Shifting and changing sense ratios (and a whole lot of love)

“What will be the new configurations of mechanisms and of literacy as these older forms of perception and judgment are interpenetrated by the new electric age?”

[Marshall McLuhan, from “The Galaxy Reconfigured…”]

As I write this, you should probably know that I am simultaneously stopping to play air drums to “Whole Lotta Love.” If you’ve ever listened to the opening track of Led Zeppelin II, you will understand.  You know that John Bonham can have that effect on you.

You may be wondering what air drumming to “Whole Lotta Love” has to do with “Two by McLuhan.”  Fair question.  I will try to explain the “mosaic pattern of perception and observation” that involves ds106radio, its two heart of gold DJs this evening, and the discovery I made while listening (and yes, air drumming).  I decided that what I wanted to do in this post is take a moment to celebrate what we are doing collectively.  I want to reconfigure slightly the original …uh… eros-centered thrust of those lyrics to an agape-centered focus in order to say I have a whole lot of love for the way this community of colleagues in weekly connection is having an impact on all who actively participate.  I think this weekly connection shifts and changes our sense ratios.

Seems to me we are all capable of being “serious artists”; and, we are becoming increasingly aware of the positive effects of augmenting our understanding by altering “sense ratios” and “patterns of perception” in the most unexpected and delightfully productive ways.

A-side:

I missed the F2F “idea space” of the VT new media faculty staff seminar last week.   I missed out on the discussion of Alan Kay and Adele Goldberg and the Dynabook.  I missed it because I was in Philly at a conference, yes, but what I really mean was that I missed the connection with my staff, faculty, and grad stu colleagues in seminar.  In an earlier incarnation of a faculty development seminar (one in which only faculty would be meeting with faculty), I might ask someone to give me the highlights of what went on in the discussion, and that would pretty much be it.

Oh, but the nmfsf_11 (local and ‘glocal’) offers so much more than that.  It is a seminar that is, to borrow from McLuhan, “totally radical, pervasive and decentralized” in the best sense of those terms.

So, I did not miss out entirely because this new electric age version of our seminar has a “narrate, curate, share” component that I want to get everyone (even more) excited about.  I want to give a shout-out to everyone and let them know how much I love reading their perceptive and creative blog posts.  These posts engage my imagination and inspire me.  How often do we otherwise regularly share our thinking-pondering, best narrative selves with each other, and with the broader community of nmfs participants at other sites, and, oh yeah, with anyone and everyone on the world wide web?  I guess I am becoming a blogger, and when someone asks, “Do you blog?” the answer is now “well, yes.”  I know this not because of the few posts I’ve written but because I found myself over dinner in Philly telling two of Gardner’s fabulous colleagues from Tulane—Mike Griffith and Derek Toten—that I thought the blogging piece of the nmfs seminar is an essential component, that it amplifies the engagement in ways that you couldn’t have convinced me of prior to the experience of being a reader/blogger in this seminar.

What a wonderful evolution and augmentation opportunity in this new electric age this medium offers us.  A sampler of narrated, curated and shared nuggets from those of us who were able to get posts up last week included (in order of appearance as I scrolled down): Yanna’s always original use of this metamedium to make me laugh, cry, and suck in my breath within one entry—this time with curly lambdas; Brian’s expert framing of the vision of Kay and Goldberg complete with cool photo of a mock-up for the 1977 Dynabook next to the 2011 iPad; Rebecca’s spot-on lament about “blah” eBooks as they currently exist, along with fond remembrances of her VTech Precomputer circa 2000 that she got as a 4^th grader; Tim’s able riffing on the need for new, more expansive metaphors for pushing our understanding of our technologies; yet another remarkable exploration by Jill—this one makes gentle fun of her phobias—about snakes, those creepy ‘70s troll dolls (oh my, yes!) and computers, all to help disrupt computer phobia by reminding us that we can reframe and reenvision with the wonder of a wannabe smalltalk kid; and, Ann’s thought-provoking pulling together of Freire, Nelson, and Boal in one sentence along with a descriptive image of herself within that historical time in “Nehru style mini-skirt” and long hair with leather braids. . . .  And that’s just a quick glance at last week’s posts.

A-Side Remix (‘cause there ain’t no secondary status B-side here):

When I came home from campus late this evening and sat down to read again the McLuhan essays and to do my narrating, curating, and sharing, my tweet deck suddenly prompted me to hook in to the pirate radio that doesn’t seek or need permission, the digital storytelling phenom of ds106radio. (If you don’t already dig it, you should check it out).  It prompted me to seize the opportunity to hear, to be transformed by, to have my sense ratios no-doubt shifted by, the two DJs on last night.  The long-time friends and colleagues @GardnerCampbell and @cogdog were sharing air time, playing some (righteously inspiring) vintage vinyl, trading insights, and discussing teaching and learning that can’t be “managed” (hallelujah!) by any control and contain tech tool.  One of the wonderful things about ds106 is that the audience of listeners is connected and the backchannel feeds and inspires the on-air conversation even as the DJs inspire the listeners.  Because of this medium, those DJs could see I was listening, and what a warm and wonderful shout-out they gave me.  Hearts of gold, I tell you, hearts of gold.

So, in turn, I am inspired to give a warm and wonderful shout-out to my nmfs colleagues.  I am listening.  I’ll have more of what you’re all having, as Dr. C might say.   We are all busy and struggle to make time—that won’t change.  So, I say, let’s continue to make time to explore and have “multiple transformations . . . in the world of our time.”

Can I say, again, how delighted I am to be on this ride with all of you?