Green bittern: How to create a flourishing, very fun conversation about ideas on the Web?

How to create a flourishing, very fun conversation about ideas on the Web worlduniversity.wikia.com where YOU can Teach, Add, Learn & Create while participating in this conversation? Sharing ideas can be fun ... especially when the conversation is focused and like musical improvisation ... all of which is possible at WUaS in virtual worlds, video and in ways you create.



















(http://scott-macleod.blogspot.com/2010/07/green-bittern-how-to-create-flourishing.html - July 31, 2010)

Fimbristylis capillaris: "Nicholas Negroponte Welcomes India's $35 Tablet for Education," WUaS Medical School, Climate Forecasts, Museums at WUaS

added "Nicholas Negroponte Welcomes India's $35 Tablet for Education" article, with his ideas about learning, in two places at World Univ & Sch: "Theories of Learning" subject - http://worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/Theories_of_Learning
- and Hardware Resource Possibilities - http://worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/Hardware_Resource_Possibilities



*

Budding Medical School at World University: added NYT's "Getting Into Med School Without Hard Sciences" - http://worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/World_University_Medical_School
World Univ & Sch is a wiki - like Wikipedia with MIT OCW - Teach, Learn , Add, Create.


*

World Univ & Sch ... added NYT's 'Lessons From Two Important Climate Forecasts' here: http://worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/Ocean_%26_Climate_Management_Plan


*

Added to World Univ & Sch: American Museum of Natural History -
http://worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/Museums I think we'll add Most
Online Museums in World here ... and this will become a Big Collection
:)














(http://scott-macleod.blogspot.com/2010/07/fimbristylis-capillaris-nicholas.html - July 30, 2010)

Swamp thistle: Added new MIT OCW courses at World University and School, Would you like to help add more courses to WUaS?

Added new MIT OCW courses at World University and School in



Engineering
worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/Engineering


Writing
worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/Writing


Brain Science
worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/Brain_and_Cognitive_Sciences


Business Management
worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/Business_Management


Urban Studies
worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/Urban_Studies_and_Planning


Robotics
worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/Robotics


Energy Technologies
worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/Energy_Technologies


Architecture
worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/Architecture


Electrical Engineering
worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/Electrical_Engineering


Linguistics
worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/Linguistics


Philosophy
worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/Philosophy


Evolutionary Biology
http://worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/Evolutionary_Biology







OPEN

worlduniversity.wikia.com ...


There are so many GREAT courses already on the World Wide Web itself from many universities (and at World University and School).


Would you like to help add more courses to World University & School? By comparison, Wikipedia has around 272 languages and we all did it. Group knowledge production is great!


Let WUaS know at this email address: worlduniversityandschool@gmail.com .





















(http://scott-macleod.blogspot.com/2010/07/swamp-thistle-added-new-mit-ocw-courses.html - July 29, 2010)

Gadus morhua: Impressions of Boston, Massachusetts, Its 'vision' is behind the scenes, As WUaS Vision, Helpful to Others

Boston, Massachusetts: salt in the air, friendly people, an illuminated Boston Bay, a yacht with lovely lines, a different feel to life (from the SF Bay Area), coming home to the city where I was born, blue shirts, light pants, men wearing ties, a lot of red brick, Boston with 'vision' is behind the scenes ...


*

In many ways, World University & School - http://worlduniversity.wikia.com - is a Boston vision with Boston's 60-ish universities & colleges, including MIT & Harvard as well as the FREE, great Boston Public Library.


*

Boston and Massachusetts have a very visionary aspect to them. For example, these places, due to their vision, can be very helpful to disadvantaged people and groups. The recent universal health insurance in Massachusetts in one example.

















(http://scott-macleod.blogspot.com/2010/07/gadus-morhua-impressions-of-boston.html - July 28, 2010)

Dune: Harbin as counterculture emerging from modernity, Questions of place & time at Harbin, Harbin Valley, Traveling to Harbin, Immersion & Presence

Harbin ethnography:


... Part I thus offers an overview of the whole of this subject and scope of this inquiry.

In Part II on Harbin as an expression of a kind of hippy life emerging in response to modernity, I examine questions of place and time at Harbin. In chapter 4, I look at visuality and Harbin, the Harbin Valley, traveling to and from Harbin, immersion and presence. In chapter 5, on personhood, I examine questions about the self and identity vis-a-vis the pools, the 1960s and clothing-optionalness as milieu. In this chapter I also examine questions of gender and race, as well as agency. In chapter 6, on practices, I explore questions of language, friendship, intimacy, sexuality, love, family in relation to connectedness, oneness and the 'now.' In chapter 7, on community, I look at events at Harbin, the Harbin community, Heart Consciousness Church (HCC) and New Age Church of Being (NACOB), heart consciousness and its expressions especially vis-a-vis the pool area, and milieus of openness. In chapter 8, on political economy, I examine this business emerging from the 1960's and early 1970's counterculture, Northern California as political economy, money, property, governance, and life in the Harbin Valley.

In Part III of this ethnography on virtual Harbin, I explore Harbin as a virtual world. ...













(http://scott-macleod.blogspot.com/2010/07/dune-harbin-as-counterculture-emerging.html - July 27, 2010)

Orangutan Face: In the warm Harbin pool this morning, I wondered how to create a loving bliss course, Sunny glades echo in our bodyminds

In the warm Harbin pool this morning, I wondered how one would begin to create a course - say, two hours of focus and idea-exchange per week for 15 weeks - about eliciting loving bliss neurophysiology, naturally, so that people get there, and learn how to get there, from the beginning?

worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/Loving_Bliss_%28eliciting_this_neurophysiology%29


What are the steps, vis-a-vis Rorty, vis-a-vis Happy Oasis's book, vis-a-vis this neurochemistry?

At Harbin?


*

The Harbin pool area seems roughly glade-like in size. It was sunny and beautiful today there. I wonder how much sunny glades echo in our bodyminds from ancestral environments of our primate ancestors in Africa.















(http://scott-macleod.blogspot.com/2010/07/orangutan-face-in-warm-harbin-pool-this.html - July 26, 2010)

Gibbon: In this actual / virtual draft version, I engage the 'structure' of classic ethnographies, Multiple Ethnographers

Harbin ethnography:



... I thus begin with terms in the first chapters, and allow the reader to choose in which order to read the chapters.

In engaging Boellstorff's “Coming of Age in Second Life: An Anthropologist Explores the Virtually Human” in this draft, I also engage the 'structure' of the classic ethnographies by Malinowski, Evans-Pritchard, Mead and multiple other ethnographers. In chapter 2, I examine histories of Harbin, from modernity to counterculture, from actual to virtual, from experiential to the virtual, visionary, countercultural Harbin, emerging from the 1960s. In Chapter 3, on method, I both examine reflexively the methods I engaged to write this, as well Harbin on its own terms. Anthropology, and ethnography, through participant-observation and field work, interviews, pool work and virtual developments as method, makes possible kinds of understanding not found in other knowledge-oriented, human processes of inquiry. I also examine here questions of ethics, while further developing the claims about Harbin that I'm making, especially vis-a-vis counterculture and hippieness. In the process I further compare and contrast actual and virtual Harbin. Part I thus offers an overview of the whole of this subject and scope of this inquiry.


In Part II on Harbin as counterculture emerging from modernity, I examine questioins of place and time at Harbin. ...

















(http://scott-macleod.blogspot.com/2010/07/gibbon-in-this-actual-virtual-draft.html - July 26, 2010)

Lycopus Virginicus: Free Degrees will engage some at World Univ & Sch, Ideas will engage others, Friends will engage other friends in discussing ideas

Degrees (free, I hope) will engage some at World University & School:

(see the free Harvard doctoral degree worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/Courses#Free_Ph.D.s) ...

ideas will engage others ...


friends will engage other friends in discussing ideas in-world (in a virtual world) ...


and all of us can teach & learn what we want, openly.


And there are the beginnings of a Music School
(worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/World_University_Music_School),

with musical + jamming possibilities,

and everything else at World University & School ...


Come play :)











(http://scott-macleod.blogspot.com/2010/07/lycopus-virginicus-free-degrees-will.html - July 25, 2010)

Old Olive: Tan Le - Headset that reads your brainwaves, Who's working on Headsets & Virtual Worlds (e.g. SL), Entheogens or Operatic Experiences?

A friend from France writes:


This is real, this is live, this is commercially viable. Your new mouse reads your mind.


Tan Le: A headset that reads your brainwaves | Video on TED.com


(http://www.ted.com/talks/tan_le_a_headset_that_reads_your_brainwaves.html?awesm=on.ted.com_8T6S)


Scott:

Have you seen http://brainfingers.com ? There are a few of these devices around :) (Andrew Junker's Brainfingers specifically engaged letters for word formation).


But Tan Le's 'A headset that reads your brainwaves' is one of the most sophisticated I've seen ... Merci



BH:

Hers has two aspects that make a big difference: it easily can be set up to have as many controls as what most people use with their mouse (two dimensions, one alternative state), and it has a similar set-up (no abrasion, gel; only one atte...mpt for the software to learn—not more than what you'd do to test a known device). Adoption and use can follow affordances left by the trackpad, and surf on marginal improvement (take less space than a mouse, add one control dimension) while spreading through the most spectacular it-thing factor I've seen in a long time.


