19 Apr 2006
I wasn’t driving.
The trip up took about… 3 hours or something ridiculous, coz a bus flipped (no one was seriously hurt but there were helicopters and blocked lanes and stuff). Hence it getting dark.
The theme of the weekend was “Now and Then” (as in “now, and then”, not the colloquial expression meaning “occasionally”), looking at various bits of the Bible with about 3,000 people from across NSW (and a decent number from other states, too) in a big shed, albeit a big shed with a stage and stuff. Basically, it was looking at how we should be living now in view of ‘the end’, and also the nature of that end — a guy called Luke Tattersall (one of three speakers for the weekend) looked at Revelation, which was… interesting. It’s probably the first time I’ve seen that part of the bible really approached, which was good.
Another great part of the weekend was just hanging out with people. I met a whole bunch of new people at the place I was staying, and caught up with old friends (as in… friends who have been friends for a long time, not ex- friends!) and got to hang out with various people from church (everyone was staying pretty close to the site this time, which was cool).
These are the people who were staying in the same place… yep, Lauren was there (pleasant surprise… wasn’t expecting there to be anyone I knew!). If you think you can see something green on my face, you’re right. One of the talks suggested going around sticking green/red stickers on everything that would/would not last past death… I had a green sticker for some reason on the last day so wound up wearing it on my face. It eventually came off and is now on my camera. Go figure! (My little Optio is pretty durable, but I think past-the-end-of-the-world is pushing it.)
Oh, and you must excuse the visual horribleness of that photo. I’ve tried to clean it up as best I can (making parts worse, but it’s more balanced in terms of colour now), but the person taking the photo was utterly convinced that having people in full sun would be a disaster (for the photos). I have no idea how she came to this conclusion: suffice to say, it is abundantly clear she was completely wrong ;-)
Scrabble is the new cool game. Or, more accurately, a variant of scrabble that involves making words as letters are turned over and stealing them from the opposing team by coming up with variants derived from the same word spellings. Great fun! (I’ve heard this called “Grabble”, if that means anything to anyone).
To the tune of “It’s a small world afterall”: I also managed to catch up with Katy and Jo Mason… which was odd, because they totally didn’t have any link to each other beforehand, but somehow knew the same people and wound up at the same house one night. As did I.
Aside from all that, there was a picnic one day and this picture was taken of a kid sitting on someone’s lap, listening to an iPod in utterly engrossed fashion. I include it here for its sheer visual awesomeness.
12 Apr 2006
This article is actually pretty impressive (for a left-wing, secular publication) in the views it presents. Well, I say this because I agree largely with what’s said (and didn’t expect I would). Nathan Tasker is definitely on the mark:
[…] He’s cautious about labelling the trend a “revival” because an emphasis on numbers can miss the point. “I see the shift in numbers. I see a rise in youth going to church. I see youth groups trying to respond to that by being culturally relevant. But sometimes they end up being culturally irrelevant because they forget what makes them true.” […] “I sometimes wonder if our church growth might be just because it’s another thing you can add to your list. For every person who’s singing along in genuine worship, there’s always another one who sees it as the next cool thing to do. Spirituality becomes today’s atheism; it’s just as narcissistic.”
I’m vaguely surprised this got published, actually. An interesting read.
12 Apr 2006
David Hawkes writes from Canada of an encounter with Stephen Downes:
Stephen is a philosopher who is deeply interested in the freedom of information and the freedom of learning. He is also interested in the notion of digital rights expression as opposed to digital rights management, by which we mean that it is more important to focus on the purpose of the digital sharing than it is to focus on the profit motive associated with such endeavours. His take on plagiarism is that people almost never present things that are totally original and that they are always using a variety of sources to achieve an objective, so what is really needed is a redefinition of plagiarism.
The notion of ‘expression’ is an interesting one! That is, I take it, pertaining to freedom of material in a broader sense? Or did he speak of this in the context of academia alone?
Increasingly, I am becoming aware of the accusative approach taken to the issue of plagiarism — at a tertiary level it is particularly apparent. By this I mean that legitimate collaboration is being stifled; discussions are being cut short. This is of particular concern as, whilst there is a clear need for such collaboration in higher education, the spectre of ‘plagiarism’ (that is, accusations of such a thing) is diminishing otherwise quite-fruitful discussions.
At a secondary level this is perhaps of lesser consequence — Internet-based plagiarism would be (I imagine) the greatest of several concerns in this field. In fact, from what I recall of school, things would do well to go in the other direction. It is not that no effort has been made in this field — far from it. I think particularly of the targetted initiatives steered by Simon Breakspear, and recall some idea that collaborative efforts were to benefit a group of students collectively. There is, however, so much more that can be done here. Perhaps ironically, electronic collaboration (‘plagiarism’) tools realise just that. Creating a space in which students can actively engage with ideas (as opposed to passive, top-down environments that offer no impetus to create content) is paramount to re-aligning ‘plagiarism’ with positive conceptions. It is, for obvious reasons, ludicrous to suggest to a student that ideas should be attributed to their peers in written work. Yet, for the purposes of education (which is, by my reckoning, distinct from those of assessment!), a collaborative environment that allows tracing the origin of ideas in a local context is a great thing.
Perhaps that ‘ludicrous’ idea of internal attribution should even be applied, as a way of instilling a habit of this kind.
There is so much that can be done here. It is pioneering, new territory; characterised by increasing engagement. “Expression” is a great word for how we should envisage re-use of digital ‘property’ — growth of expression and critical capacity can only be a positive thing.
11 Apr 2006
So my word of the day.
Per·i·pe·te·ia also per·i·pe·ti·a (pÄ•r’É™-pÉ™-tÄ“’É™, -tÄ«’É™)
n.
A sudden change of events or reversal of circumstances, especially in a literary work.
Fortunately, I’m writing a (fairly brief) paper at the minute I’ll even get to use it in (and publish here soon because there’s no trivial late-penalties for this one!) So I’m not going to explode from knowing a cool word but having no place to use it. Yay-ness!
11 Apr 2006
URGENT
The In-Class Test for Classical Mythology scheduled for 12 noon on Wednesday 12 April has been postponed to 12 noon Wednesday 26 April 2006 (in General Lecture Theatre, Main Quad).
The NTEU has today requested its academic members not to penalise students for missing classes in order to attend the VSU rally at 12 noon on Wednesday 12 April. In view of this request, the department of Classics and Ancient History has agreed that the test be postponed.
We regret any inconvenience caused. Please contact me (email.suppressed@arts.usyd.edu.au) if this decision has caused problems for you. Also please note that as the rescheduled test will be held in university teaching time we cannot accept work or social engagements as valid excuses for not attending the test at the rescheduled time.
Thank you, SRC!
(For the record, I don’t mind the USU at all… at present I’d possibly even pay fees next year! The SRC’s political agenda is a little vomit-worthy most of the time… but I may go get a free lunch from them on Wednesday. ;-))