I saw Martin’s post on Sasquatch Hunting in Ed Tech and found it interestingly coincidental. Coincidental enough that I thought I’d make another post with a focus entirely on me that only loosely addresses what he’s writing about. It’s interesting to think about the similarity of patterns here between myself and the people I’d see as my opposites in terms of intent/disposition/goals in Martin’s post.
A few weeks back, I submitted a Reclaim Summer Camp Radio session titled “AI Cryptid Hunting”. The focus is on finding weird AI creatures- models trained on strange data, different interaction patterns (other than chatbots), any non-standard application really. I did something similar back in 2008 with a Blogging Bestiary. Same idea really . . . using blogs in non-standard ways. And while it’s not cryptid themed, the It Could be Beautiful presentation did the same thing. It’s weird as I think about this presentation pattern/philosophical outlook in light of Martin’s post (and his reference to Audrey’s zombie ed tech ideas).
I am a western white male (wwm). I probably end up in the “deride the current education system and see themselves as mavericks outside of conventional academia” category.1 I think that people could (and do) use technology in ways I see as idealized, but we often don’t see it and end up defining things in ways that harm our conception of what they might be 2 I do see these isolated interesting examples as evidence we could do some really cool things. I keep hoping that if I just show people enough different examples somehow I’ll change their minds about what’s possible despite very dubious (explicitly contradictory) evidence.
Every once in a while, I give up or profess to stop caring and then I’ll see something like Maggie Appleton’s work and follow that to Ink and Switch . . . I’ll see the connections to things from the past that inspired me Bret Victor, The New Media Reader, Montessori . . . I’ll think about the bits of success I’ve had over the years with various people at various places. It spins me up again with the conflicting emotions of excitement and the utter frustration that I’m not doing things like this consistently and at increasingly higher levels after all these years. This is my blurry trail cam footage. My strange cry in the dark woods. My tuft of unidentifiable fur. I hate getting fired up about the pursuit again, but also find it nearly impossible to resist.
What does this mean? No real idea. I’m just thinking aloud.
That’s Crazy cat journals (to borrow a sad, pejorative stereotype in recent use on Twitter). The blurry cam footage, the strange cry in the woods means the `truth` is out there on the Interwebz (Mulder was right!) So don’t give up, keep on collecting and show-and-telling. At teh end of the day you are not alone.
Hi Tom, I now feel like a Sasquatch metaphor fraud 🙂 I see Alan had also run with this metaphor a while ago, and I had forgotten your fabulous Bestiary. I look forward to your radio session and hope my post hasn’t soured the water for it.
I had forgotten my Bestiary presentation :).
No sour water. I like your post and the alternate take on the concept. It made me think. Plus I got a blog post out of it. Double bonus.
Lookie here, and old school blog comment conversation! I believe in the “isolated interesting examples as evidence we could do some really cool things” like little nooks in the dark woods, you have to look and scrape to find them, but they are still there.
See you out there.