Wind farm and greenhouse gas farm, together shared CC by kevindooley
I’m still finding my way with regards to the ‘sustainability’ part of my job. I know I’m new to this, at least professionally, so I’m trying to focus on getting to know people and to offer support when possible to those who are already doing interesting work. I’m enjoying myself much more than I expected heading in… which says a lot about how much about how much I like and respect the people I am working with…
The David Korten (audio) and Stewart Brand (audio) talks kicked off the UBC Reads Sustainability series in wildly successful style, pulling in remarkable turnouts given the short notice and depending on grassroots promotion. The energy at both events was palpable, and it was exciting to get the sense that here is an opportunity to do some worthwhile work that is meeting an obvious need in the UBC community. The past couple weeks represented something of a guerrilla pilot project, and I can’t wait to see what the future holds…
I’ve been thinking a lot about how sustainability might fit with open education, so I read with interest Teemu Leinonen’s typically smart take on sustainable development and education in the digital age.
I’m still working through Joss Winn’s radical position on a similar question, which I had the privilege of first hearing in person when he presented it.
I grow even more frustrated with how narrowly defined the discourse around “open educational resources” seems to be right now, but am wary of throwing hand grenades at people who are doing work that is well-intentioned and which ultimately I am not qualified to judge. More on that soon.
It’s been a frantic couple of weeks. I told myself to write what I could in the time I had… that sloppy blogging was preferable to no blogging at all. I leave it to you to judge whether that is indeed the case.
No time for reflection, I’m headed in a new direction…
Res ipsa loquitur. Let the good times roll.
[On a somehow related note, I hope] just last week I heard a comment by John Traxler at http://unescochair-elearning.uoc.edu/event/VIIseminar/ that I thought very interesting… He said that, in the field of ICT for Development, we (meaning Europe, the US, Canada and the rest of rich countries) have a tendency to fund ‘good’ (on paper, at least) projects, and then expect them to become sustainable, while maybe another interesting option is to start funding acceptable sustainable projects and then expect them to become better.
Having no idea of how the field works, I don’t know if that’s a good idea or not, but it sounded, at least, interesting.
Good pointers, Brian.
I like the Autonomist take.
Looking forward to a few hand grenades.