This is why I love teaching. Particularly in the AMT MFADT Program at Parsons. WHat you have here is a group of students gathered around the beautiful consistency of an LCD display backlight that had been taken out of it's housing. The pure joy of discovery, fascination with technology, and excitement of what can be done with their confluence. Sweet joy!

All are invited to attend this special panel discussion about cities and their stories at Parsons the New School for Design.

Cities, Time, and Narratives AMPLIFIED

Mediation and globalization have splintered the histories of cities. In their place we’ve received constantly changing, ever appearing, narratives with competing claims on the future. In Dubai Amplified Stephen Ramos reveals an opportunity to question, complicate, and interrogate these post-narratives. He portrays the unique relationship between cities and time through the story of one such place. This panel will expand this notion across three cities: Dubai, Las Vegas, and Bangkok and explore how competing narratives reveal a deeper understanding of the contemporary urban moment and can help shape its future.



Panelists:
Stephen Ramos, Harvard University Graduate School of Design
Brian McGrath, Parsons the New School for Design
Aseem Inam, Parsons the New School for Design

Moderated by:
Scott Pobiner, Parsons the New School for Design

Tuesday, February 8th - 6:30 pm to 8:30 pm.
Theresa Lang Community and Student Center Arnhold Hall
55 West 13th Street, 2nd Floor

No RSVP is necessary but space is limited, arrive early.
**click this thumbnail for full-size image**

Cornell's administration has made the unfortunate decision to construct chain-link fences along every bridge and pathway that runs over or along a gorge. Some areas, such as the footbridge near Beebe Lake are completely shut. Assumably, this is in response to the sharp increase in mortal falls from the bridges that span Campus gorges - a devastating trend that reflects trends at campuses across the United States - Urban or Rural.

In many places the fences that are constructed seem to be designed and planned in an ad-hoc manner and they end abruptly - just beyond the view of passersby (and perhaps cameras) where they can project the image of a strong administrative response. Practically though - how can Cornell's administration expect to revoke access to every sharp change in elevation on campus, even in the short-term? The campus is built in a region known for deep gorges!

It's depressing to see a campus that I remember so fondly for its intense natural beauty to be walled in like a construction site and it's frustrating that the response wasn't more thoughtful. If this is a necessity then construct formal walls along the major thoroughfares - perhaps large wood or stone installations with windows or peek-holes to frame views. Anything but the hurried and flimsy construction that now obstructs the once renowned beauty of Cornell. Even the slightest bit of thought would vastly improve the brutal image that the campus now projects.

If the problem is cultural then work on changing the culture - a physical response to a cultural problem never works. Consider the Bastille, the Berlin Wall, Brutalism in New York and Boston, and the absurd idea of building a giant fence along the border of entire nations. All costly responses, all ultimate failures.

I have never liked, but always understood, Cornell's policy not to invoke its faculty in questions of its own campus design. The potential for conflicts of interest to arise seem too great in the Ithaca area. But in a situation like this, the turbulent academic administration might actually show some resilience and thoughtfulness to a plague of the modern academic institution. Including the College of Architecture, Art, and Planning and the College of Engineering in a process for rethinking the gorge edges and overpasses would show praise for a remarkable and historically elite faculty and student body. It would cost a fraction of what it might to introduce an outside PDC to the campus, and it would produce better results because, after all, the product of design in this case if for their community, their their colleagues, their students, and their friends. What better way

On the other hand, if the problem of student mortality is really too intractable to resolve then perhaps Cornell should consider moving to lower ground - and setting its sites lower too.

After a year of ups and downs and a tough economic decade Cornell could use some healing. It's campus, now stapled together, should be attended to by its inhabitants. As the campus heals, perhaps the community and the culture would too.

Reframing Faculty and Technology

Draft

A common objective of all teachers is to train their students to achieve learning objectives. From the early education, to primary and secondary school, and through higher education, professional training, and graduate school, the learning objective is the main interface between the instructor and the student. With objectives, a course plan can be laid out, examination criteria can be prescribed, and students can be fairly assessed for their capacity to achieve a performance of understanding that validates their mastery of the course content. On a larger scale, learning objectives frame a curriculum of study and prescribe attributes of a successful graduate of a degree program. These objectives don’t replace the pedagogy of a given instructor but they provide a common framework where a group of instructors with similar skill sets can train a given student cohort. There is little doubt that instructors are masters of organizing domain-particular information in support of the acquisition of knowledge.

