Scholarly Life of a Committed Technofile

I have to admit, as much as I love the New Media Consortium (nmc), I was a little frustrated with the 2006 regional conference. One of their tracks was on the future of scholarship. As a two year college faculty member, I find that various new media make scholarly activities more doable with a high teaching load. I am especially excited by the ways that blogs and internet journals might change how we think about and publish our research. In my mind, it can become more process oriented. Instead of publishing the results of a project, publication of a specific research process might be more periodic. And just look at how blogs can invite peer review…more on this later, it is now a pet project I want to continue thinking, researching, and publishing on.

Other things that have stuck with me from the conference:

· Rock Star Status: First, nmc invited me to come speak. Although I wasn’t as happy with my presentation (Dr. StrangeScholar); it has gotten me started on this line of scholarship. However, I also took my goofy cowboy hat for my presentation, and the plane was empty enough for it to have its own seat. I’ve heard from more than once source that Bono, of U2, once purchased a plane seat just for a cowboy hat he had bought. Finally, Alan Levine also asked me to help with his What the 2.0? activities. I spent a little more time playing with YouTube and dialoguing with others about how they might continue to play with online video tools. So this is also a HUGE thank you to the nmc folks for having some faith in me. Although I would have liked a little better performance out of myself; I’ll be coming back and hopefully dazzle in the summer 2007 conference.

· Doing the conference…leave work at home: This conference also has solidified that I will stop trying to take work with me to conferences. I try to cram it in, usually fail, and then feel guilty for not doing either well. UGH! From here on out I’m going to only try to do work during the transportation to and from the conference. Otherwise, it is only conferencing while at the conference. However, this ties in with my desire to really work on doing summary and reflective work while at conferences. And I want to make these multi-modal works (audio recording, pictures, video recording, blogging, wiking, etc.).

Finally…a few pictures from the conference.