HASTAC conference

SAVE the DATE!  HASTAC 2009 will be at University of Illinois at Champaign Urbana, April 18-19, 2009, partly hosted by the CHASS initiative and NCSA (National Center for Supercomputing Applications), the birthplace of the Web Browser.  UIUC is the institutional home of three of our HASTAC Steering Committee members who will be leading the conference organizing.  It promises to be sensational.  More information to follow as it becomes available from our friends at UIU.

As a final report on the fantastic Digital Youth East Asia workshop, I provide the following snapshots. These are condensed and unexplicated, simply some tidbits. My notes from the conference fill up seventeen typed pages. It was, as film people like to say, a “content rich” three days in Tokyo. And, above, some snapshots of Tokyo.

In welcoming participants to the HASTAC conference, I outlined many of the ways that working across domains is exactly what makes for paradigm shifts. The Information Age is too important to leave only to the domain of scientists and engineers. We all need to work together to understand this moment.

I have to admit that when I first came to Duke I was a bit overwhelmed with the concept of "interface." It is very difficult to say precisely what "interface" is. Interface is always the Janus-faced border, yet at the same time enunciating the very division of the border, for at the interface that which was previously disparate mixes, combines, becomes one. How does one understand, much less visualize, such metaphysics? With video interviews with digital pioneers and 3-d patent visualizations, of course!

Three public events on The Future of Learning will be available FREE in person and in Second Life