Rick Hunter and Daniel Anderson both showed video presentations. I came in late and missed a good bit of Rick Hunter’s. I wasn’t the only one late, perhaps due to the fact that the conference provided excellent coffee and muffins between sessions. This one was packed before it was over with, and even Cynthia Selfe was sitting on the floor, leaning against a trash can. Classic. And a nice symbol of how laid back this conference is.

Some random notes from Dan Anderson’s presentation:

• Prosumer literacy = understanding the grid, an awareness of zones of flow and different nodes that feed into these zones, working with a lot of different materials.
• Will the web transform the teaching of literature? It can, yes. Whether it will, he leaves to discussion.
• I can’t make out my own writing on this, but I think it says something to the effect that if the old model is put people and pedagogy first, the new model is to put people and machines together.
• He showed clips from some truly impressive student video projects in which his students had done quite sophisticated work with Gimp and other programs. I was most impressed that he said he does do these projects with first year students.

Alex Reid boldly followed the videos by standing up to actually speak to us. Notes from his presentation:

• He raised the ethical and political questions of what happens when we take the classroom to open, public spaces.
• The model of the classroom as a private space no longer works. Every laptop and cell phone in the room is already functioning in public spaces.
• Teenagers with private rooms is a phenomenon of the past 50 years. Now the computers and web cams in those rooms means they are no longer truly private.
• He brings up the ethical question of reading student blogs by comparing the practice to listening in on their conversations with friends in the food court at the mall. He points out, however, that the blog is not meant to be private, and we are still negotiating these delineations.
• He demonstrated a video blogging site, seesmic.com. Cool stuff.

Comments made during the Q&A:

• Dan: Unfamiliarity [with techno tools required in assignments] breeds “positive anxiety.”
• Alex: Students are trying to build social capital online.
• Dan: Has found that he doesn’t have to keep the barriers low. Students are getting more adept at picking and choosing from a variety of tools to accomplish what they want.
• Cynthia Selfe: Brought up the idea of equity issues in using technology in the classroom. If you ask students to create videos, etc, should you respond in the same medium?

The videos in this session were beyond impressive. For me, they really served to emphasize what a huge gap there is between what they are doing and what I am doing. I understood the explanations for how the videos were composed and believed I could do it myself. What I didn’t believe was that I could have my students do them. I am one of those people who gave up and bought Office 2007 because I got tired of students who could not seem to understand how to save to rtf. I doubt they are ready for Gimp.

I also have the issue of needing to remain semi lined up with my colleagues. Even simple things that I’ve had my students do, like e-portfolios, often mean that they think my classes are harder, and they don’t want to take them. If I want to keep my job, that gap has to remain within reason. This level of video composition is currently outside the realm of possibility for me, but I’m glad to learned a little about how they are done. In a few years, when Dan Anderson has moved on to something else, I may be ready to try this.