Humanity as isolated individuals, and how that is a modern/western concept. Humans are not really isolated, and suffer when truly alone. 20th century human exceptionalism has pushed us to a population of sociopaths. Technology has the potential to reconnect individuals. Connectivism, with knowledge and context shared across organic and distributed networks of humans, connecting in different ways for different reasons.
Computer code as a pure, algorithmic, restricted context that can be shared. Only that which has been coded exists within the context. Different languages and environments can make different contexts possible or impossible, depending on the vocabulary, diction, syntax, interaction patterns, etc that are available. A diversity of languages is needed, to be able to share a diversity of contexts.
The dangers of monocultures, vs the strength of diversity and networks. What happens when diversity is removed (under the guise of security or ease of support or efficiency of integration) and we are left with a single common technology platform. What does this do to the nature of what is done by people using the monoculture? How does this change how people perceive their role and value within an organization – cogs in machines rather than autonomous and creative participants in a community?
The Tragically Hip. Poetry. Poetry in song. Poetry in motion. Growing up and owning the situation rather than shrinking from it. Maturing over a career spanning 3 decades. Honing and refining a craft.
On doing the right thing rather than just the thing that is expected of you. Working toward a greater good instead of just showing up and turning the crank. Letting (needing) that greater good to drive and define everything you do.
Theatre and sports training – fields designed around expert coaching guiding and refining the actions of students with immediate feedback and iterative practice and performance. This is often missing in other disciplines – assessments done a few times per semester, with long feedback cycles.
Computational ethnography. How can technology be used to shape and document what teachers and students DO. Transcending just content or video recording – how can technology (sensors, algorithms, etc) be used to shorten the feedback loop in classroom or studio session.
Phatic communication. Subtextual, sublingual, subgestural communication that can intone more information than what is actually written/said/done. This gets missed in digital humanities (which typically focus on the worst parts of both digital and humanity)