Scott:

Who's working on such headsets and virtual worlds (as in SL) or entheogen or operatic experiences, for example, that you know of?



*

There are so many implications for culture, as well as questions for sociocultural anthropology with devices like these.


Let's explore this here:

http://worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/Anthropology














(http://scott-macleod.blogspot.com/2010/07/old-olivetan-le-headset-that-reads-your.html - July 24, 2010)

Marin Huckleberry: Beginnings of Ph.D.s, check, Medical School, Law School, check, Incorporation, check, open World Univ & Sch, check, Explore Bliss

Beginnings of Ph.D.s, - check

Beginnings of Medical School, Law School, - check

Incorporation (on April 30, 2010), - check

Open World University and School
http://worlduniversity.wikia.com, - check ...

Loving Bliss Eliciting teaching, learning & exploration - worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/Loving_Bliss_%28eliciting_this_neurophysiology%29, - check



check this wiki ...

worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/World_University


























(http://scott-macleod.blogspot.com/2010/07/marin-huckleberry-beginnings-of-phds.html - July 24, 2010)

Mulgedium tataricum: Disappointment with the Peas in Your Garden, World University's Agriculture School (with an organic focus)

A friend writes:

I'd been disappointed with peas in the garden in past years, I never seemed to yield much. This year, I build proper trellises with the bamboo that fell during the blizzards over the winter. Got about a quart of shelled peas!


Scott:

Let's see if we can add relevant information to change this to World University's Agriculture School (with something of an organic focus) ... worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/World_University_Agriculture_School (I think this is the correct URL - don't have great access from internet here - poke around if it isn't).


I added this information about peas (http://urbanext.illinois.edu/veggies/peas.cfm) to the World University Agriculture School.


Try inoculating pea roots with a nitrogen-fixer.

















(http://scott-macleod.blogspot.com/2010/07/mulgedium-tataricum-disappointment-with.html - July 24, 2010)

Acer Pennsylvanicum Erythrocladum: Actual & Virtual Harbin in a Slightly Historicized Way, In Past & Present Tenses, with Future in Mind

Harbin ethnography:



... What this anthropological book does is bring an ethnographic approach to actual Harbin into conversation with virtual Harbin world building to identify complementary new approaches to ethnography, engaging the limitations of the form of good ethnographic writing in the process, and by focusing on humans.

Consequently, I write about both actual and virtual Harbin in a slightly historicized manner, and both in the past and present tenses, and with an eye to the future, too (Le Guin 1985), with the production here of virtual Harbin, for ongoing focus on Harbin life vis-a-vis anthropological participant observation. The folkloric/archival aspect of this book serves, too, to provide even the basis for hippie-learning for subsequent generations (Foxfire?). I hope that this book will come richly into conversation with virtual Harbin representationally, with the digital technologies making possible image-representations, not possible in either this book, both due its limitations in image reproduction, and because actual Harbin Hot Springs doesn't allow cameras or photographs on Harbin property. With book's, - ethnographic ones, in particular here - and photography's emergence in modernity, both of which changing cultural processes in somewhat far-reaching ways, virtual worlds and virtual Harbin, too, may come into conversation with actual Harbin. Fortunately, a number of books have already been written: by Harbin's founder (Ishvara 2002), the current Harbin CEO (Wyne 1997), the creator of Watsu – water shiatsu – which originated in the Harbin warm pool (Dull 1993), and an historian of Harbin (Klages 1991), - so Harbin has a significant history of textual and representational engagement in the context of modernity, for all of its orientation to the now, and a pool-centric retreat center. Since this book allows me to construct a conceptual narrative (Boellstorff 2008:30) in relation to the visually-oriented, actual Harbin pool area as an ethnographic field site which isn't a conceptual narrative, I am given the opportunity to step back from the clothing-optional, pool-centric culture which is Harbin, to float in ideas about Harbin, informed by ethnographic questions. And virtual Harbin - which I hope will emerge flourishing through a group, digital, creative process - will allow many representational Harbin aspects to emerge which a text-based 'classic ethnography' can't. And thanks to Tom Boellstorff's book, I can come into this text-based, virtual-anthropological conversation, without having to define this genre of virtual anthropology in ground-breaking ways, conceptually. I thus begin with terms in the first chapters, and allow the reader to choose in which order to read the chapters.

In engaging Boellstorff's “Coming of Age in Second Life: An Anthropologist Explores the Virtually Human” in this draft, I also engage the 'structure' of the classic ethnographies by Malinowski, Evans-Pritchard, Mead and multiple other ethnographers. ...




















(http://scott-macleod.blogspot.com/2010/07/acer-pennsylvanicum-erythrocladum.html - July 24, 2010)

Dugong: A Book's Structure, Ethnographic Books, Academic Books in Humanities, Virtual Worlds as Ethnography

Harbin ethnography:


... In so doing, it allows me to focus on Harbin as a whole, as Malinowski observes: “an Ethnographer who sets out to study only religion, or only technology, or only social organization cuts out an artificial field for inquiry, and he will be seriously handicapped in his work” (Malinowski 1922:11), - in addition to my particular interests here in the Harbin pools, clothing-optionalness, the influences of the 1960s / counterculture and virtuality, both actual and virtual.

A book's structure also influences ways in which information is shared. What does an academic book in the humanities do? In what ways, also, might an actual / virtual ethnography about Harbin Hot Springs, coming into conversation with Tom Boellstorff's book “Coming of Age in Second Life: An Anthropologist Explores the Virtually Human,” develop and / or transform this? How might an unique field site, and participant-observation research, come into conversation with an academic form to engage the academic form itself? The limitations and structure of an academic genre such as ethnography, and the anthropological paper or monograph, have great value. Anthropologists read Malinowski and other 'classic ethnographers,' for example, in order to learn approaches to ethnography without re-inventing the interpretive, ethnographic 'wheel.' Good ethnographic writing often includes: a guiding question; thesis statement; evocative description of the setting(s); methodology - what did you do and how?; evidence - excerpts from fieldnotes, quotes, information from documents, pictures, diagrams, etc.; data - how many people you interviewed, how many times you visited, how much material you have; portrayal of specific people, using pseudonyms if appropriate; your own positioning in your research; reflexivity - how you're representing all of the above; fairness of presentation, including counter-evidence where it exists and enough data for readers to draw their own conclusions without simply relying on your interpretations; a theoretical component; closure - implications of the research for practice or future study; bibliography; appendix (if relevant) (Dr. Julia Paley in … ). Good, ethnographic, virtual world building for anthropological study at present similarly engages the above elements and adds an aspect interactive multimedia - of group, virtual world building and avatar communication, for example - for ongoing field work, conversations, and the possibility to document developments in novel, digital forms, etc. What this anthropological book does is bring an ethnographic approach to actual Harbin into conversation with virtual Harbin world building to identify complementary new approaches to ethnography, engaging the limitations of the form of good ethnographic writing in the process, and by focusing on humans.

Consequently, I write about both actual and virtual Harbin in a slightly historicized manner, and both in the past and present tenses, and with an eye to the future, too (Le Guin 1985), with the production here of virtual Harbin, for ongoing focus on Harbin life vis-a-vis anthropological participant observation. …
















(http://scott-macleod.blogspot.com/2010/07/dugong-books-structure-ethnographic.html - July 23, 2010)

Tortoise: WHAT THIS, A BOOK, DOES, Why write a book? And why write an anthropological book? Virtuality

Harbin ethnography:


... While “virtual worlds reconfigure selfhood and sociality” (Boellstorff 2008:29), this is due to new forms of symbolization and representation, informed by multimedia in this example of actual and virtual Harbin.


WHAT THIS, A BOOK, DOES.

Why write a book? And why write an anthropological book, an ethnography, about actual and virtual Harbin? As Boellstorff asks, “Why not a website, blog, or some other electronic form?” Books, still, in the middle of the information technology revolution (Castells 2000) are the richest, most-accessible, most condensed, longest-enduring, information-sharing media I know of, that allow for a sustained exploration of ideas, of thesis, examination and development of congruent ideas. Similarly, they are unparalleled as a way to share thoughtful research. And many more people can read than have a computer today. In anthropology, they're an information technology that allow people to share ideas in a very rich way about the 'whole' of a subject. Each unique volume thus contributes most richly to an ongoing conversation about knowledge and ideas that emerges from well before the ancient Greek world's focus on how knowledge works. And they are a remarkable and durable expression of virtuality itself, in the form of an idea technology for writing transmission which has withstood the tests of time since writing began some 5500 years ago (Schmandt-Besserat 2007). As I write this book, I add paragraph after paragraph to my blog (http://scott-macleod.blogspot.com Harbin ethnography link) which I have transferred from writing this in Open Office (a free, open source office suite, which includes a word processing program), and for which I don't yet have a publisher. In the process, I'm also conversing, in many senses, with both actual Harbin Hot Springs itself, in that I continue to do field work on a weekly basis there at the time of this writing, and with Tom Boellstorff's paper-based book “Coming of Age in Second Life: An Anthropologist Explores the Virtually Human.” Ethnographically, this Harbin book allows me to begin an exploration of all aspects of actual Harbin, and will potentially develop into ongoing virtual studies that supersede and incorporate this book. Of the many possible academic approaches to thinking about Harbin, ethnography alone seems to allow for the most far-reaching qualitative understandings of the many unique aspects of this place, emerging from the 1960s. This book similarly also allows for the exploration and study of virtual Harbin, ethnographically. In so doing, it allows me to focus on Harbin as a whole, as Malinowski observes: “an Ethnographer who sets out to study only religion, or only technology, or only social organization cuts out an artificial field for inquiry, and he will be seriously handicapped in his work” (Malinowski 1922:11), - in addition to my particular interests here in the Harbin pools, clothing-optionalness, the influences of the 1960s / counterculture and virtuality, both actual and virtual.

