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June 2011

MC 101 Wrap Up: Harrisburg

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Today marked the first of our MC 101 sessions, this one in Harrisburg.  I met Shivaani Selvaraj early for a quick cup of coffee before setting up in E314 of Olmsted, which was a great room for the event, with its tiered seating and buffet-approved curved tabletops.  The gorgeous day probably cut into our attendance a bit, but 15 people made it out to hear about all that the MC has to offer, discuss their upcoming project ideas and tour the Media Commons and Library learning spaces.

One nice thing about today’s session was the tour of the ever-evolving HBG Library.  As it moves towards becoming more of a Knowledge Commons, the push for flexible spaces and furniture is making the Library a vibrant resource.  (It doesn’t hurt that the building itself is lovely to begin with…)  John Hoh and Greg Crawford graciously led a tour through some of the newest rooms and arrangements and shared their plans for the coming move of the MC studio and equipment lending to the Library this Fall.  This will go along perfectly with the already-moved MC editing space that is prominently positioned in the Library entrance.

I met a lot of new faculty and staff contacts and discussed some exciting projects for the coming year today – and now I can’t wait to get started on the Fall consultations and training!

Update:  Evaluation

I asked the attendees of MC 101 at Harrisburg to rate their experience from start to finish.  

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Of the 5 respondents, 4 thought the Overview – the heart of the event – was Excellent overall while 1 found it to be Good.

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All thought MC 101 was Interesting (3 Strongly Agree, 2 Agree) and most thought it was Relevant to their work (2 Strongly Agree, 2 Agree, 1 Neutral).  < MC101_AspectsCL.jpg

From a logistics point of view, attendees generally though the event exhibited clear Organization and Pacing and information was shared through clear channels of Communications.  Not everyone was a fan of the Venue, which was a classroom in the round but the Refreshments from C&J Catering were well-received.

All respondents said they would attend or recommend MC 101 in the future.

Plasticity

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I’m not entirely convinced I agree with the premise of Daniel Wilson’s essay for The Wall Street Journal, “The Terrifying Truth About New Technology“.  

In the piece, Wilson explores the notion that the stagnation of learning potential in maturing adults is the catalyst of dreading new technologies.  Except he does this with humor.  To wit:

The fear of the never-ending onslaught of gizmos and gadgets is nothing new. The radio, the telephone, Facebook–each of these inventions changed the world. Each of them scared the heck out of an older generation. And each of them was invented by people who were in their 20s.

My reason for disagreeing is that I have actually worked with a number of people well-outside their twenties who are far more into technology advancements than I am.  And there’s of course the most famous 50-something CEO on the planet, Steve Jobs.  That guy probably likes new tech.

I ended up coming back around to Wilson’s side, though.  His advice for staying positive about the high tech onslaught was resoundingly correct:

I’m not saying you have to keep up. But at the moment you choose to stop growing, your world will begin to shrink. You’ll be able to communicate with fewer people, especially the young. You will only see reruns. You will not understand how to pay for things. The outside world will become a frightening and unpredictable place. 

 As they say, the only constant is change.

New Björk

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Björk

I really needn’t say too much more than that.

I will, though. I’ll start with this quote from The Guardian:

“The Modern Things” […] playfully posits the theory that technology has always existed, waiting in mountains for humans to catch up. In fact, Björk has always seemed like an artist who’s been waiting for technology to catch up with her. Finally, it seems to have done so.”

(1. I love “The Modern Things“, one of my all-time favorites.) The new album, Biophilia will be taking the form of a collection of iPad mini-apps, one for each track. (2. Yes, Björk is releasing her album on the iPad.) Not content to just put out a static package of music, Björk will also be releasing evolving content during the lifespan of the album – and every single track can be remixed and reconfigured via games and other creative means. (3. Not just an iPad gimmick but a project that takes advantage of the iPad’s living nature.) The new release will even be toured with iPads in the band, as they are used to mix the songs on stage – when we aren’t too busy playing the “gameleste”, an instrument Björk commissioned from an Icelandic artist. (4. See 2 and, also, holy shit.)

björk: road to crystalline from Björk on Vimeo.

Because who doesn’t want to listen to Björk’s new album on a road trip…with Björk?

I know I can’t wait. There will even be a video directed by Gondry to kick things off, we’ve been told.

The World of Tomorrow

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We will become advanced enough to put arithmetic, math, science and any other subject into an interesting game.

A student response to how schools will be different in 2015. I guess the limitation is not resource-based but just a matter of evolving our educators’ mental faculties to support such concepts. Of course, nothing tops this hopeful prediction:

You might be able to stay at home and take all classes at home while teachers and other school staff go to school building and have several monitors monitoring each student, checking their work, grading tests, teaching classes through video chat or a handheld smart board.

All kidding aside, it is telling that some students were hoping for improvements as simple as accessible computers that are “fast enough” in their dream of 2015. Or that some students expect that in 4 years, we’ll all be teaching programs like Word or PowerPoint. Having just come from a private Liberal Arts school with an education program that has its undergrads teaching 1st graders how to use WordPress, it’s important to remember that access to technology is in NO way equal.
And that we all want to stay home.

Social Media Done Right

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I may be hyper-sensitive to the correct usage of Facebook as a social marketing tool because of the new MC Facebook Page, but regardless, I thought this was a cool project:

240721_10150208914137121_104830362120_7488517_2000343_o.jpgCollege of IST has introduced a game whereby students are asked to identify the locations in which this little lion (cue Mumford and Sons) is photographed.  The story is that he’s the Nittany Lion’s younger brother and is touring campus this week.  Students are also being given the opportunity to name the mascot.  My favorite so far?  Lulz Lion.