Set Piece from a Locked Down Semester #clonmeldigital

SPRING SEMESTER 2020 enjoys historic standing as the time traditional academics pivoted dramatically into an emergency remote mode. Fortunately for me, I had 20 students near the finish line of the "Emerging Trends and Technologies" module who could produce a set piece that will enjoy critical appraisal whenever anybody looks back at what might be possible through a distance education collaboration of students.

We used part of the spring semester to dissect 12 trends cited by Kevin Kelly in his 2015 book The Inevitable. We had five hard cover books with different topics written by Kevin Kelly in our small library but two of them have migrated into student bedsits over the years and only a single hardbound edition circulated among students during the semester. That limitation posed no problem because all clever students know where to find PDF versions of nearly every book on the planet and three different electronic versions of The Inevitable soon appeared on our shared OneDrive storage. Then the Kindle version of the book arrived in shared space, followed by the entire book read by some dedicated students.

For academic credit, students read one of 12 designated chapters, reflected on how inevitable the cited trend appeared to them, hypothesized on what their chosen trend meant to people in the year 2050, and also explained whether their selected inevitable concept played a part in their lives before they started learning on the Clonmel Digital Campus.

It was challenging to record student commentary during our locked down semester because several students returned to rural homes without steady broadband. Thanks to some ingenuity, I captured many deep insights through a series of audio interviews recorded in Zoom and saved to Spotify and available through all good podcast platforms.

Listen to "Emerging Trends Games and Tech" on Spreaker.

If you are interested in how significant technologies will affect your life, I strongly recommend subscribing to "Emerging Trends Games and Tech" on the podcast service you use. Its RSS feed is https://www.spreaker.com/show/3067781/episodes/feed and if you use the Spreaker app, you can see imagery related to relevant segments of every 20 minute episode.

Inside Tip: The most popular episode is "Rachel Dunleavy on Flowing".

Listen to "Rachel Dunleavy On Flowing E40" on Spreaker.

[Bernie Goldbach teaches creative media for business on the Clonmel Digital Campus of the Limerick Institute of Technology.]