On March 27th starting at 4:15, DACKI—the Digital and Computational Knowledge Initiative–will hold its second Manhattans & Martinis event. I can report that the first was fun. This is a sort of technology happy hour: classic drinks, sharp snacks, clever people.
As with the first on 3D printing, our focus will be on showing what we’re doing at Wesleyan. This year, we’ve launched a few innovative courses in modelling, data analysis, GIS and digital history, and collaborative computer science courses linking CS and non-CS students. Other colleagues are developing additional courses across the three divisions for coming years. These courses are accessible to most all Wesleyan students. We’ll hear about these but we’ll want to think especially about technologies and pedagogical practices that might improve what we’ve done and make it easier for other faculty to develop such courses.
So, we’ll have colleagues from ITS and elsewhere show us new tricks; we’ll take a look at how people are innovating elsewhere, but we’ll also raise questions about how best to collaborate on campus to make digitally enhanced, visually powerful, and computationally precise courses attractive to teach and to take. What spaces, what sorts of collaboration, what sorts of software and in-class support needed are some of the issues we’ll approach.
If you’re wondering what’s going on—what DACKI is, for instance—come and see. If you have been testing out techniques and technologies in your courses, come and help. In any event, come and have a snack.
We’ll meet in Exley 509A/B.