DML Wrap Up: Stuck in DC
The DML conference wrapped up yesterday, but so did my in-room internet so I had planned on writing up my final thoughts once I arrived back home in State College. However, I find myself now writing them up at a new Hilton here in DC. More on that in a moment…
Day three of the conference was really a winding down sort of affair. In talking with Shivaani Selvaraj from Penn State Harrisburg, I learned there was at least one relatively interactive session – the HTML5 workshop she attended that was put on by the Mozilla foundation. Overall, though, it seemed that the last day of the conference was dedicated to bringing together ideas discussed throughout and doling out the appropriate thank yous to everyone who helped make it happen.
The closing keynote did offer some interesting tidbits. Presented by Muki Hansteen-Izora, most recently of Intel’s health technology wing, the session focused on ways that technology solutions can be designed to benefit human communities and their endeavors. From work done in the early 90s with getting inner city youth online to his recent work finding ways to use algorithms to improve the lives of aging people in their own homes, Muki embodies a way of using technology and design to give back to humanity at large.
One thing that intrigued me from the wrap up keynote was the idea of turning a resource for a specific group into a larger communal center. Would it be possible to make the Media Commons at some campuses a space that not just students could use but also disadvantaged individuals from the local fabric? How would something like that work, if it’s even doable?
Unfortunately, an item that did not follow me back from Long Beach was the weather. Instead of flying in to State College tonight from Dulles, I found myself delayed, then circling the airport, then returning to Washington and suddenly attempting to find a hotel last minute and a shuttle to take me there. I suppose it’s better than taking a prop plane (or cab) into a sudden March blizzard but I might feel a little less exhausted if I didn’t get up at 4:00 am PST before this happened!