A book's structure also influences ways in which information is shared. ...














(http://scott-macleod.blogspot.com/2010/07/tortoise-what-this-book-does-why-write.html - July 22, 2010)

Pod: Might World Univ & Sch bring together writing a paper abt Plato's amazing Middle Dialogues w Singing Walking Bass Lines to create enjoyment anew

In what ways might World Univ & Sch (http://worlduniversity.wikia.com) help bring together writing a paper (http://worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/Writing), for example, about Plato's amazing Middle Dialogues e.g. The Symposium (http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/symposium.html) and The Republic (classics.mit.edu/Plato/republic.html) (See, too, the Stanford Encyclopedia to Philosophy's entry here, too: plato.stanford.edu/entries/plato-metaphysics) together with Singing Walking Bass Lines (http://worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/Singing_Walking_Bass_Lines) to create lifelong enjoyment practices in both writing & singing anew? In what ways is it possible to teach & learn this?


*

How might we transform the practice of academic paper writing in new ways, through learning different approaches?
























(http://scott-macleod.blogspot.com/2010/07/pod-might-world-univ-sch-bring-together.html - July 22, 2010)

Primate troopbonding: A thought abt sociocultural processes: these include troopbonding, rooted in evolutionary biology, language, & re: loving bliss

A thought about culture / sociocultural processes

Cultural processes include troopbonding rooted in evolutionary biology (Money 1988), culture including language, connecting (& yoga) including the bond part, - which all constellate together; And how might these influence / inform very friendly, skillful musicians exploring loving bliss improvisationally?



A friend writes:

CSM:

I don't know exactly what you mean, but I like to hear you talk.


Scott:

... a little abstract, but you might read it as a response to "What is culture?" plus how might it work in people's lives, if engaged somehow directly ... :)



*

Could musicians engage these cultural processes to elicit the neurophysiology of loving bliss, explicitly, and/or become aware of these processes to relax away from problematic aspects of them, when they occur?



*

Is culture a "milieu's 'code'"? - all interesting thought-provoking words ...


*

Sociocultural anthropology neither explicitly engages troopbonding (Money 1988) as concept, nor evolutionary biology theoretically - cool opportunity ... & here at http://worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/Anthropology.














(http://scott-macleod.blogspot.com/2010/07/primate-troopbonding-thought-abt.html - July 22, 2010)

Sylvia atricapilla: Response to a Skeptic's Questions about World University and School

A Skeptic's Questions about World University and School vis-a-vis other open education projects.


me: Did M find theater-related work for the summer, by any chance? What is she up to?

B: she's away for a few days

me: ok

B: yes. summer theatre in NY

me: great

More theater for her in the fall?

Where are S's interests leading her at college?


B: I doubt it. she's looking for work but not necessarily theatre
everything from bio to psych to sociology

me: great ... keep in mind World Univ & Sch over time ... I hope opportunities will emerge here online for interns

B: hmmm

me: Someone knowledgeable in theater would be invaluable as students start to engage the university ... no monies to speak of yet


me: I think I told you World University and School incorporated in April, didn't I?

B: oh. don't remember

are you still in SF area?


me: yes, on April 30, 2010 ... as a nonprofit ...

Wikipedia, the online world encyclopedia has a $10 million dollar budget with 35 people on staff after 10 years, so I'm optimistic about WUaS the online world university

yes, I enjoy the SF Bay Area - the weather is great and there's a lot of variety.
And Wikipedia is in 272 languages ... all good precedents.


B: will you be on the east coast for a while this summer?

me: We'd like to create a lot of jobs for interns, but need monies first to do this

B: I'm afraid I'm a skeptic as you know

me: it will help interns and students along the way - a skeptic myself, I'm also patient. We've both incorporated and gotten a very small amount of monies from some Board members ... key beginnings of a scaling process

B: well that's good, but I think there need to

me: The economic advantages of free degrees are unparalleled and will make WUaS competitive, I think
worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/Courses#Free_Degree_Programs

B: be short term goals, not just long term
I'm not sure you can get there from

me: yes ... right now they involve more paper work, hiring interns, and getting the classes which will be for degree-granting happening (UC Berkeley TD's class on brain anatomy soon - also premed).

The short term goals are numerous :)


B: where you are. you need short term realistic objectives

me: All of the above goals seem realistic to me ... and involve diligence ... (which isn't necessarily blissful for me:)

B: realistic is when it has already happened. that's why the goals need to
be short term

me: The Nolo press book has a lot of realistic goals ;) ... one of which, incorporation, thanks in part to Nolo ... has already happened ...

B: have you considered the possibility of competition?
what's to stop Wikipedia from implementing your vision, for example?

me: There are so many educational endeavors out there, and WUaS has linked all of them to this page which could be http://worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/Courses
Our mission is unique ...

B: but not proprietary

me: is the short answer ... all languages, all subjects ... contingent on the navigator or planning committee

B: or funded

me: True ... I see all the projects out there as complementary.

me: As the World University Music School grows, something Wikiversity doesn't seem to have, I could see Jo and So benefiting from teaching opportunities, etc., for example

B: if what you're trying to do is a good idea and is doable, then other people will try to do it

me: I think the non-proprietariness - like Wikipedia - is an advantage, making it competitive.

B: all this implies a lot of money. free degrees don't bring in money very fast

me: I haven't seen it yet, probably due to WUaS's unique vision and mission and focus
And we've already gotten a very small amount of money
so precedent is there for this ...

me: (That is, I haven't seen the competition yet)

B: I don't think the competition has articulated such a grand vision, but that doesn't mean they haven't thought about it. they may simply be focused on shorter term goal

me: Perhaps ... One practical short term goal is how WUAS will begin to hire interns ... there's a lot of work and too few interns so far ... and lots of precedent in the IT revolution for startups

B: even Wikipedia doesn't have enough money to dream about the things you want to do. they just can't raise enough money

me: Missions matter ...

B: of course
but not everybody who has a vision is talking about it. most are talking about the next step

me: $10 million with a staff of 35, I heard 3 senior staff members at Wikipedia at a xerox parc q&a 3 months ago, say (also 2 weeks ago in the NYT's) ... I hypothesize they've found some wealthy philanthropists

True ... we have a lot of little steps ahead (a lot:), some of which I've mentioned above

B: Wikipedia has proven itself to be very useful. it's no longer just a dream, but they can't even get close to raising the kind of money your vision need

me: yes, they have a track record, true ... and a community ...
WUaS has raised a very little amount of money, and I think we'll raise more ...
The step by step approach a UC Berkeley class, for example, for WUaS credit and then 2 the next semester ... and with fundraising will yield results gradually, I think ... not sure about scale ...


B: uc berkeley classes for free?

me: One professor has made this offer, and he's taught a number of free Berkeley Webcast classes already, with whom we'd like to partner.

B: well that sounds positive

me: :)
one of those small tasks in the works ... which interns will facilitate with time ...

B: but talking about free medical degrees is likely to alienate a lot of people

me: good point ... the USA isn't Japan or Scandanavia

B: unrealistic goals or very fanciful goals may be idealistic, but they also
make a lot of people think you're crazy

me: Interesting ... I point to examples like free k-12 education in this country to such people ... these are societal (and cultural:) processes

B: it's ok to think that's a good idea, but there's a lot of political change required, so claiming it as part or your plan may not make sense to most people.

me: I think WUaS may be able to offer the first 2 years of a medical education online through the University of California, San Francisco, and then partner with local institutions, hypothetically even in Helsinki, Finland, and in Bangalore, India

me: So the approach is a quiet, informational technological one, not a political one ... who would have thought MIT OCW would have made it to 2000 courses - all free, all highest quality ... without political change ... although maybe becoming a precedent / catalyst for educational change in the U.S.


