UMW student, Digital Knowledge Center employee, and #noir106 alumna Nora Forknail put together a pretty badass advice video for students thinking about taking the single greatest course known to humanity: ds106! I am cruising in the blog wake of Paul Bond, who already featured it, but it was so good I couldn’t resist. The video is in many ways part of a class tradition wherein students share some advice for those who will come after them, and I think the advice can double as a pretty amazing testament to the rigor of the experience, the value of the struggle, and the power of the community.
It is awesome to see some O.G. ds106 internauts like Spencer, Jessica, Emily, Chelsea, and Martha in the video. And I was equally struck to witness a whole crew of #4lifers I never knew. Which, for me, speaks to the fact that #ds106 was never a “personality cult,” it was a way of approaching a technical infrastructure that can empower students and faculty to both teach and learn together as a community. Of all the things I have been a part of, few things have remained so pure for so long—though Reclaim is on its way 🙂 Ds106 foregoes the rhetoric and theory of teaching and learning for the thrill of getting down to work and making some art. I’ve been playing the #ds106 hits for a long time now (more on that in another post), and it never gets old for me. Just good old-fashioned fun dressed up as a course.
