[iDC] learning ecologies

[micha cardenas]

2010/4/16 elana langer <elana.langer at gmail.com>:
> There is much to say on this issue, however one thing to bear in mind
> is that the culture of exposing problems and discussing them is itself
> a tricky business. When are we never not being evaluated and how do we
> create an institution  where failure is celebrated as an opportunity
> to learn? What does that institution look like? Is it on this list?
> Does someone on this list know?

Hi all,

How wonderful to stumble across this discussion. I have been thinking,
as an adjunct myself at UCSD, about my own struggles getting my
students to actually read anything, or my sometimes failure to get
them to do so. I'm interested in hearing people's nuts and bolts ideas
and experiences with new media education. This year, I've been
teaching a class at UCSD on Electronics for Art, and the last two
quarters, I've really focused on " the university as a site of
politics" as a sort of case study, to focus the discussion in our
classes on the recent experiences on campus of resisting the budget
cuts, the racist/sexist/homophobic indicents of violence at UCSD in
the past few months [http://stopracismucsd.wordpress.com/] and now on
the persecution of myself, ricardo dominguez and the rest of the bang
lab [http://bang.calit2.net/].

In my class, I try to present them texts to help them have a language
to think about these things critically and in detail, so we've read
things like bell hooks, hardt and negri, henri giroux, writings from
the occupiers of the uc like the necrosocial, and more [syllabus here:
http://banglabinexile.pbworks.com/vis147b-spring2010]. And while it's
sometimes very effective (I was very happy with the outcomes last
quarter: http://bang.calit2.net/wiki/Vis147b#Group_Projects ), this
quarter I just feel like my students are outright resistant to reading
anything. I guess they always are, and I usually have them write a
short paragraph response to the reading every week, but now I've moved
to a written mid-term, which is perhaps the whole problem, maybe
they're saving all their effort for the middle of the quarter.

All of this is to just ask you all about your approach to teaching new
media and teaching about things like institutional critiques of the
university itself.

thanks,

  micha

-- 
micha cárdenas / azdel slade

Lecturer, Visual Arts Department, University of California, San Diego
Artist/Researcher, UCSD Medical Education
Calit2 Researcher, http://bang.calit2.net

blog: http://transreal.org