B: I don't see how these kinds of statements help your cause. I suspect they make most potential supporters very skeptical

me: They already exist

B: MIT already had all the courses and plenty of money.

me: precedent speaks for itself, and they're part of World University and School, already, as well ... and as part of the mission ... they're reality in a sense
And MIT OCW is open, free, and part of WUaS


B: they aren't part of WUaS until they say they say they are. and that's a huge obstacle I suspect

B: I don't think you're making friends with these people by claiming credit for what they do, or by claiming to be similar to them

me: They're open source, creative commons, I think, and are linked ... but, again, no faculty, degrees or networking ... which WUaS will gradually build, I think ... We'll see if UC Berkeley Professor D teaches in part from a related MIT OCW course

B: yes. that's exactly the kind of thing that would be useful--teaching from on line free material from high quality sources

me: (Nick Negroponte is a FB friend, actually) I think they share this share vision ... it's partly what OLPC (One Laptop per Child) is about ... but you're right, not everyone does ... and yet MIT OCW prospers (from within MIT) as does Wikipedia, independently, as does OLPC, independently (although they sell their machines to governments, something WUAS hopes to do with non US governments).


B: if you can get people to do that, you may accomplish something

me: It's in the works ... small step by small step, and interns will probably be the folks who make it grow ... :)


B: getting people together to study from open course ware and similar sources is what I think might be a realistic goal talking about a vision that goes far beyond that may just make that less

me: sounds realistic ... I think a lot of people, however, would appreciate free degrees, and it will be this which helps WUaS grow significantly

B: likely to happen
but you seem to me to be articulating a wish, not a plan

me: but the material for people to study open course ware is already available and I would guess that groups are already doing this.

me: To be seen, I think .. WUaS is incorporated and we've received some money ... and there a lot of small steps ahead, and a lot of interns to hire ... to be sure

B: so how do they network?

me: I haven't seen any ... but it's possible through WUaS if you know of interested people. I'll keep tuned to other ways I learn of ... and let you know

B: I haven't seen a good networking system based around the existing free material but you're not focused on this. my question is: why not?

me: Here's one way of networking at WikiEducator which I'll probably incorporate at WUaS - http://wikieducator.org/Learning4Content/Workshops/eL4C41/Home - They've got a Give Back 10 day conference beginning today, and a list of participants.
Building such networking is what interns will do
I'll probably incorporate this at "You at World University" - your good idea - as a further development of networking
This page, actually - http://wikieducator.org/Learning4Content/Workshops/eL4C41/Participants

B: well maybe they're doing it already. it's not clear to me from a quick glance

me: Just creating such a page, and inviting participants to "Be Bold" and make a wiki edit :) are two forms of networking ... and then people will list common interests, and start to share ideas via various venues

B: yes. I suppose so.
getting late here
nice to catch up a bit
sorry we're not on island when you are

me: flourishing networking, on the par of chamber music, or raga, may be possible through the World University and School, but also after many small steps ... Likewise .. your skepticism usefully focuses interesting possibilities
too bad we won't see each other ... but perhaps we will before next year

B: that would be nice
I have to sign off for tonight

me: agreed ... keep on the lookout for resources for interns ... and perhaps we can talk about this later ... good night!

B: ok. good night!














(http://scott-macleod.blogspot.com/2010/07/sylvia-atricapilla-response-to-skeptics.html - July 21, 2010)

Dove: Old Quaker / pacifist song 'I ain't gonna study war no more' - World Univ & Sch's Peace & Social Justice subject

Putting a positive, real focus to the old Quaker / pacifist song 'I ain't gonna study war no more' - World Univ & Sch's Peace & Social Justice subject:

worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/Peace_and_Social_Justice_Studies

with MIT & Berkeley + courses ...

and where you can teach, add, and learn.

WUAS is open & it's free ...
























(http://scott-macleod.blogspot.com/2010/07/dove-old-quaker-pacifist-song-i-aint.html - July 21, 2010)

Bromo Tengger Semeru: This actual / virtual ethnography highlights some salient distinctions between Harbin folks and virtual Harbinites

Harbin ethnography:



... They are all expressions of people, i.e. humans, at Harbin, in which this ethnography is particularly interested, ethnographically.

This actual / virtual ethnography, however, highlights some salient distinctions between Harbin folks and virtual Harbinites, both those who have visited actual Harbin, and those who know Harbin only virtually. While terms like posthuman, virtual subjectivity, the 'anthropological avatar,' homo cyber (Boellstorff 2008:29), 'digital representational figures,' and 'virtual, floating Harbinites' may all aptly characterize aspects of what is new in conceptualizing the human in relation to the emergence of virtual worlds, I argue, in the process of humans' symbolizing in the context of evolutionary biology (Deacon), that personhood, and people, take on new significances vis-a-vis multimedia (Packer and Jordan), which we can read in terms of the posthuman, but which, in this ethnography, I find more helpful to limit to ethnographic readings of the Harbin experience for individuals, and for avatars on virtual Harbin. In this book I argue that there are different ways of experiencing Harbin, actually and virtually, for people and for avatars. While “virtual worlds reconfigure selfhood and sociality” (Boellstorff 2008:29), this is due to new forms of symbolization and representation, informed by multimedia in this example of actual and virtual Harbin.


WHAT THIS, A BOOK, DOES.

Why write a book? And why write an anthropological book, an ethnography, about actual and virtual Harbin? ...

















(http://scott-macleod.blogspot.com/2010/07/bromo-tengger-semeru-this-actual.html - July 21, 2010)

Speckled bush cricket: Reed College, a model for learning for World University and School, OPTIMAL LEARNING in Virtual Worlds?, WUaS Music School

Reed, a model for learning for World University and School worlduniversity.wikia.com ? Reed focuses on a required Freshman humanities' curriculum starting with the ancient Greek world - skill (virtu) & excellence (arete) are central - where conversation about these ideas (and key ideas from ancient Rome, too) is a model for learning as well as knowledge production. Faculty are hired at Reed primarily to teach, classes tend to be small, & students choose Reed for 'the life of the mind.'


Here's the Humanities' subject with a Yale course on Ancient Greece worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/Humanities at World University and School.


You'll find at this WUaS Humanities' subject above some Reed College syllabi for the Hum 110 course. Shall we start reading these texts together now? :)



What would make online learning in virtual worlds using the Reed College conference method, for Reed-like (e-Reedies?) students, OPTIMAL? Very FUN?

The Reed campus, S.E. Portland, Oregon, and being with Reedies would take on a different focus.


Animating avatar faces to be lifelike would help.

(Animated faces in Second Life - http://sl.vr-wear.com/ which I blogged about here: http://scott-macleod.blogspot.com/2009/03/blue-flax-meadow-conversation-comparing.html - March 19, 2009). I also haven't seen many innovations in Second Life concerning this, but I haven't also been looking.


People get into their bodies at Reed, an idea-place, through modern dance, for example. Reed has no sports' teams, no fraternities, no sororities ... Paideia - the ancient Greek word for education, and what is at Reed a kind of festival involving people (mostly students) teaching to each other ... http://worlduniversity.wikia.com/



And what would be optimal for World University's Music School and conservatory? An Oberlin College Conservatory teaching and learning model? worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/World_University_Music_School ?

What approaches shall we use to develop World University's Music School so that it flourishes?




















(http://scott-macleod.blogspot.com/2010/07/speckled-bush-cricket-reed-college.html - July 20, 2010)

Rocky Mountains: Also interested in questions of personhood itself, about which avatar use in a virtual world opens new areas of inquiry, The Subject

Harbin ethnography:


... What programmers, script writers, and even new virtual world experiences – not Second Life and Open Simulator, for example - will emerge?

In ethnographically examining the idea of the virtual Harbinite (vis-a-vis the posthuman) in relation to Harbin folks (vis-a-vis the human), I'm also interested in questions of personhood itself, about which avatar use in a virtual world opens new areas of inquiry (Boellstorff 2008: 28). Different end users can use the same avatar in-world, so that the same avatar can be a proxy for different personalities, another expression of the posthuman. Actual Harbin personalities, with the freedom there, and as a kind of hot springs' hippie retreat center / church / ashram / spiritual center, with clothing-optional pools, gives form to fascinating expressions of personality, and aspects of 'the human.' While I refer to the posthuman as new syntheses, and new possibilities, of humanness - often language- and communication-related - due to digital, information technologies, in the example above, the posthuman can also refer to ways in which “technology can enable us to overcome the limitations of the human form” (Nayar 2004:71; Foster 2005:xi). While thousands of years of Hindu and Buddhist practice, for example, may have given form to related technologies for new syntheses of humanness, in the form of texts and paintings (e.g. avatars, ideas and images), for example, these older practices that could come under the rubric of posthuman aren't mediated digitally. The term posthuman is also problematic in many ways for an anthropologist whose disciplinary focus is 'the human' (Rabinow 2003). For one, “The notion of the posthuman conflates the human with the subject of liberal humanism, and thus with disciplinary debates in the humanities” (Boellstorff 2008: 28). In concordance with Boellstorff, the too-narrow term posthuman doesn't allow for the variability of human experience, of which it is part. And the digital distinction which it possibly highlights, vis-a-vis humans/avatars, may better be experienced in the term 'digital representational figures.' Virtual Harbinites in virtual Harbin here become representations of actual Harbinites, if they have visited Harbin. Those virtual Harbin folks who have never visited actual Harbin become 'virtual, floating Harbinites' in some senses in this conceptualization of the human, in digital anthropology studies. They are all expressions of people, i.e. humans, at Harbin, in which this ethnography is particularly interested, ethnographically.