Paradoxically, a common problem in learning communities is the organization of information about themselves and how to approach technology. This tender subject is often made visible in times of transition and during discussions of technology use and adoption. It may be that instructors can rely on themselves for the focus and attention required to organize domain information but the kind of insight required for a community to “know” itself must be commonly understood, collaboratively developed, and irreverent of discipline. As this relates to the adoption of new technologies and their use – the 21st century institution needs everyone to have a common desire to share information and to learn from it. Once common desires are established, communities can begin developing practices that promote a healthy relationship with technology and build rapport in a growing learning community.

Support Services in Academia and Technology

Draft

21st Century learning communities must implement technology as a means to communicate information and balance a constantly evolving skill-set and knowledge base. Though faculty members often stand at the threshold to content-based experience, support staff, administrators, and advisors are a critical part of fulfilling the contemporary academic experience. The 21st Century learner has access to more raw information than can ever be coherently presented in a course of study. So much information, in fact, that it is often difficult to separate meaningful online activity from pointless wandering. Much like the impromptu meeting with a colleague, instructor, advisor, or friend however, the right information at the right time can significantly change a person’s outlook and the way in which they approach the trials of adult and post-secondary education.

The 21st Century institution can only take advantage of “just-in-time” information by having a proactive and innovative group of support and administrative stakeholders to create these opportunities. Rather than the support team that waits for relevance to arrive, institutions of 21st century caliber are able to help students to integrate informal learning with formal lessons by providing relevant information to each student when they need it. The challenge for learning support specialists is to understand what role they can play in the learning experience, what information they need from instructors, what information they can provide to students, when they can provide this information, and how they can best do these tasks. As this relates to the adoption of new technologies and their use ¬– the 21st century institution needs everyone to have a common desire to share information and to learn from it. Once common desires are established, communities can begin developing practices that promote a healthy relationship with technology and build rapport in a growing learning community.

It's pretty remarkable that Hulu can stream full episodes of popular TV shows to literally millions of people at a time but the US Government can't seem to stream a live image of the Gulf of Mexico being destroyed... along with livelihoods, ecosystems, and shrimp cocktails for year's to come.

The video feed is down. I am not much of a conspiracy theorist but when a site goes down - it goes DOWN. Meaning you cannot see the site. In this case, the site is fine - its actually pretty quick to load - but there is no feed. So that tells us that the site, and the feed are hosted in different places. We can assume that the site is hosted on one of the US government's public servers. The video feed, however, is obviously not or the entire site would have crashed.

Why didn't anyone who manages the US Government's websites think to mirror the feed?!

If Congressman Markey had so much trouble getting access to BP's video then the "load", or the amount of data being requested from the server, couldn't have been that high. Releasing it on the .gov site seems to have opened it up to a much larger audience and the Commodore 64k computer that was serving the file must have given up the ghost.

... or someone over at Bad Portal kicked out the electrical cord.

It seems that BP can control the flow of information - it's the flow of oil that they have a tough time with.

So the TFA of the Day goes to the geniuses who trusted BP to give us a clear picture of what is going on at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico.

T....F..........A.................

Well over 100 billion dollars is being spent - the aggregate number will probably be closer to 200b. - and it will all be demolished... wasted. I suppose that this modern trash heap will at least be better to live in than the e-waste dumps that we've bestowed on inland China. I suppose too that this dump could become its own tourist attraction - tons of lucite tubes and piles of poly and plaster - surely a sight not to be missed on your next trip to China.

World expo's were once visions of a future so distant it seemed unattainable. But in 1964 the world's fair looked towards the next millennium and the people proclaimed; "that is the future". The 'future' of 1965 is now temporally and physically a thing of the past - it's rotting shell offers little more than fascination and good reason to ponder the value of "temporary construction".

As Y2K's blip fades I have to wonder - are we so exhausted in the present and of the past that we've simply forgotten how to dream about the future? The objectives for having a future at all seem pretty clear and I don't think that temporary buildings were included in any of the climate treaties that our world leaders were so eager to burn jet fuel to be at.


There is one significant pavilion though. Years from now we can proudly look back at the USA Pavilion from the 2010 World Expo in Shanghai, China and realize that at least the collective sentiment of the USA was in the right place. No temporary building there. Not for the U, S, of A.

Ironically - perhaps cynically [wishful thinking] - the image that the Times ran of the USA Pavillion makes it look like a giant Oil storage tank.

While all the other pavilions from that Expo were demolished, the USA Pavilion will remain. Why? Because it was designed to be an oil tank. A vision of the future - firmly implanted in the past.