So there’s been a definite negative tilt to my posts lately, but it hasn’t been all bad. Last Friday I co-facilitated a workshop pushing social software on a group of students who are leading Student Directed Seminars next semester. This is a phenomenal program here at UBC in which students propose and coordinate for-credit undergraduate courses. (Here’s a courseblog from a seminar held last year.)
This group has some tremendously cool courses on tap for next January, and it was a sincere honour to work with people who are so gifted and eager to learn. I’ve already had follow-up meetings with some of them… I tell ya, events like that keep me going.
And this morning’s commute was greatly enhanced by listening in on a mind-bending conversation between two of my favorite working visionaries, Jon Udell and Gardner Campbell. The discussion starts with consideration of how new tools are prompting new questions of practice (on issues like archiving persistent student work and new media literacies) that I am wrestling with right now, and just goes deeper and deeper… I think I will need to give this one the Oook treatment and excerpt some bits for students in the Text Technologies course. Frankly, I need to listen again in part because my brain simply couldn’t process quickly enough to keep up (at least not while I was elbowing competing bus-riders for space). But how’s this for a succinct description of Dr. Campbell and what he brings to the table?
…here’s a guy who teaches everything from Milton to rock and roll to Ted Nelson. He’s creating a new kind of academic discipline that preaches but also practices information and media literacy. In this interview he explains clearly and passionately what that means, and why it matters.
I should say more, but yet another workshop that I’m co-leading (with the rather unappetizing title “The Web 2.0 All-You-Can-Eat Buffet”) is about to begin…