This actual / virtual ethnography, however, highlights some salient distinctions between Harbin folks and virtual Harbinites, both those who have visited actual Harbin, and those who know Harbin only virtually. ...
















(http://scott-macleod.blogspot.com/2010/07/rocky-mountains-also-interested-in.html - July 20, 2010)

Pygmy Hippo: Avatar names in Second Life are influenced by its discourse and milieu

Harbin ethnography:


... The Harbin experience – as I've heard it called, and sometimes by Harbin residents in the sense that to call the 'now' experience as experience, takes it problematically out of its 'nowness' – is what I hope will inform a reading of the posthuman vis-a-vis virtual Harbin.

Avatar names in Second Life are influenced by its discourse and milieu. My name in Second Life is Aphilo Aarde. I chose the last name of my avatar 'Aarde' from a list that Linden Lab's Second Life offered, and because I liked the sound of it. I later learned that it means earth in Dutch. I chose the first name 'Aphilo' for my avatar, because '-phil-' has connotations of 'love.' I chose 'Aphilo' also because I had a great uncle named Philo, because the name shared something in common with the word 'philosopher,' and because having a name beginning with the letter 'a' would put it toward the top of any list, something possibly helpful in computing. Names which are chosen, as they are in a variety of ways in Second Life, compared with 'real life' to use a term from Second Life, can connote or denote something about the chooser of the name, or the avatar - the representation of the figure, sometimes fantastical and imaginative and always cartoon-esque in SL at this point - which names in real life, often given by parents, don't. And people/end users in Second Life can have multiple avatars with different names (Turkle 199?), and thus engage Second Life in a variety of ways. At actual Harbin many people have New Age spiritual names, often with Hindu-origins, in my experience, but actually with origins that are 'all over the map' – hippie-like. As a cultural practice, this name selection at Harbin reflects the New Age vision and practices that have developed there since the 1960s. From the spiritual name of the (visionary, perhaps a hippie, and businessman, in some ways) founder 'Ishvara' (a.k.a. Bob Hartley, in actuality) – meaning supreme commander in the Hindu pantheon of divinities – to a variety of others, names at Harbin are sometimes chosen by the individual out of their beliefs which found support at Harbin, or were given, sometimes, by spiritual teachers. Sometimes spiritual Harbin names, or self-selected ones, are taken from nature, or from art, or from a fascinating trip. Spiritual, or self-chosen names, also express an individual's vision of the highest order, and sometimes in relation to their understandings of the divine. In a place like clothing-optional Harbin, long visited by hippies and other northern Californians especially, with an openness to bodywork, intimacy, its alternative and pools-centric 'counterculture,' other names, besides legal ones, have an advantage of a kind of anonymity. Colorful, creative, visionary spiritual names also reshape an entire discourse in new and innovative ways at Harbin, because people associate these names with people, and all of this becomes part of the fabric of life – Harbin's culture - as well. Virtual Harbin names will be fascinating to observe as they emerge. For example, what will Harbinites' spirituality, and anonymity, add to the virtual Harbin experience? What Second Life groups will emerge in virtual Harbin that are unique to Harbin? What programmers, script writers, and even new virtual world experiences – not Second Life and Open Simulator, for example - will emerge?

In ethnographically examining the idea of the virtual Harbinite (vis-a-vis the posthuman) in relation to Harbin folks (vis-a-vis the human), I'm also interested in questions of personhood itself, about which avatar use in a virtual world opens new areas of inquiry (Boellstorff 2008: 28). ...










(http://scott-macleod.blogspot.com/2010/07/pygmy-hippo-avatar-names-in-second-life.html - July 19, 2010)

Musquash: World Univ & Sch is the ongoing online Whole Earth Catalog, And to make the earth whole?

World Univ & Sch is the ongoing online Whole Earth Catalog - worlduniversity.wikia.com for us to share information tools, ideas, to teach & to learn from each other ... and to make the earth whole?



*

Check out the Ocean and Climate Change Management Plan subject (it's growing), and please add to it ...


worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/Ocean_%26_Climate_Management_Plan


*

World Univ & Sch would like to be a COMMUNITY GARDEN of online wisdom. Plant a Seed -



Museums:

worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/Museums,



Music:

worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/Music



Yoga:

worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/Yoga


or,

web design?

worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/Web_Page_Design_and_Production



*

How might you like to make the earth whole, informationally?

Teach, learn, create this at World University.















(http://scott-macleod.blogspot.com/2010/07/musquash-world-univ-sch-is-ongoing.html - July 18, 2010)

Mandarin Fish: In a loving bliss world, what new social roles would emerge?

In a loving bliss world, what new social roles would emerge?

Yo-yo Ma-like musicians playing & creating music explicitly for bliss generation?


Contact Improv jammers,

Contra-dancers,

Coloratura Opera singers,

Yoginis teaching yoga asana

(like Angela & Victor's yoga, for one)

all deliciously -

and all to elicit bliss :)



How can we generate these new roles?

(New social roles emerge in societies a lot!)


Teach & Learn about it at World University & School's 'Loving Bliss Eliciting' subject: worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/Loving_Bliss_%28eliciting_this_neurophysiology%29?



BGG:

Getting as good as Yo-Yo Ma requires extreme competitiveness, and I somehow doubt that his early years learning to play were filled with loving bliss, or that his parents allowed him much time for loving bliss between lessons and practicing...



Scott:

Agreed ... and no Yo-yo Ma am I, but it (this loving bliss neurophysiology) was there for me in early years, and has been sporadically throughout my life, and I see it in so many ways, as well as its potential ... raga musicians and raga ... and humans learn and teach ... so at least having a little subject about it at World University & School http://worlduniversity.wikia.com/ , as well as thinking about it ... and envisioning it ... are good ideas ... and perhaps a conversation will develop. (Who would have thought the 60s would have happened, to historicize the unexpected or unanticipated?)

And musicians like Yo-yo Ma for this loving bliss musical code generation? ... There are lots of virtuosos out in the world today who shape remarkable 'flow' experiences for many ...

Listen to the Rorty (who was virtuosic as a philosopher, as I see it) interview on ecstasy in Holland - it's on the Loving Bliss Eliciting subject at WUAS - he at least conceived of eliciting ecstasy as possible - unusual for a philosopher and he even tries to model eliciting ecstasy in a natural area in this video




(http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6148968394915050958#)


Scott:

Both videos on either side of the Rorty interview (worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/Loving_Bliss_%28eliciting_this_neurophysiology%29#Select_Video_and_Audio) in the 'Loving Bliss Elicitng' Subject - e.g.

the Guitar four-hands "Iste Gitari Konusturmak Ben Buna Derim" and




Ravi Shankar raga -




are perhaps good models for eliciting ecstasy, and learning from, but not as intense as ecstasy (MDMA) itself.


Scott:

Everybody develops their own approaches to practicing ... contact improv and contra-dance, for example, can be pretty easy ways into 'flow,' and even bliss, (not sure about loving bliss for everyone) from the beginning and without very much practice ...













(http://scott-macleod.blogspot.com/2010/07/mandarin-fish-in-loving-bliss-world.html July 17, 2010)

Rainbow shiners: I first got an avatar, and found rich, 'flow' experiences in a virtual world when participating in a Harvard University course

Harbin ethnography:


.... Over time, some residents to Harbin Hot Springs will only know Harbin virtually and some will only know it in-the-actual-waters, but there will be much overlap and related conversation about this, as well.


THE VIRTUAL HARBINITE (vis-a-vis the Posthuman?) AND HARBIN FOLKS (vis-a-vis the Human?)

I first got an avatar, and found rich, 'flow' (Csikszentmihalyi 199.) experiences with these new information technologies, in the autumn of 2006 when participating in a Harvard University course, “CyberOne: Law in the Court of Public Opinion,” on its virtual island in Second Life. Besides the excitement of interacting, representationally, with people from all over the world on virtual places in Second Life - with cartoon-esque avatars representing you which you can shape and dress any way you like, and where you can build anything imaginable - it was during this course's office hours in group chat (Figure with dialogue example) that I experienced new possibilities for the exchange of ideas among people. This was before Linden Lab introduced voice into Second Life, so linguistic communication occurred only through typing. What was uniquely posthuman was the modality of communication in the following ways. Multiple people, through their avatars, type-chatted at the same time. What was typed was recorded so that people could re-visit what was said in the conversation earlier, and reply to previous ideas. Multiple lines of reasoning and conversation could therefore emerge. And the transcript of each group conversations was saved, so that it could become part of future conversations, and so that it was archivable. A document was created in perpetuity, as well. This combining of people, avatar-mediated-communication and information technologies in a novel constellation to create 'flow' experiences in serious-minded, multiple-voiced conversations is what I call here an example of a posthuman experience. On virtual Harbin, these conversations emerge vis-a-vis both actual and virtual Harbin sociocultural processes. Actual Harbin has generated a rich fabric of life where Harbin residents and Harbin visitors – Harbinites (? - a term I've heard occasionally at Harbin), or Harbin folks (the often-heard term 'Harbin residents' does not include visitors and guests) – are human in ways informed by Harbin's culture. The Harbin experience – as I've heard it called, and sometimes by Harbin residents in the sense that to call the 'now' experience as experience, takes it problematically out of its 'nowness' – is what I hope will inform a reading of the posthuman vis-a-vis virtual Harbin.

