Image credit: Cogdog’s “Uncanny Learning”
Last week I had the good fortune of co-presenting with Tom Woodard and Brian Lamb at the NMC’s Symposium for the Future. The presentations were all supposed to look towards the future, and for our part we dreamed up a presentation that frames a Dystopian future wherein an education insurance salesman comes back from the future on Art Spell’s (played to a T by Brian “the singularity” Lamb) Uncanny Learning radio show to help listeners protect their most precious investment: their education. Tom Woodward did the heavy lifting with four different call-in characters that satirizes many of the Utopian approaches to educational technology that are circulating currently. Tom’s a mad genius, and his characters prove this beyond a shadow of a doubt, from Moonchild to Jason to Professor Frick to Clem, his ability to improvise on the spot is fear-inspiring—and you can hear him coaching me through the presentation if you listen closely enough.
What completed an insane experiment in presenting, was the discussion afterwards where each of us attempts to contextualize what exactly we were going for. And as Brian and I reflected on after the fact, it was one of the best discussions of the possible political scenarios of education in the future. Anyway, working with Tom and Brian is always a pleasure, and I have to personally thank the good folks at NMC for constantly taking a chance on us despite our obvious shortcomings.
As the semi-official spokes person for NMC, we have failed to identify any short comings. This was a brilliant concept and executed to perfection. Thanks for leaving the edge way behind and the box shattered to bits.
I give it a C/C+. 🙂
Next time we ought to do at least 1/3 of what we plan out.
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