And...I'm alive!
I made it past Thanksgiving; I hope everyone else was as lucky.
On a side note: thanks to Steve Sloan and everybody else who has been blogging about their safety concerns around Clark Hall.
Steve posted this picture on the 25th; apparently administration listened to people's concerns and acted appropriately. As Steve wrote, "That is a win for everybody!"
Speaking of Steve, JMC 163 is coming to a close soon. For those of you not attending SJSU, it's a new media class (one of the very, very few) that explores both the theory and applications that allow new media to flourish. The class drew much attention from all over the world earlier this year when SJSU banned Skype's use on campus.
This media attention gave students like myself the opportunity to experience google bombs, Web 2.0 realities, and bureaucracy, firsthand.
It's also brought many a powerful speaker to the class, including famous authors like David Weinberger, famous bloggers like Phil Wolff from Skype Journal, and famous vloggers like Ryan Hodson from Node 101 (and everywhere else). And that's just to name a few!
It's great to see that some teachers and administration officials are realizing that these are the leaders of tomorrow's technological boom - the forerunners of a new media industry.
I seriously hope for the future of both SJSU and the economy that the University encourages such classes next semester and for years come, as it is a priceless asset. Steve already said it best, so I'm going to steal from him now and go out on top:
Andrew Venegas , San Jose , SJSU , Soapbox Prophet ,Tech , JMC163,,Steve SloanMost importantly our students have gained valuable skills and more. They have gained insight into the global "new media" conversation (often called "Web 2.0") that is going on and how the media landscape is changing and why things will never go back to being the same as they were in the past.
That is what we did with this "blank slate" and I think our students will be better equipped to deal with the real world of emerging "new media" journalism because of it. We did this all without having even a printer in the classroom because frankly, we did not need one. We did not need paper. The class was all out there for the world to see on the student blogs and the world listened. That is the coolest part, the world listened.