Avatar names in Second Life are influenced by its discourse and milieu. ...










(http://scott-macleod.blogspot.com/2010/07/rainbow-shiners-i-first-got-avatar-and.html - July 17, 2010)

Pangolin: One thing both actual Harbin and virtual Harbin in Second Life have in common is their openness

Harbin ethnography:


... In what ways substantive and referential relationships articulate across the actual and virtual worlds divide, in terms of these Harbins, will be fascinating to study, and will shed much light on the already multiple distinctions between the actual and virtual worlds.

In many ways, one thing both actual Harbin and virtual Harbin in Second Life have in common is their openness. At actual Harbin, people take off their clothes and go into the pools, or chat easily, naked, on the sun deck in the Harbin pool area with friends or with people they meet there. And Second Life is an open-ended society where there aren't very many rules, except that you can build/make whatever you imagine; I've heard Second Life described as a computer war game without a purpose, because many virtual worlds, such as World of Warcraft, are developed around battle themes. Such openness at Harbin, and in Second Life, may predispose people to transfer their own imaginings and fears onto these 'places,' rather than find out what actually does happen there. 1) While harassment has probably occurred in both places in these open environments, as an unfortunate reality of life, it seems to be pretty limited in my experience. This Harbin ethnography will facilitate learning what happens in both actual and virtual Harbin as it unfolds. 2) An actual Harbin / virtual Harbin comparison is a fascinating anthropological 'experiment' which might both help contribute to anthropological concepts of culture, thanks to new milieus of virtual worlds informed by information technology, and contribute to the already rich literature on culture in virtual worlds. 3) To explore the contours of the ways in which 'actual counterculture' does articulate with 'virtual counterculture' may help to rewrite this assumption that culture finds form at both actual and virtual Harbin. The third above assumption will find further clarification in the ways in which Harbin residents contribute to a kind of wiki-building of virtual Harbin, with their knowledge of Harbin, and the ways in which their friends and guests engage virtual Harbin when they return home from visiting Harbin Hot Springs. Over time, some residents to Harbin Hot Springs will only know Harbin virtually and some will only know it in-the-actual-waters, but there will be much overlap and related conversation about this, as well.


THE VIRTUAL HARBINITE (vis-a-vis the Posthuman?) AND HARBIN FOLKS (vis-a-vis the Human?)

I first got an avatar, and found rich, 'flow' (Csikszentmihalyi 199.) experiences with these new information technologies, in the autumn of 2006 when participating in a Harvard University course, “CyberOne: Law in the Court of Public Opinion,” on its virtual island in Second Life. ...
















(http://scott-macleod.blogspot.com/2010/07/pangolin-one-thing-both-actual-harbin.html - July 16, 2010)

Chaparral: Wind along the road from the town to the springs, and you will come to a gate, talk to them there and enter

Wind along the road from the town to the springs, and you will come to a gate

Talk to them there and enter

Wander up the way to the pools where we gather, to rest in the beauty of the waters

You and we change, releasing into the waters, naked and free

Come home

Sit in the sun on the deck, talk with friends

The dragon-back ridge line, high up away in the close distance, covered with chaparral, is alive in the light

And you are living anew in Harbin harmony

January 2, 2008

(http://scott-macleod.blogspot.com/2010/07/chaparral-wind-along-road-from-town-to.html - July 15, 2010)

Baby Anteater: Open Wiki Platform easier than Wikipedia, Secure Registrar, WUaS Info Tech and Data Plan

In developing the open, free, editable World University & School worlduniversity.wikia.com/ - like Wikipedia with MIT OCW, Berkeley Webcast, Open Yale Courses and where people can teach to each other - wiki-openness is what has led to the remarkable group knowledge production process in Wikipedia, but there are problems with this platform too. How to keep the group editing process easy, even simpler than Wikipedia's, develop good Content Management Systems, and have a dynamic enough platform to engage new relevant technologies make for interesting planning questions. Check out the wiki information technologies and data plan at WUAS: http://worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/WUaS_Information_Technologies_and_Data_Plan. Eventually WUaS wants 'secure registrar' - https:// (e.g. like Vanguard Mutual Funds) and Wikipedia openness - in all 3000-8000 languages and 220-ish countries. Thoughts? Please click 'edit this page' on the plan above.








(http://scott-macleod.blogspot.com/2010/07/baby-anteater-open-wiki-platform-easier.html - July 14, 2010)

Vaccinium corymbosum: Harbin Hot Springs' & virtual worlds' assumptions which I hope this ethnography will clarify

Harbin ethnography:



... The ways in which such explorations that have occurred at actual Harbin will emerge in virtual Harbin beginning in 2009-2010, with the 1960s four decades in the past will be fascinating to observe ethnographically.

People familiar with actual Harbin and with virtual worlds like Second Life, in general, are often predisposed to certain assumptions which I hope this ethnography will clarify. 1) At actual Harbin, some people I've met think that it's a pick up place and that there are sharks - mostly men who pick up mostly women - in the pools; in virtual worlds, that they're hard to navigate in, that there are a lot of avatar griefers who might harass people with adolescent meanness and bullying, that it's just a game for mostly teenagers, and that virtual worlds like Second Life are pretty sexualized, and that the level of discourse in them isn't very high. 2) A second assumption people might have about an actual Harbin/virtual Harbin comparison, in terms of culture, is that culture is relatively insignificant at on-the-ground Harbin so that not much might occur or be observable in any expressions of 'culture' in virtual world Harbins. 3) A third assumption that this book may clarify is that the differences between the 'actual' and virtual worlds are unsustainable (Boellstorff 2008:27). In what ways substantive and referential relationships articulate across the actual and virtual worlds divide, in terms of these Harbins, will be fascinating to study, and will shed much light on the already multiple distinctions between the actual and virtual worlds.

In many ways, one thing both actual Harbin and virtual Harbin in Second Life have in common is their openness. ...











(http://scott-macleod.blogspot.com/2010/07/vaccinium-corymbosum-hot-springs.html - July 14, 2010)

Heron in Flight: Harbin itself is a place of play, or retreat, of dropping out, and of creating a different world

Harbin ethnography:


... With a focus on freedom, and Harbin's countercultural processes, I'll leave questions of capital, consumption, and means of production, however, vis-a-vis both actual and virtual Harbin, to other social scientists and researchers.

Harbin itself is a place of play, or retreat, of dropping out, of escapism in many senses of this word, and of creating a different society, - of embracing freedom in explicit, clothing-optional ways. Tuning in, turning on, and dropping out (T. Leary) emerged in the 1960s in relation to mind-expanding psychedelic drugs – Ishvara at Harbin attended workshops and talks with Tim Leary at Esalen and other places - and Harbin flows out of this ethos of 1960's freedom-seeking, of seeing things differently, of creating and living an alternative, countercultural exploration of life. People, then and now, go on vacation to get away - including going on retreats - and to have fun, which is what Harbin is for, in so many ways, as a kind of continuous hippie gathering under the name of Heart Consciousness Church (but it isn't a church, by way of comparison, in the way the traditional, dour, gloomy and strict - by some accounts - Wee Free Kirk of Scotland is, which is stricter even than the Free Church of Scotland, which has a reputation for strictness). Harbin is a place where more countercultural explorations have occurred in a 1960's sense than most other places on the planet. More spiritual teachers – saddhus, gurus, fakirs, astrologers, travelers in India, Tantric Yoginis, Zen Buddhists, Toaists, psychedelic tripsters traveling to far away worlds, rainbow cosmonauts, hippies, Dead Heads, Merry Pranksters, Goddesses and spiritual journeyers of most colorful stripes, and very diverse 'Western' backgrounds - have come in and out of Harbin than can be imagined, ~ mind-blowingly so. And Harbin has welcomed them, held a lot of workshops around such spirituality, and created and cultivated the space for a kind of countercultural (escapist – yes, totally:) freedom, especially in Harbin's pools. Well, anthropologically speaking, it just kind of happened, and is still happening as the waters flow out of the ground and people take off their clothes and head into the warm pool. The ways in which such explorations that have occurred at actual Harbin will emerge in virtual Harbin beginning in 2009-2010, with the 1960s four decades in the past will be fascinating to observe ethnographically.

People familiar with actual Harbin and with virtual worlds like Second Life, in general, are often predisposed to certain assumptions which I hope this ethnography will clarify. ...

















(http://scott-macleod.blogspot.com/2010/07/heron-in-flight-harbin-itself-is-place.html - July 13, 2010)

Northern Aurora: To analyze actual and virtual Harbin in terms of consumption, labor & class are fascinating Questions, Counterculture

Harbin ethnography:


... n writing this book, I'm interested in engaging ethnographic interpretation and analysis using language, to examine questions of culture vis-a-vis a specific place in northern California, and the virtual.

