Re: pointcast "push" in WC or Comp?

[jwerchan@osulima2.lima.ohio-state.edu (James E. Werchan)]

Richard Long wrote:
>......... That's not to say I wouldn't look at it
>again, or use it in some way. Eric and James are on the money when they say
>we need to try things out, to see what they are, before we make them in our
>own image.
>Yet I'm not sure James needs push to develop a sense of community at Lima.
>Why can't student publications be put on the web. Build it, and they will
>come, perhaps.
>
>Richard Long
.............

Thanks for your two bits worth, old friend.   And to Eric, too.  Invade back
'em, as old Johnny would say.

Complicated stuff, here, in lots of ways.  

First of all, our systems manager hates pointcast AS A SCREEN SAVER, and
with good reason: it's a bandwidth hog.  And even if we had a local
pointcast server to cache stuff that was downloaded daily at, say, 3 a.m.,
it would clog the lines of our LAN if it ran as screensaver.   Running it in
a window, say, as a Netscape plugin, might be feasible.  He and I were
thinking generally, awhile back, about some kinds of public-area data
kiosks, and maybe this would be the trick, but.........

....... we have possible political/cultural obstacles:   

        (a.) even when vigorously recruited (nearly begged), faculty have
been staying away in droves from putting even their syllabi onto the
school's web page, much less some deeper, broader course content materials; 
        (b.) student publications here do not exist in any dynamic sense and
have not existed in a long time, but more importantly, we're not sure
whether the appetite exists among the students.  I despair at this
possibility.  The implications for community and for authentic, empowered
education are profound.  I persist in believing that that appetite can not
fail to exist, and only appears absent because it has been institutionally,
ideologically, pedagogically, and economically brutalized in this area for
generations.
        
Your adverbial proviso, "perhaps" is THE troubling area, Richard.  I'm an
admirer of "Field of Dreams" which you refer to,  but .... that was a movie.

And that gets back to what our systems guy said, specifically that while we
have the whiz-bang, glow-in-the-dark conduit for information dissemination,
no one seems to want to disseminate any.  Self-censorship, I guess.  That,
and lots of thinking-in-the-box (i.e. classroom).  The thing about
traditional classroom teaching is that its power relationships are sublimely
unambiguous: full-head-pumping-its-content-into-empty-heads.  Any work that
happens in there is on-the-clock (credit hours=dollars) and any work outside
the classroom is frightening because it can't be controlled by threat of
getting an F.   Remember the sarcasm that solar power won't become
widespread until someone figures out how to put a meter on the sun?  Same-Same.

grumble, grumble, gritch, gripe........

Anyway, somewhere at pointcast's home page, I read that the server somehow
made it easier to post content.  

I'm interested in pretty narrow technical and pedagogical assessment,
basically, though.  I'm betting that all the bad political mojo of "push"
can be turned on its ear for the benefit of students.  ('cause i'm a sneaky
s.o.b.!)

thanks again,

james
"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""
                    Dr. James Werchan
(or maybe it's just someone who kinda looks a lot like him)
              Ohio State University at Lima
                    4240 Campus Drive
                     Reed Hall #135
                     Lima, OH 45804
                      419-995-8882
				
                    werchan.1@osu.edu					jwerchan@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu
(for main campus biz)
jwerchan@osulima1.lima.ohio-state.edu  (for local biz only)
								
  Come and visit: "http://www.lima.ohio-state.edu/~WACC"    
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