Was the next thing Shawn said.
Thanks Shawn, I have decided to adopt that as my new mantra.
I think is speaks brilliantly to the situation faced by SMPA - the best attitude to deal with the chaos and hand-wringing identified by Frank at the major’s meeting, and illustrated by the Digg swarm.
For me, a great moment is Shawn’s talk was when he pulled up the Digg swarm representation.
First of all, this is very cool, and just the kind of thing I like. I mean, it’s abstract art derived from user ratings of websites.
But moreover, it is a visual representation of the very same chaos that Frank Sesno spoke about the other night at the major’s meeting (and Shawn pointed this out: “you’re screwed”).
We had Shawn Rider in class yesterday, and I thought that it went very very well.
The title of Shawn’s talk was:
“Open, Mashed, Remixed, Rated: Toward a User-Generated, Content-Heavy, Standards-Based, Dynamic, Socially Networked, Semantic World Wide Web of Wonder ”
I thought he had a great structure for talking about the progression of the web, and things that tied into Frank’s talk on the previous night in some surprising and interesting ways. (Although only myself and about 4 of my students were at the talk.)
Here are few things that Shawn showed that were new to me:
Last night I went to the SMPA majors’ meeting at GW.
The word “impressive” does not do justice to the people who are now my students and colleagues. I am filled with a sense of awe and disbelief that I can be respected as an expert by these students and (even more so) as an equal with these professors.
Frank Sesno gave an EXCELLENT talk with an incredibly positive and inspirational view of journalism.
Director Lee Huebner’s talk included the provocative idea that SMPA can be THE BEST school of media and public affairs in the country. This claim was made with good humor, but absolutely no hyperbole.
One of my 112 students won an award, and all of the award winners were (again) beyond impressive.
One of my other students, on the way out, said “These guys make me feel like a slacker.”
My answer: “Me too!”
I was talking to some of my students after class, and thinking later that I wish I had started this blog earlier in the semester. I think it would have been a cool way to have ongoing commentary with the class.
Hopefully I can keep it going strong into next semester.
My proudest day so far was last week when we screened the student projects in class. Every team turned out something good. They had strong feedback for each other. I think everyone actually showed up.
I can’t believe there are only 2 weeks left in my first college class (teaching that is). The whole experience has been surreal, to be honest.
I was saying to my students the other day that they should be really proud of themselves for making videos and web sites for the first time. There is nothing like the growth and becoming as the first time you experience a new process or role.
This will be true for most of my students when it comes to thier learning curve, but this is the only time it will be true for me.
Yikes. I had no idea.
This morning I dove into chapter 3 and made some good progress. Still some meaty questions too . . . Rob and I plan to meet later, so hopefully it continues to become clearer not more cloudy.
At SMPA, there is a passionate and ongoing intellectual discussion about how documentary should be defined, and specifically whether documentary should be included in the category of journalism.
I believe this to be a complicated question with many aspects to it: philosophical, political, pedagogical, and etc.
Certainly, my own views are colored by the fact that I received a master’s degree in documentary from a journalism college . . .
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