63 Posts from May 2017

Kean University 2017, The Network

#NetNarr Contract Crafting

Alan Levine aka CogDog on May 30, 2017

My rand ambitions are some regular blogging about some behind the scenes things Mia Zamora and I did for the recently ended paused Networked Narratives class we taught. The cursed fog of time is descending. SLOW DOWN time, willya? Mia suggested the idea of doing contract grading ( prefer Miriam Posner’s writeup/example) with our students, something I have not done before. I certainly like the concept of having students define the grade /intensity they will put into your course, adding […]

Open Participants 2017, The Network

Slacking Is Not a Dirty Word

tellio on May 27, 2017

This morning I came across this post in Brainpickings apropos of Labor Day to come and May Day just passed. Leisure, the Basis of Culture: An Obscure German Philosopher’s Timely 1948 Manifesto for Reclaiming Our Human Dignity in a Culture of Workaholism I stripped out the relevant links using LinkGrabber and put them into Dropbox’s Papers. Since Papers doesn’t provide an embed (unlike its now open-source predecessor Hackpad did) I had to save it into Google Docs and get an […]

Open Participants 2017, The Network

All Hail the Iconoclast with No Skin in the Game!

tellio on May 27, 2017

My Lumen5 take on Nassim Taleb’s 2016 commencement speech to the American University in Beirut. Outrageous and iconoclastic. We can all call upon the genius and character of Taleb as we work through the quotidian. Here is more from the same speech in the form of a Pablo capture.

Open Participants 2017, The Network

President Trump on Iran

mark on May 22, 2017

Beware of weps.

Kean University 2017, The Network

The Digital Revolution Will Not Be Powerpointed (nor MOOCed)

Alan Levine aka CogDog on May 22, 2017

I’m not a MOOC completer. I am zero for life. My longest duration has been maybe 2 weeks, and more typically, much less. I am not denying that others get value of them and develop rich connective experiences. But I find the recipe structure and the activity behind a login as lifeless as the job of observing paint drying. Why must all courses be so– “course-y”? Perhaps one day I will meet the right one. One exception that has been […]

Kean University 2017, The Network

Log #14: A Reflection and a Letter

ignismentis on May 19, 2017

Dear Aris, I am replying to your letter from last week. I also wanted to tell you that if you are gointo deliver me a letter, do not do it on the back of a unicorn. It’s “disguise” did not work at all. It only made the unicorn more obvious. People started to call the cops, and I had to get the unicorn to run away, which is much harder than it actually sounds. I am very thankful that I […]

Open Participants 2017, The Network

An Invocation to “Come & Play”

tellio on May 18, 2017

Simon’s latest ramble ends with the invitation, “Come and play.” Don’t mind if I do. I remixed his long read into a video using the very interesting new browser tool, Lumen5. Lumen5 allows you to ‘translate’ any web post into a multimedia production. Here is my translation of Simon’s post. It feels a bit like a sliver to a much sharper and larger shard that is the original, but I got a good sense for this new tool and more […]

Open Participants 2017, The Network

An Invocation to “Come & Play”

tellio on May 18, 2017

Simon’s latest ramble ends with the invitation, “Come and play.” Don’t mind if I do. I remixed his long read into a video using the very interesting new browser tool, Lumen5. Lumen5 allows you to ‘translate’ any web post into a multimedia production. Here is my translation of Simon’s post. It feels a bit like a sliver to a much sharper and larger shard that is the original, but I got a good sense for this new tool and more […]

The Network

Log# 12.5: A Goodbye (For Now)

ignismentis on May 17, 2017

The other day while I was eating a cookie, I received a strange letter arriving pinned on the back of a unicorn. This unicorn had a sign on it that said “Normal Human Animal”. I think my alchemist friend from Arganee needs to take a class on Earth species. Anyway, the letter was quite peculiar: My goaafy friend, I am writing to tell you that I am thankful for your help. Rebeg contacted me and the other alchemists to tell […]

Kean University 2017, The Network

Log# 12.5: A Goodbye (For Now)

ignismentis on May 17, 2017

The other day while I was eating a cookie, I received a strange letter arriving pinned on the back of a unicorn. This unicorn had a sign on it that said “Normal Human Animal”. I think my alchemist friend from Arganee needs to take a class on Earth species. Anyway, the letter was quite peculiar: My goaafy friend, I am writing to tell you that I am thankful for your help. Rebeg contacted me and the other alchemists to tell […]

Kean University 2017, The Network

Two Slack Half Tricks for #NetNarr

Alan Levine aka CogDog on May 16, 2017

The Networked Narratives course is just about wrapped up for now (just those pesky grades to submit). I’ve been wanting to go back and write up some of the behind the scenes details that slipped through the blogging cracks in real time. You will find them on this here blog tagged makingnetnarr as I try to plop a few out over the next unspecified length of time. This one is about the Slack I set up for planning and only […]

Open Participants 2017, The Network

If the Web is the City, Are Apps the Gated Suburbs?

dogtrax on May 14, 2017

I’ve recently read, with interest, a book by Virginia Heffernan entitled Magic and Loss: The Internet As Art, and it seems to mesh quite nicely with some of the exploration that had been done in the Networked Narratives experiment. As the title suggests, Heffernan proposes that we view the Internet itself as a huge canvas of realistic art, and then she dives into elements like design, text, images and more to explore these ideas through a networked lens. In the chapter on […]

Kean University 2017, The Network

Personal Story: Jie Qi

Tommy Buzelli on May 11, 2017

I first heard about Jie Qi, a recent Ph.d. from the MIT Media Lab, when she launched “circuit stickers” while she was still a graduate student. Conductive stickers and ultra-thin components made it possible to create paper notebooks with electronic functions, combining drawing, writing, electronics, and programming — words that light up when you touch them, for example. Her fundamental philosophy is “arts and crafts are really fun and accessible to a broad, diverse audience. And, technology is really fun but […]

Kean University 2017, The Network

Dear Arganee Friend,

Alicia-Rae Acquaviva on May 10, 2017

Dear Avi,Although you claim not to know me very well, you know me more than I know myself. Thank you for believing in me this semester. As I once told you, I used to be an A student. I completed my work before due dates, and I never missed an assignment. Now I feel as though I am lucky to turn anything in at all. Throughout the past five years of college I started to see what it really means […]

Kean University 2017, The Network

A Fond Farewell: Looking Back At It All

eng4060section01 on May 10, 2017

Dear The One Above All, It’s been quite some time since I’ve heard from you last. It was an uplifting change of pace to hear from since I wrote to you when you set out to rectify the decline magical statue of the world of Arganee, and I’m glad to hear that it was a success. I’m sorry to hear that you did not live up to the expectations that you set for yourself during all this time, though, unfortunately, […]