ds106zone: You are About to Enter Another Dimension

It’s been a long time coming and I hope you can forgive the delay, but as Luther would say in 48 Hours “I’ve been busy!” That’s right ladies and gentlemen, this is the long awaited—at least by Scottlo—post about ds106zone, the 5 week Summer session of ds106 being taught through UMW that will be starting on Monday, May 20th. I have to thank my old new radio friend Scott Lockman for giving me the required push to finally get this post out, we spent more than an hour Thursday morning talking about the class, and the conversation reinvigorated me to get my act together.

For anyone following ds106 for any length of time the name Scottlo will be synonymous with audio greatness, and for those of you who are new to the game it will soon become such. If you want a good idea of what you might be in for this Summer, take the time to listen to the most recent Scottlocast wherein the master introduces you to old time radio giant Arch Oboler as well as spends some time pulling teeth from yours truly to try and get a read on just what the hell will be happening this Summer. Let’s just say it was an interrogation of sorts 🙂

And, to that end, let me try and map out—albeit loosely—what might be in store for ds106zone this Summer. First things first, what the hell is ds106zone? ds106zone is an idea Dr. Garcia had about framing the Summer session around a Twilight Zone inspired thematic. In other words, approach the class as a kind of play-acted narrative, like we did with Summer of Oblivion, loosely based on the conventions of The Twilight Zone, something like:

There is a fifth dimension beyond that which is known to man. It is a dimension as vast as space and as timeless as infinity. It is the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition, and it lies between the pit of man’s fears and the summit of his knowledge. This is the dimension of imagination. It is an area which we call the ds106zone.

When I had world enough and time I was planning on doing no less then 10 full blown episodes on various topics updating Twilight Zone episodes for our cultural moment before the class even started. But life and nervous breakdowns got in the way sometimes, so I’m forced to recalibrate. I plan on introducing each week’s topics through a Twilight Zone inspired episode, and I’ll be tapping various people over the coming weeks as I frame each of these out. So, as of now, there will be one episode a week (five all told) that frame the topics and expectations and that course participants will be invited to riff on—and make there own if they are so inspired.  What’s more, each week there will be a live broadcast on Tuesday (which will be archived) wherein that week’s topics for discussion will be delineated in more detail and our weekly guest will be featured. Another session that will provide a space to ask questions, provide feedback, and publicly berating anyone who is not doing the work will be live broadcast and archived each Thursday. As of right now I have Scottlo locked in for audio weeks 2 and 3 (we’ll be building the radio shows from day one), and I’m working on getting Michael Branson Smith for video for weeks four and five (hence the pingback 🙂 ).

And while I’m a bit tight on time for photography and design during weeks one and two, I think I know a few few folks who’ll be good for talking animated GIFs, photography and design over the next week or two. Either way, I am starting to actually pull this together, and I figured I might as well get this bad boy running and see what comes of it. I sent a slightly tweaked version of Alan Levine’s “scare” email out to the enrolled UMW students just now, and it might give anyone interested a sense of what they’re in for over the next five weeks. Though to be fair, open online participation is play as you want, there is no overhead: it’s fun and it’s free! I’m still fine tuning the syllabus, but as for now this class is on like Donkey King! If you want to participate as an open online student, you can sign-up here: http://ds106.us/handbook/success-the-ds106-way/quick-start/