I’m actually attending a session right now about “Hacking Spaces” by Douglass Walls, Scott Schopieray, and Danielle Nicole DeVoss, but thought I’d post a few miscellaneous notes/observations:
- I went to wine country on Thursday, which was actually more conference/technology related than you might think. For one, I went with my colleague Doug Baker (and his father and a friend of his, both of whom were very able guides) and we chatted about the conference a fair amount. For another, when we were at Francis Ford Coppola’s winery, I wandered into an exhibit that had some “Magic Lanterns” and this video that is slightly risque:
It figures. I go to wine country and the coolest things to me are these old media technologies.
- I was going to go to the reception for C&W last night, but I found out there was no wine/beer/etc., which kind of for me defeats the purpose of a “reception.” So I connected with Gian Pagnucci and some Indiana U of Pennsylvania folks for dinner. Lots of fun, and one of those moments that you do get from actually going to a place instead of just doing stuff online: we met a local woman who was having dinner alone and talked with her quite a bit about teaching, learning, Davis, books, reading, writing. And in the course of it, we found out she was out by herself because her husband had died a few months earlier. She had a picture of him with her and talked about how they both loved food and trains, and she liked to come here with him and listen to the trains go by.
- Got up this morning after finally getting some sleep, and I combined a “run” with a trip to the grocery store (needed toothpaste), and leisurely got ready for the day. I’m not sharing a room at this conference, and I must say as much as I like traveling with Steve B. and/or Bill HD, I could get used to the luxury of my own room for future conferences. The one bad thing about the Hallmark Inn here in Davis– and it is a significant bad thing for me– is the wifi service is just awful. It means I’ll be even further behind when I get home. Swell.
- Worked on one of the presentations I’m giving here with Nick Carbone for a while, and then went to the keynote. In the interest of both time and decorum, all I will say for now is I thought that Barbara Ganley’s talk was problematic, and certainly not addressed to the right audience. Had she given the spiel that she gave about “re-imaging how we can teach with technology” at NCTE or some kind of National Writing Project meeting, people would have been on their feet. Here, the reaction seemed to be a) yeah, we do that, and/or b) you’re not really engaging with the issues. But what was most fascinating was the twitter feed on this stuff. It’s ongoing and here; I suppose if you scroll down far enough, you can get the whole gist of it all.
I’m sure there will be more later. Davis, by the way, is a lovely place. It sort of seems a kind of California-ish version of Ann Arbor, that college town kind of thing with groovy restaurants and stores and stuff, only in a much more pleasant climate.