Wednesday, July 31, 2019

OCN Again


For context, I used to write a lot about how the natural unit of curriculum, was the school itself.

By that I meant: each school might import a lot of similar content, but the final customization would fit the place, another way of saying the curriculum would be "place based".  Winterhaven PPS had Oaks Bottom.

This makes sense if you think about teaching the local history, not just some generic overview that in no way depends on a person's viewpoint. Lets allow the schools to be viewpoints, to some degree.  They have their own lore and charming lunacy.

Geography spreads outward from wherever your school happens to be.

Whereas an "Oregon Curriculum Network" may sound grandiose, as if some guy with a home office could be more than a node in said network, my role is indeed that of one more node, one more contributor to an already highly developed set of overlapping cultures.  We form "a thousand dots of light" to hearken back to a would-be education president, a reluctant warlord.

Moreover, the Digital Math website more vaguely roots itself in the Silicon Forest, which extends beyond state boundaries, well north of Vancouver, Washington.

The purpose of the branding is to convey origin and place, not to suggest a conquered nor even cornered market.  Most Oregonians have never heard of me as of 2019.

I think what I'm doing makes more sense in a culture where there's no strict firewall between computer science and mathematics, down through the lower grades, from high school to kindergarten (if we agree to think in these terms).

We enjoy a blend of coding and guided geometric meditations (cite "hypertoons") or reveries, in a coffee shop context.  The guiding philosophy (or spirit) is somewhat indigenous.

Not everything I'm defining as curriculum need first surface in a formal school setting.

I recognize that social media, especially television, constitute a hefty percentage of the cultural amperage.

I attribute the pressure behind "Martian Math" to as yet largely unexplored telegenic potentials. I'm encouraged by the anime and manga arising from our storyboards, and remain on the lookout for more.  Lets build more momentum, shall we friends?