To analyze actual and virtual Harbin Hot Springs in terms of capitalism, consumption, labor and class, and vis-a-vis the U.S.A, northern California, virtual worlds and counterculture, would raise many fascinating questions. In this ethnography, I focus on the significance of Harbin as a singular expression of sociocultural processes that emerged in the 1960s, touching on commodification (Kopytoff) only a little, thus exploring ethnographically the significance of Harbin's unique culture. While anthropology has significant traditions of Marxian analysis, the pool-centric focus of this ethnography - both at actual and virtual Harbins - leads me to focus on the enjoyment and freedom visitors and residents find at Harbin in the context of what some might consider the alienation which modernity gives rise to. I would argue that the 1960s were a remarkable expression of reaction to such alienation. Harbin has long been a place where hippies and Bohemians – both visitors and residents - can go and just hang out, find work if you need it, and just be. And Harbin's natural simplicity and funkiness, while not ameliorating the negative aspects of questions of ownership – Harbin is owned and operated by Heart Consciousness Church (HCC) – have given rise to ways of life, which are not usefully analyzed with a Marxian lens. And while residents do the work at Harbin, and I've heard some occasionally criticize management, they know the terms on which they work at Harbin, and choose to stay. While there was a renters' strike around 1977 (Klages), I have never heard of any attempts to unionize Harbin. And actual Harbin as an organization itself doesn't critique capitalism that I have heard, nor do I know of many Marxist or socialist critics who have visited or lived there since I have been going there. And while it's a hot springs' retreat center business and church – a legal charity and nonprofit - and an almost-but-not-quite hippie commune, it's not presently legally a collective or a cooperative. Hippies, however, fully engaged Marxian and socialist thought, and in all likelihood many radical communists have come through the gate to visit. And while many a revolutionary from the People's Republic of Berkeley and the commune of San Francisco have probably travelled to Harbin to change the world, many have found themselves changed by the waters there, as well. I hope I'll get to know more of them. With a focus on freedom, and Harbin's countercultural processes, I'll leave questions of capital, consumption, and means of production, however, vis-a-vis both actual and virtual Harbin, to other social scientists and researchers.

Harbin itself is a place of play, or retreat, of dropping out, of escapism in many senses of this word, and of creating a different society, - of embracing freedom in explicit, clothing-optional ways. ...














(http://scott-macleod.blogspot.com/2010/07/northern-aurora-to-analyze-actual-and.html - July 12, 2010)

Cows in India: New Philosophy of Language, Phil of Science and Happiness subjects at WUaS, Current Philosophy Subjects at WUaS, FREE Harvard Degree

Recent, new World University and School subjects, as well as updates:


Philosophy of Language - worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/Philosophy_of_Language


Philosophy of Science - worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/Philosophy_of_Science and


Happiness - worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/Happiness


plus much more, for example, at World Univ & Sch are growing - http://worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/Subjects.



*

And here are the current, main WUaS philosophy (worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/Philosophy) links:


World University and School's 'Consciousness' subject: http://worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/Consciousness

World University and School's 'Naturalism' subject: http://worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/Naturalism

World University and School's 'Philosophy of Language' subject: http://worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/Philosophy_of_Language

World University and School's 'Philosophy of Science' subject: http://worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/Philosophy_of_Science

World University and School's 'Pragmatism' subject: http://worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/Pragmatism

World University and School's 'Richard Rorty' subject: http://worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/Rorty,_Richard




*

(And check out the free Harvard degree in education for 25 students in 2011 & 2012 at World Univ & Sch Free Degree Programs - worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/Courses#Free_Degree_Programs with an invitation to add other free degrees you find here. There are already a lot of useful resources at WUaS ... enjoy).
















(http://scott-macleod.blogspot.com/2010/07/cows-in-india-new-philosophy-of.html - July 11, 2010)

Spicebush Swallowtail: Yoga Page for Learning Resources at World Univ & Sch, Do Yoga with Angela & Victor, ideally, interactively via a computer?

Here's an open Yoga page for teaching and learning resources at World University & School ... just click 'edit this page' to add something, or click on some of the videos to explore yoga :) Anyone can teach here, too, directly to your web cameras ... and then post this ... or in a virtual world from home .


worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/Yoga



As a wiki (editable web pages) school, you can focus and re-focus this in ways you would like. I think the variety of resources (like a good university's library?) will appeal to different people.


But I'd like, personally, to be able to do yoga with Angela and Victor, and ideally interactively via a computer, (when I can't be in a course with them). Right now there's not enough of what they teach online or on youtube - and Angela's vision & language are really beautiful ...


I'd like these for example, to jump out of the screen right here ... :)


What would you like to teach, learn and create, yoga-wise :)



Look around the yoga page here ... :)













(http://scott-macleod.blogspot.com/2010/07/spicebush-swallowtail-yoga-page-for.html - July 10, 2010)

Spicebush Swallowtail Larva: Wilderness Oil Irony, What a disappointment Obama, WUaS Ocean and Climate Change Management Plan

Marshall:

When you want to prove that you really care about wilderness, or that you’re really serious about reining in the oil companies, this is how you do it!

(and posts article with this headline:)

Obama To Open Up 1.8 Million Alaskan Acres To Oil Drilling
(www.huffingtonpost.com - www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/07/09/obama-to-open-up-18-milli_n_641559.html)




Rodney:

So much for the "New Energy Economy"


Liz:

What a disappointment (I base my comment on the headline and the excerpt only). Is it that lobbies are too powerful/too enmeshed with government? Is it that the president has to horse trade in order to get ANYthing done? Are there too many burdensome, long-standing secrets and precedents that must be kept and that ultimately will overtake any calls for meaningful, paradigmatic change...?


Scott:

Please add to the open, free, 'edit this page' World University & School's Ocean and Climate Change Management Plan worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/Subjects ... gotta find a viable (Quaker / Gandhian - third way?) to keep houses warm in winter for 7 billion people ... quickly ... (worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/Ocean_%26_Climate_Management_Plan)

which means, in one sense - to organize effectively (worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/Energy_Technologies ?) to innovate with 'green' energy technologies .... because there's another 1.8 million acres 10 years ahead that might become a Gulf of Mexico after BP's oil ecological catastrophe ...



Contessa:

I think I'll just raise my window and jump on out now ........ This prez is about to make me lose my religion. Sorry guys, but, WTF?!!!!



Scott:

‎... seems not to be acting on principle ... nonharming makes sense to me ... Marshall did write a Quakerly Stewardship of the Earth pamphlet in 1987-ish



Marshall:

Here’s a YouTube video (a very short one) that sums it all up: Obama: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T9SUDoLsS1E !





While I greatly appreciate your remembering my early efforts, Scott, and I thank you from the bottom of my heart, I feel I ought to clarify the record just a little.

I have never advocated the concept of “stewardship of the Earth... See More”; I have repeatedly said, in public, that it is a concept that is non-Biblical, non-Quaker, and unconsciously arrogant, that because of its unconscious arrogance it does more harm than good, and that it really ought to be abandoned.

You can certainly be pardoned for not remembering that — after all, I have never been more than a very small voice in the world of Friends, and it has been a long, long, *long* time since that pamphlet was written. But I hope you will understand that this is a point that matters to me.

The pamphlet I wrote (“In Defense of the Peaceable Kingdom”) called for an extension of our Friends testimony to environmental matters, but did not do so in terms of “stewardship”.

I am happy to say that the extension of our Friends testimony to environmental matters is indeed happening — not nearly as quickly as is needed, but still, the fact that it is happening at all is *good* —



Scott:

:)



Candy:

I may be out in the sea on a boat by myself here, but I am a strong believer in our stewardship of the Earth. If we as humans are not morally responsible, who will be?



Scott:

Post, and synthesize, such great ideas, teaching and learning resources to open, free, editable World Univ & Sch's 'Solar Energy' page, and in other conversations, that fossil fuel use becomes more expensive than solar energy in modern society? -

worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/Solar_Energy








(From a Facebook website conversation today)









(http://scott-macleod.blogspot.com/2010/07/spicebush-swallowtail-larva-wilderness.html - July 10, 2010)

Cecropia: Value-free ethnographic representation is problematic, since anthropology engages both scientific & humanities-oriented research

Harbin ethnography:


While value-free ethnographic representation is problematic, since anthropology engages both scientific and humanities-oriented research approaches (Kottak 2008), I have aimed to characterize actual / virtual Harbin in neither Utopian nor negative ways. Like many Harbin visitors and residents, I enjoy both actual and virtual Harbin and find this appreciation of Harbin to augment my field work and reading of Harbin culture there (Boellstorff 2008: 25). The assumptions that inform my approaches to studying, and comparing, the culture of both 'places' are ethnographic. And while my appreciation of what has emerged at actual Harbin over nearly 40 years could be read as a kind of promotion of it, my main goals are first representational, and secondly archival or folkloric, in a sense. And virtual Harbin becomes an useful emergent process for both, in novel anthropological ways. While Harbin Hot Springs may be a kind of radical envisioning in some ways vis-a-vis the (counter-)culture which has emerged there, its relative longevity – since Ishvara bought the land in 1972 – has generated a kind of stability in, and even development of, patterns, which I interpret as countercultural. Counterculture itself is radical in its own way, and Harbin's ongoing instantiations of these expressions of human life are uniquely and remarkably representable ethnographically. And while to create a virtual Harbin in Second Life in order to observe cultural processes is itself remarkable, I shall neither apologize for nor extol what is remarkable about ethnography and virtual worlds. In writing this book, I'm interested in engaging ethnographic interpretation and analysis using language, in examining questions of culture vis-a-vis a specific place in northern California and the virtual.














