I didn’t see a place for the shared tools, and I know that even people who didn’t participate in the session want to share some tools . . . so I thought I would post this so that we can share in the comments.

I demonstrated a way to build a virtual Linux server on your Mac or PC. This virtual space would give people a safe place to learn by playing with the system. If you completely screw up the virtual machine, deleted it and rebuild it.

Links for the following are at mas.clayton.edu/bootcamp/.

1. Download Ubuntu Linux. You can get 10.04 LTS or 11.10 from Ubuntu.com. Or, wait a couple of weeks, and you can get 12.04 LTS (right now it’s in beta). 10.04 LTS has a more familiar GUI. 11.04 and 11.10 (especially) introduce the Unity interface, which is not universally loved. This file is large and may take thirty to sixty minutes to download.

2. Download and install Oracle VirtualBox software for Macs or PCs with an Intel CPU. You should have at least 2GB of RAM and 10 GB of disk space. In both cases, it’s a standard install. You’ll also want to download the extensions.

3. Create a new, blank VBox.

4. Install Ubuntu. Note: This could easily take an hour or two, depending on how long it takes to apply patches to bring the install up to date, plus the speed of your machine.

Finally, the approach I take is to install the desktop version and make it a server, rather than the other way around. I find it easier to install the server components to a GUI desktop than adding the GUI to a CLI LAMP server. (Just one of my quirks.)

Installing Archon will take you through the steps necessary to convert the desktop install to a LAMP server. Plus, you’ll have Archon installed so you can play with it.

Questions welcome.

If you find this useful, please consider taking ARST 5100 Archives and Technology, a part of Clayton State’s Master of Archival Studies Program. You’ll cover these topics — and more — in greater depth.

As someone called me, I’m “the guy in the green shirt” that talked about the online video segmentation tool at Dork Shorts. If anyone is interested in more discussion, demos, etc. about working with video segmentation and annotations, working with Omeka, general talk about video, etc., I would like to give another session in MLC 250 from 9:30 – 10:45. Just drop by for a general discussion if interested.

Hi all — if you did a lightning talk at Dork Shorts, please put a link to your project in the comments.

I want to talk about what can constitute interinstitutional collaboration and how it can work.

What are the possibilities for interinstitutional collaboration? What kinds of gaps can it be used to fill and what new possibilities does it invite?

What do the different scopes/foci of this collaboration look like?

What are some models of interstitutional collaboration that work well/don’t work well?

Experiential learning submerges a class in applied activities that dissolve the boundary between the academy and whatever’s beyond it. Whether as focused simulations, individual ethnographic projects, or semester-long endeavors that involve an whole class, experiential learning forces us to consider how our discipline does its best work in the world.

I can offer one detailed example. This semester I am teaching ENGL 3120: Electronic Writing and Publishing, but we’ve rebranded it Occupy Class. My students work collaboratively every work to compose and publish stories to www.occupyclass.org, our online investigation of the Occupy movement in its local, national, and international manifestations. We spent the first three weeks of the semester studying journalistic methods and online platforms — just long enough to make decisions about what and how we wanted to publish. We currently publish 6-10 articles weekly to the site.

Critical questions: How can digital tools and practices help us design experiences that are just as (or more) pedagogically useful as “reading texts”? What similar classroom activities have you used or observed that can give the group a rounder understanding of experiential learning? What problems or anxieties does the concept of experiential learning present to your discipline or your own teaching? How or why must we throw traditional ideas of assessment out the window when we move towards experience?

Technology is great.

My first real job out of college was at the Miami Herald in 1999, where I was the new Digital Pre-Press Paginator for the Classifieds. I watched an entire department of veteran cut-and-pasters, who had served the publisher for decades, get replaced by two 20-somethings and their computers.

Technology makes things easier, faster, and–over time–cheaper. Most of all, technology means we don’t have to interact with other humans. Over time, I have watched scanners replace toll-booth operators, self-service stations replace cashiers, and websites replace bookstores. Increasingly, we have online video recordings replacing teachers and teaching.

The rise in online education has me–and many others–questioning the values and practices of education on campus. I’d like to think that meeting in a physical space has value. But unless we begin to think of human interaction as a technology in itself that aids learning, I can see why publicly funded institutions would want to go the way of Khan.

In this session, I propose that we formulate a technology of human interaction. What does this technology consist of? What are its advantages and specs? How does it impact learning and growth? Along these lines, I’m also thinking of the technology of human resources. Why are our institutions investing so much money in technology rather than in humans? Why aren’t humans as effective as machines?

Technology is great. So let’s make human interaction an irresistible technology.