Going Looney at CUNY: A Presentation

Image of City Tech LogoThis past Friday I had the pleasure of presenting to a group of CUNY faculty at the City College of Technology who are embarking on multi-year experimentation with open publishing platforms in their classrooms. The push is being spearheaded by Matt Gold—a longtime friend and unbelievably cool guy—who has brought CUNY all kinds of goodness from Looking for Whitman to the Academic Commons to an insanely big grant from the Department of Education that will focus on the Brooklyn Waterfront as a “Living Laboratory”—the man is a force of nature in his own right. So, when he asked me to speak to the faculty preparing to embark on a mission of bringing their classroom experience to the open internet I jumped at the chance.

Now, this presentation is kinda cool for me in two ways:

1) It was completely improvised and basically a riff off what Matt framed for me only minutes before the talk (I promised Matt new material, and in some ways he got it šŸ˜‰ ). What’s becoming clear to me is that I speak so often and to so many people that my presentation style is really coalescing apart from any predetermined themes, tropes, or even slides. It’s a kind of jazz presentation style that I am really having fun with—at the same time I have to recognize the extemporaneous nature of these talks may get me in trouble sooner or later.

2) It’s the first time I’ve talked about ds106 in a presentation—it comes about 35 or 40 minutes in. And my exuberance for ds106 was bolstered even more—if that is possible—by the fact that I was coming off one of the best class meetings I had ever been a part of. Just the night before Martha Burtis and I turned our combined sessions into a live radio show with student work driving the engine of the class. In short, I was genuinely fired up about the beautiful, insane, distributed happening that is ds106.

Anyway, here is the presentation “Going Looney at CUNY”:

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6 Responses to Going Looney at CUNY: A Presentation

  1. Todd Conaway says:

    I have yet to listen to the audio, but I will. I just had to say:

    “Beautiful, insane, distributed happening” is nice line about my progress these last few weeks and well describes the windy, foggy, fierce, dialogs I have going on in my head and the ones I have started to have with others. I have changed as a result of all this stuff. Thanks.

    There are some great lines to be learned in all of this, and from jazz. Willing to lose sight of the shore? When your out there in a riff are we willing to know that we might have to be there to find something wiser, better? Maybe in those lost hallucinogenic states is where we find “the stuff” we really need to make us “Go Further” ala Kesey.

    Anyway. I just presented yourdigitalpersonality.com stuff to folks here in San Diego and nearly, very nearly, was swept away in wild riffs at several points in the talk by the connections with this class and he way you (and everyone) has delivered meaningful, challenging, wondrous, things to me. Thankfully my dang ppt kept in in line. (For presentation this afternoon I’ll be wearing ds106 shirt. It will be unruly)

    I have been afraid to mention this up to this point, but I will here anyway. Maybe the friend from CUNY will already be up to pushing the cart to get it going, but what would all this ds106 look like if the content was learning/teaching/web/field trips/school/utopia/reality? I feel it floating in the air. It is coming.

    Anyway, I know that we have a treaty and all so I’ll be nice and just say thanks. Cuz I am not sure I have said that to you yet.

  2. Mikhail says:

    Thanks for posting this. And you know this was in Brooklyn as you can hear the sound of sirens at one point during the talk.

  3. Todd Conaway says:

    ds106 “Like a Media Empire!” I love it. Can’t wait for the tv station. Need logo. Need shirt.

  4. JR Rosen says:

    @Mikhail: I’m pretty sure it was an errant fire alarm in the building, not a siren in the thick of Brooklyn wilding. Still telling about the location. @Jim: Thanks again! It was great that you shared your ideas and enthusiasm with our City Tech group!

  5. Pingback: thisevilempire.com » Blog Archive » Webcasting My Family’s Story, or, My Life on #ds106radio

  6. Pingback: Day of Matthew K. Gold » Up Early: Productivity, Projects, and Schedules

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