(http://scott-macleod.blogspot.com/2010/07/cecropia-while-value-free-ethnographic.html - July 10, 2010)

Bedstraw Flower: World Univ & Sch's entry at Wikipedia, Deleted last night for a second time, Both are designed around principles of openness

Here's the new World University and School entry at Wikipedia, (which was deleted last night for a second time - in July 2010 and January 2009 - which I blogged about before here, as well). I'm trying to get this to stay up in Wikipedia. From the openness they espoused a few years ago, I think their technologies, editors, filters and processes have become a little inflexible, non-open and unresponsive - we'll see. Wikipedia is built on a principle of openness. Why do societal processes close down again and again? Wikipedia has been so successful because they have a large and engaged community, and have focused on a kind of almost-hippie openness to this online encyclopedia, now in around 272 languages.



*

World University and School - worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/World_University - is a online, free, open, 'edit this page' university and school, where you can teach, learn, add content, and create. Like Wikipedia with MIT OpenCourseWare, Berkeley Webcast and people-to-people teaching and learning, WUaS facilitates wiki (editable web pages) teaching and learning. World University and School's focus on great universities' open content distinguishes it from other open, educational resources and schools on the World Wide Web.

Its main areas of focus include open courses, free degrees, (there's a [http://worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/Courses#Free_Ph.D.s free degree from Harvard University] in education for 2011 and 2012 for 25 students linked at World University and School), subjects, open teaching and learning potentially in all languages and all nation states/territories, library resources, museums, research, 'You at World University and School,' educational software, hardware resource possibilities, and World University and School's foundation. Teaching and learning can take place interactively in virtual worlds, in video and in ways people create. World University and School also seeks to become a meta-directory for much great free open teaching and learning content on the web. WUaS has a wiki scheduling calendar.

World University and School is planning for matriculating classes in 2014.

World University and School incorporated as a charity/nonprofit in the State of California in 2010, and is seeking accreditation at the university level.


Project


History

World University and School began in a "Society and Information Technology" class conversation, taught by Aphilo Aarde/Scott MacLeod on Harvard's Berkman Island in Second Life in 2007.


Technology

worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/WUaS_Information_Technologies_and_Data_Plan

















And here's the Wikipedia code:

World University and School - http://worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/World_University - is an online, free, open, 'edit this page' university and school, where you can teach, learn, add content, and create. Like Wikipedia with [[MIT OpenCourseWare]], [[Berkeley Webcast]] and people-to-people teaching and learning, WUaS facilitates wiki (editable web pages) teaching and learning. [http://worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/World_University World University and School]'s focus on great universities' open content distinguishes it from other open, educational resources and schools on the World Wide Web.

Its main areas of focus include open courses, free degrees, (there's a [http://worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/Courses#Free_Ph.D.s free degree from Harvard University] in education for 2011 and 2012 for 25 students linked at World University and School), subjects, open teaching and learning potentially in all languages and all nation states/territories, library resources, museums, research, 'You at World University and School,' educational software, hardware resource possibilities, and World University and School's foundation. Teaching and learning can take place interactively in virtual worlds, in video and in ways people create. World University and School also seeks to become a meta-directory for much great free open teaching and learning content on the web. WUaS has a wiki scheduling calendar.

World University and School is planning for matriculating classes in 2014.

World University and School incorporated as a charity/nonprofit in the State of California in 2010, and is seeking accreditation at the university level.


==Project==
===History===

World University and School began in a "Society and Information Technology" class conversation, taught by Aphilo Aarde/Scott MacLeod on Harvard's Berkman Island in Second Life in 2007.

===Technology===

http://worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/WUaS_Information_Technologies_and_Data_Plan


==See also==
*[[OpenCourseWare]]
*[[Open educational resources]]

==External links==
*[http://webcast.berkeley.edu/ Berkeley Webcast]
*[http://ocw.mit.edu/index.htm MIT OpenCourseWare] – official site; [http://www.myoops.org/twocw/mit/index.htm Traditional Chinese], [http://www.myoops.org/cocw/mit/index.htm Simplified Chinese] versions
*[http://www.youtube.com/user/MIT MIT's Channel] offers videos of OpenCourseWare on the YouTube
*[http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/HowTo/ Opencourseware How To] – designed to share the experience, key decisions, and lessons learned that led to the implementation of MIT's OpenCourseWare project.

==References==




{{DEFAULTSORT: Opencourseware}}
[[Category:Creative Commons-licensed works]]
[[Category:Educational websites]]
[[Category:OpenCourseWare]]
[[Category:2007 establishments]]













(http://scott-macleod.blogspot.com/2010/07/bedstraw-world-univ-schs-entry-at.html - July 9, 2010)

Abalone bed: World Univ & Sch's new Wikipedia entry - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_University_and_School, Recent Subjects - Botany, Anime, Rorty

Hi All,

Here's World University and School's new Wikipedia entry -
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_University_and_School
- with an invitation to edit this entry, and add content. (I tried posting this in January 2009, but Wikipedia wasn't as open then).

And here are some recent, new World University and School Subjects:

Botany:
worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/Botany


Anime:
worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/Anime


Philosophy of Science:
worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/Philosophy_of_Science


Richard Rorty:
worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/Rorty,_Richard


Italian Lang & Literature:
worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/Italian_Language_and_Literature


I continue to add many MIT OCW courses, as well as much else.


Please feel free to add subjects, and to teach, learn, add and create here.


Sincerely,
Scott

scottmacleod.com















(http://scott-macleod.blogspot.com/2010/07/abalone-world-univ-schs-new-wikipedia.html - July 8, 2010)

Pinnacles' Light: Another model for loving bliss neurophysiology elicitation, Raga with Ravi Shankar, Ali Akbar Khan and Alla Rakha Khan

Another model for loving bliss neurophysiology elicitation:







(Ravi Shankar, Ali Akbar Khan and Alla Rakha Khan - 2 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jsrJvGBkfKk)


*

Let's learn from this, and do it together in life ... :)
















(http://scott-macleod.blogspot.com/2010/07/pinnacles-light-another-model-for.html - July 7, 2010)

Remote Wilderness: Harbin's pools make you feel well

Harbin's pools make you feel well ...


*

It's the body temperature water in the warm pool ... the milieu ... the freedom there ... the do-nothingness ... the clothing-optionalness






*

Into your bath tub, with virtual Harbin ... yes ...


















(http://scott-macleod.blogspot.com/2010/07/remote-wilderness-harbins-pools-make.html - July 7, 2010)

Bear Cave: How many beautiful, rustic shelters in remote parts of wilderness areas does the National Park Service have? Bliss Opportunities?

How many beautiful, rustic shelters in remote parts of wilderness areas does the National Park Service have? I bet they have a fair number, many of which might be fun to visit - and even in the middle of winter. And how many libraries does the NPS have? I bet they have some and that they're fascinating and unique as well. Bliss exploration opportunities?


*

Blissing in wilderness?















(http://scott-macleod.blogspot.com/2010/07/bear-cave-how-many-beautiful-rustic.html - July 7, 2010)

White throated sparrow: Harbin's singularity (Kopytoff), commodification and its (counter-)culture, Harbin is a successful Hot Springs' Business

Harbin ethnography:


... It's this singularity that I hope to observe and interpret as Harbin's milieu emerges in virtual Harbin.

Vis-a-vis Harbin's singularity (Kopytoff), commodification and its (counter-)culture, while Harbin is a successful Hot Springs' Retreat Center business (last week when I visited, Harbin as a business just seemed to me to be humming along) these days, Harbin's location – its place – and culture make it unique. It's also a kind of not-a-commune Hippie commune, where, due to the abundance of water flowing out of the ground, its beauty, and a large number of somewhat Bohemian-minded visitors coming through the gate, in an unbroken stream since at least the mid-1960s, when it was briefly and nominally Harbinger University, a psychedelic university, life is easy there for residents and visitors alike. And although there is a 'management structure' by which decisions are made, Harbin is pretty funky in this respect, as well, and it all works as if by itself, with a very, very distributed hierarchy. The founder, Ishvara, who still lives at Harbin, has most significantly influenced this vision, simply because he's been there continuously since 1972, and, in a sense, been able to say no (not easy at Harbin), occasionally, through the years, and the other longest-term residents have been there since the 1980s. Harbin is very singular, indeed.


While values-free representation in social science ...

















(http://scott-macleod.blogspot.com/2010/07/white-throated-sparrow-harbins.html - July 6, 2010)