Re: <nettime> New Media Education and Its Disconnects

[jonCates <jcates@artic.edu>]

i would like to return to the initial post that

trebor scholz <treborscholz@earthlink.net> wrote:
"Vocational training is crucial as much as conceptual training, 
general skills. An exclusive emphasis on software programs is 
extremely problematic as it leaves out the history of the tools we 
use, the politics of these very tools and the all permeating social 
context."

you haven't directly named the institutions in the us + eu that you 
have experience w/ [+/or] are referring to. why is this?
these specifics seem important to the discussion(s) for various 
reasons. i.e., were you given preset syllabi [+/or] did you create 
curriculum? which existing [methods/materials] did you utilize? were 
you @ sum pt given [a/an] [directive/assignment] by [an/a] 
[administrator/department head] to place "exclusive emphasis on 
software programs"?

trebor scholz <treborscholz@earthlink.net> wrote:
"I'm of course in full agreement that students need a secure job that 
helps them pay off their student loans, get health insurance and not 
become part of the increasing number of working poor in the US."

part of the benefit of an emphasis on "critical thinking" is that 
students can be taught to recognize that they will not be able (in 
the current situation @ least) to secure any single job [+/or] avoid 
being uninsured for periods of time [+/or] not experience various 
degrees of institutionalized poverty. these are very clear realities 
in the current situation as i experience it here in the us.

[flexibility/fluidity] are key ([survival/creative]) skills in my 
[estimation/teaching/classrooms].
-- 
# jonCates
# coreDeveloper
# criticalartware
# http://www.criticalartware.net
# ++
# Instructor
# Film Video and New Media
# School of the Art Institute of Chicago
# http://www.artic.edu/~jcates

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