July 25, 2006 – Dr. Tom Keenan and Dr. Stan Ruecker

Dr. Keenan had a very thought evoking presentation that really makes a person wonder about what is being done with all the information that is put on the internet. You log into a new program or site that you’ve just downloaded from the internet and fill in your information… where does this information go? Who has access to it? And what are they doing with this information? He describes a need for “willful blindness” in dealing with technology, that there are times when we need to turn away from technology. Some ideas that I want to pass onto my students include the fact that there is pretty good information on the internet and with it comes power but you really have to think before you put your own information out there. I’m looking forward to presenting this information (and parts of Dr. Keenan’s PowerPoint) to my students to start a discussion in class.

Dr. Ruecker presented some of his designs for manipulating data from various humanities databases. He and his colleagues are designing some really unique ways of sorting through information. I must remember to tell our English teachers about the Orlando project.