair of typical Dogon granaries, which store millet, onions, tomatoes, and other supplies. This one is on the cliffs outside Teli, Mali.

screenshot from Certificate Course in Interfaith Conflict Resolution

In reading the Nigeria case study, I learned about “the pastor and the imam” — two religious leaders who arrange interfaith dialogue in troubled communities, in a brave and powerful effort to bring peace to their region.

The Guatemala case study was a sort of “behind the scenes” look at the peace process that brought an end to thirty-six years of misery in that country.

I had several tasks for this project:

• Researching, selecting, and editing photos to illustrate the content and themes of the course. I used photos provided by USIP, and others I found on the United Nations and other NGOs’ web sites. Best of all, I used an AP Images account to through some of the most striking and powerful news photos ever taken.
• Writing multiple-choice test questions based on the content. I have to admit this part was more challenging than expected, but very satisfying when I worked with the client to get the questions and answers just right.
• Coding all the web pages from a template provided by USIP.
• Proofreading the text.

After completion of my tasks, my contact at USIP said,

“Thanks so much for your help with the project.  Not only your first-rate technical work and editing support, but most of all your experience as a photographer.  Those photos help put the visual into visual storytelling, and help explain the continuing flood of enthusiastic feedback.”

screenshot of MarkIsaac.net home page

Mark’s site was certainly different from any other I had worked on, and a lot of fun.

screenshot of Mark's projects page

From the projects page, clicking on a portfolio pops up another window with the portfolio inside:

screenshot of Mark's Media self-portraits portfolio

This photo of a statue in Boboli Gardens appears in the third edition of the guide to Florence, Italy. (You can see the photo in the page here without downloading the whole map.)



These two photos of the National Gallery of Art appear in the third edition of the guide to Washington, DC.



You can see these photos in the Washington, DC Schmap guide here and here.

I have granted permission to OTTN Publishing (Stockton, NJ) to use this photo of Senegalese fishermen setting out in the morning. I took the photo from our hotel in Toubab Dialaw. OTTN says, “the book in question is entitled Senegal and is part of our Africa: Continent in the Balance Series, which we are publishing through Mason Crest Publishers, based in Philadelphia, PA. Each book in the series profiles an African country and reviews the people, the government, the economy, the cultural traditions, the history and the land itself. They are full-color, glossy paged, hardcover books aimed at middle-school library readers.”

• First, with the Geekcorps Director, I developed the site architecture.
• Then I designed the look and feel of site, giving it a more modern, clean look.
• I selected, installed, configured, tested, and deployed the open-source CMS, Wordpress.
• I hand-coded site templates using XHTML, CSS, and Wordpress template tags; I created original graphics.
• I researched and installed add-ons (Wordpress plugins for additional functionality, mailing list software, etc.).
• I tested the site and deployed it.

Once the site was live, I took over management of it:

• I wrote, edited, and published articles.
• I managed comments and trackbacks.
• I administrated user accounts.

The old Geekcorps website looked like this:

I made mockups, and coded all the XHTML and CSS except the dynamic menus.