And the beat blogs on

Tomas started a dialogue that resonated with a few people about the open ended blogging in our learning journals versus the channel posts. I see an opportunity to change from Apathy to Action and it begins with (I kid you not) pulling Kegan/Leahy off the shelf and turning the complaint into a commitment. We wish to unshackle our postings and open them up to a more creative forum where the room to explore might be infinite.

To answer the call of self directed learning, we call upon our learning circles to come together and set thier own agenda with the help of PDPs and faculty to align with the direction of the overall course and allow for deeper exploration. Each learning circle can run their own creative session to help flush out their short and long term goals and what will help get them there. Faculty help with a framework to focus the effort and we use what we learned in this class to spread the knowledge.

I see Fogle's video blog(vlog) as a new medium to open up how we engage with our post and response program. Many of us seem to be fully engaged and excited about the new skills and tools we learned how to use. I feel we can expand on that by carrying it forward to the next semester  and role modeling what Christopher is trying to get BGI to do for the next incoming class.

The Crisis of CRL opened up what my learning has been from LPD, CRL, People and Teams and we can use these tools to design and persuade people that we are learning what the tools are and how to apply them for maximum effectiveness. Do you feel this could open up your learning for the reminder of the year?

Growing up 2.0

I read Danah Boyd's piece on her recent experience with the back channel while presenting and shocked at the level of maturity in which twitter was used. What does it mean to be a professional at one of these conferences? One of the comments came from an individual who attended a scientific conference and the norms for their back channel set the bar a bit higher and a result was a cleaner, more present chat.

After 4 semesters at BGI , I noticed chaos ensues when norms and expectation are not articulated and written down. This is true of BGI as well as everyone else, which connects to the Dunbar Number and seems to represent a boundary between good and bad behavior and the requirements to setup best practices. Brian Weller brought up some great research regarding memory(after 40 minutes recall fades), attention spans(20 minutes then focus wanes) and use of a figure ground which has the power to shock and refocus people's attention just when they drift off.

The crowd at Web 2.0 seemed to suffer from ADD and a need for everything to entertain to have value.  Through the many presentations we do at BGI, remembering to be authentic and own what you know helps empower the speaker and engage the audience. Does the IT profession need a courtesy lesson followed by sometime behind the lectern to help with empathy? Maybe the Unconference needs to go mainstream to engage the speaker with the audience at a more personal level to create a collaborative learning enviroment.

my appreciation to the faculty and staff at BGI for role modeling what this looks like to give me the tools I need to affect change in the world.

Who is in Control?

I read Miriam's blog entry about Youtube and wondered who is really in control? I think this is a valid question and Justin Tilson and Tomas had a very interesting points about the topic. In other countries control and public access/space take on a different reality.Our  Anglo/ Saxon/Puritan perspective is apparently quite different from the Southern/ Mediterranean European point of view. Their idea for an internet community center was articulated by Umberto Eco, a professor of Semiotics, satirist and author who was interviewed recently in Wired and had this to say, 

• 'I don't see the point of having 80 million people online if all they are doing in the end is talking to ghosts in the suburbs. This will be one of the main functions of Multimedia Arcade: to get people out of the house and - why not? - even into each other's arms. Perhaps we could call it "Plug 'n' Fuck" instead of Multimedia Arcade' 

So that southern perspective brings a more intimate, almost sensual environment, in contrast to the loner on a bar stool mode found on the Northern Euro/North American web experience.The 'Loner' archetype is already prevalent among the under 30 generation in Japan and slowly taking root in North America. Eco also comments,'You have to be careful to distinguish mass delusions from underlying causes.' I think that is important when looking at who is in control. 

I also see while the governments could try to put some controls in effect the borderless web and the volume of participants guarantee these action will only slow not stop the exchange and flow of information. In what way can we ensure our access to information?

From Milton Freidman to Satish are we ready to make room for change?

In the amazing synergy I found with Youtube, Google, Twitter, Facebook and blogger, I found another challenge, podcasting.  I interviewed a friend about her company, Crooked Trails, which is one of the only companies practicing honest sustainable travel and recorded the conversation. An hour long rich conversation brought the realization editing is a great equalizer to enthusiasm. Chris mentioned a ratio of 1 minute of video to i hour of editing, enough time to flatten most dreams with the reality of hard labor. The class videos really inspired me to use the footage I have shot over the last 4 years and make something with it. I am working on a video for Adam Justin's shop to start the video conversation with his customers, who hopefully want to respond with their ski videos and create a visual journal of the ski season.

What is becoming clear, I hold winter in high esteem, a character flaw interwoven to my core. Through my conversation with Yogi during the CRL Eluminate, he brought forth my passion for exploration and education as a way to build and maintain community. I see my entrepreneurship project going into the future revolving around these elements.  Through all this one struggle I am in the middle of, how do students in a school designed to train change agents resist change? With this thought emerged the Social Change project that Justin Fenwick, Karen Goat, Brian Trunk, Tomas Amodio and I are engaged in.

This made me think of Adbusters, the Journal of the Mental Environment. I think this is the where I love exploring the most. The poster below reminded me of my resistance to Microeconomics,

"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society."

J Krishnamurti

namaste!

Video Branding

Elyn inspired me to step up to the mic and put myself visually into cyberspace. Authenticity of her video and Julie's made me step back and look how I could capture my brand. I went back to the branding exercise and let imovie inspire me to try different things without fear it would be swallowed up without a trace. I wasn't, so enjoy and post comments!