do no harm:


idit dobb-weinstein: "teaching is action and thinking at once. What I try to guard against most when I teach is not speaking as if my answer were conclusive, so as to avoid (to the extent possible) any kind of dogmatic appropriation. It is understandable why students might wish to imitate their teachers, but there are different modes of imitation. I try very hard to avoid the mimetic appropriation that is immediate, passive, and occludes thinking. One other reason is that if I made clear what my views were, and my views appeared as if they were final, it would preclude the possibility of first, students challenging me and second, learning from my students. The relation between the student and teacher is, to me, a dynamic relationship . . . Teaching and learning is a movement that occurs between. In other words, we are at once both agent and patient, both teacher and learner. If we are not very careful, we can do a great deal of harm. And that, too, I have learned from my teachers, Maimonides especially.

I believe my task is to provoke students to think and to engage them in genuine dialogue and questioning. To paraphrase a rabbinic saying, 'I have learned from my teachers, and I have learned from my peers, but I have learned most from my students.' And that is a continuous process of learning."

Friday, 7 May 2010

i wrote this letter two months ago in a fit of optimism about technology and LACC and disabled student outreach and accessibility activism.
the idea was to record and broadcast classes for alternative learning strategies.
i refer to the american foundation for the blind endorsement of the google books project for text to speech and braille reader access.

i wrote the founders of bambuser to thank them for their hard work and to let them know that our economically challenged school really appreciates the free technology!

susan matranga was initially supportive, but then backed off and told me not to write her.
eckford also told me he had no time.
kendell told me he had no time.
somebody should care about tech.  its 2010, right?
hello? LACC?
my 2-18-10 letter:

thank you for all your hard work and for inspiring your students---i don't know if you understand the magnitude of our thankfulness--

please only read this if you are not tired overwhelmed
i meant to write you b4 about it---
but now i can---

now if or if not it transpires

nonetheless i think it would be a great idea
to at least audio document lecture and load onto a free mp3 sharing portal
(with yr participation, and not covertly)

the trend with all the best schools is this digitization---and democratization of what would be a very pricey experience--

so i can hear anthropology from oxford, or listen to stanford law, yale law,science everything, climate change, even conservative think tanks, on Itunes U.

whatever you may think of Apples hegemonic dominance strategies---it holds amazing potential cognitive wealth for educationally disenfranchised persons.


http://www.apple.com/support/itunes_u/


also--and sublimely attractive is live streaming tech---which if the wifi is strong enough, an excellent easy stream can go thru a laptop with cam----

i have watched tech lectures in swedish from this amazing swedish start-up bambuser
the idea being free info to anyone internationally---

super easy to start a channel and the embed code could go in the anthro club blog.
or we could do the same with club---
even if no one caught on initially---the connectivity---or utilization as a study tool could really help people with bad eyes, attention issues etc

it would help to bring LACC up to date tech wise and reach into the ether realm---pertaining to eco crises, literacy--


http://bambuser.com/


now if all this remains conceptual as far as your personal involvement---i completely respect this, and perhaps share your concerns regarding image, ubiquity, and even the legal or professional implications.

one need not necessarily participate in an OPEN DATA movement to become aware of its potential---and web traces can be annoying to erase . . .

the audio file format may be an amazing compromise especially given the fact of some kinds of learning "disabilities" which preference audio versus literary communique.
for instance, my best friend with dyslexia would love your lecture if it were as easy as sending a link.

or my mother in oregon would love it too.

i am extremely inspired by a lecture on itunes U from new york law discussing implications for the google books settlement in terms of using text to speech recognitions and braille reader accessibility for the blind---in the sense that the google books settlement--- which is an overt disruption of copyright norms---or intellectual property interests---
defeats academic elitism---
as a former victim of overpriced edu---this i think, is such a wonderful trend---

and most importantly, the dearth of quality intellectual experience is such that i feel that we---your students---are absolutely starving for this information----

and to share it one day, or maybe now---might be a profound gift, or sacrifice---with humanitarian aim---not to be overly utopic---
and as the preference is yours
i just thought it might be at least flattering to run it by you
and it would be as easy as a laptop running a silent audio recorder---or all the latest ipods have this feature now too---

but then again a unique experience might be better with less tech---

well thanks again, and syllabus please?
thanks for letting me in the class
mary eng



this is my letter to bartelt, attempting to enlist his support on 2-25-10:



don't bother reading unless you want to---merely more polemic!

if it helps too, i might take a minute in class to elaborate on a legal basis for it, the benefits of the experiment, the company and alternatives, and inform students:there must be consent in a sense.also re: not cutting it for the film, its rather unlikely the MPAA will come after me or LACC re:copyright----but this law is being rewritten and unwritten as we speak and digital anarchists have the social good of literacy and communication at heart.

another student and i were talking about a proposal for a real IP law class or series for all the creatives---the deficiency of modernity is glaring . . .

prof at google books hearings said smthg quite poignant re: copyright in EU being natural rts theory, and in US actually being social good theory based---and so here it will evolve

actually the director of OSS (for:blind, dyslex etc) is quite interested---and i spoke to eckford and guerrero who were warm and want to stay informed of our progress, perhaps meet. they enjoy itunes U and tried to start something similar a while back.

the new tech just makes it way too easy!
i wish i had the same for some of my old profs----!  i am literally begging old friends to utilize the tech to provide readings or discussion groups---challenging content and information---i would love to hear them read their papers or speak outside of the predictable.


edu a right not a privelege in sweden---and the copyriot movement in force

susan b. matranga  at office of special services (re:disabilities)
is happy about the idea for it
and possible expansions
they used to have a budget for student notetakers for the blind etc but now nothing----
the digital options now are beautiful in terms of audio archive etc mp3s
and the cloud

i was thinking of a site eventually that could link to future multimedia
or the blog embed
and make a new interp of ADA
a more radical equality

bambuser is a pretty cool company 

with wifi expansion this could be in many classes theoretically

i ran around sniffing info on who would be interested in helping
one fellow ESL's evan kendall said "i don't know why you care, usually only people care if they have smthng at stake."
i replied---cognition communication technology learning.   by something i think he meant money, not cognitive wealth or communication.

its very international---and really quite normal all of the sudden.

bambuser was utilized during the pirate bay trial for commentary for the IFPI's prosecution last feb.

itunes university has a lot of functionality but would require more IT plus i like free open style better.

plus funny also USC film school fighting copyright for film editing classes---where what is possible now in a classroom has not relevance to the old laws

here is from the google books hearing


from
MR. MTIMA: May it please the Court. I'm Lateef
 Mtima. I'm the director of the Institute for Intellectual
 Property and Social Justice. I'm also a professor of law at
 the Howard University School of Law. I'd like to thank the
 Court for this opportunity to address

Finally, however, it is the fact that
 many governmental and even scholarly institutions have been
 slow to recognize the digital divide as a problem of copyright
 social utility that brings us to where we are today. Now that
 the meaningful mechanism for bridging this divide has been
 presented to the private sector, further delay is unfair to the
 digitally disenfranchised who have been overlooked for almost a
 quarter of a century.
 Now we recognize that the proposed settlement will not
 cure all of the deficiencies of the digital divide, but to
 those who say that this will provide only trivial improvement,
 we humbly suggest that they may be unfamiliar with what the
 disenfranchised can do with only a little
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