cc licensed ( BY ) flickr photo shared by Alex E. Proimos
For some reason this image came up (among a whole raft of ones I would never use) in a flickr search for “ass” (surprise, eh?).
All day I have been feeling my own pangs of regret over the shot from the hip downward critical post about the use of videos by some of my colleagues. There are times I really miss the mark, and this is one, and I do owe some apology to Martin and Stephen.
I’ve written an addendum to the post, and as I believe in leaving my mistakes out in public, I won’t remove the post.
Mom would have scolded me about “if you don’t have anything constructive to say…” and what I would rather have focused on, and as Zack got to in his comments, the ways to help people be more creative and expressive in video.
Video is a new expressive form to many folks, and who I am to cast criticism? Most of my YouTube videos have less than 100 views, many less than 20. Yes I think that in spaces like ds106 and others, we have places to practice, experiment, and develop our skills in the video form.
I owe ya boys a few rounds.
Maybe the constructive idea has some weight, but it’s also fair game to challenge Downes, Seimens, and Cormier to experiment with delivery when you are talking about the radical changes effecting eduction like their MOOC is. And I took your post as a fun gauntlet, and most of your stuff is. I personally think the delivery is one of the things so few people have really experimented with, and it gets to the heart of some of the retrograde approaches to sharing knowledge that still pervade. I think you recognized immediately in your first post it might be taken wrong, but a challenge isn’t necessarily bad and I am surprised you are feeling so contrite—when Stephen responded it seemed in kind and not offended, but I may be wrong.
I’m coming for ya Levine, you can run but you can’t hide…
It’s ok Alan, don’t beat yourself up. The video is the least of my concerns – I wanted to be much more experimental with regards to pedagogy, but I just haven’t had the time, pressures of the day job and all that. So it’s ended up a bit conservative on all fronts. I think that’s kinda ok, as the point of a mooc I think is to be a focal point for others to discuss. Like I said, I need to blog it.
No need to apologize, I’m not offended.
I think you’re taking on way too much here. Your post was hardly baseless criticism and was expressed playfully while being a solid, productive observation.
You were right. Martin and Stephen are both far smarter then me, but neither of the videos passed the “couldn’t this just be audio?” test. It’s not a bad thing to note that. And they can take or leave the criticism as they see fit.
This isn’t my grandma’s living room, no reason to “say something nice or say nothing at all.”
Take back your take backs!
taken back!