Posts

Myron Ort’s Radical Pedagogy: Teaching Filmmakers to See Beyond the Lens

  Myron Ort’s Radical Pedagogy: Teaching Filmmakers to See Beyond the Lens In the history of experimental cinema, some filmmakers are remembered not only for the films they create but for the ways they teach others to see. Myron Ort belongs to this tradition. As a filmmaker and educator at Sonoma State University, Ort approached filmmaking as an exploration of perception, movement, and creative discovery. His teaching challenged students to move beyond the technical limitations of the camera and discover filmmaking as an art of awareness. For many students, learning filmmaking begins with equipment: how to hold the camera, how to frame a shot, how to adjust focus, and how to follow established rules of composition. Ort’s teaching began somewhere deeper. He encouraged students to understand that the camera was not the source of creativity. The filmmaker’s imagination, curiosity, and relationship to the world were the true instruments. His classroom became a laboratory for experim...
Post a Comment
Read more

Learning to See Beyond the Camera: A Student Reflection on Myron Ort at Sonoma State University

Experimental film pedagogy: the film teacher was not only taught students how to film but how to see.  Learning to See Beyond the Camera: A Student Reflection on Myron Ort at Sonoma State University I studied filmmaking with Myron Ort at Sonoma State University, and his approach to teaching shaped the way I understand the art of film and photography.  What made Ort’s teaching unique was that he encouraged students to move beyond thinking of the camera as simply a piece of equipment. He taught us that filmmaking begins with perception—with how we see, move, experience space, and connect with the world around us.  His classes were not limited to traditional camera positions or conventional ways of making images. He encouraged experimentation. The camera could move. The filmmaker could change position. The frame could become something unexpected. We explored unusual angles and perspectives rather than simply filming from the standard angles. Sometimes our class would work in...
Post a Comment
Read more

Nostalgia Is Not a Strategy: AI, Human Learning, and the Future of Wikipedia

  Nostalgia Is Not a Strategy: AI, Human Learning, and the Future of Wikipedia "Nostalgia is not a strategy." During a panel discussion at Wikimania 2026, one speaker made this brief but memorable statement. Although only four words long, it captured one of the most important challenges facing not only the Wikimedia movement, but nearly every educational, nonprofit, and knowledge-sharing organization in the twenty-first century. Nostalgia has value. It reminds us where we came from. It honors the people who built the foundations upon which we stand. It preserves traditions and celebrates milestones. Yet nostalgia cannot tell us how to respond to artificial intelligence, changing patterns of learning, declining trust in information, or the expectations of a new generation that experiences knowledge through mobile devices, videos, voice assistants, and AI-powered search. The Wikimedia movement has always adapted. Wikipedia itself was once a bold experiment that challenged t...
Post a Comment
Read more

Obsessive Control: When Ego Tries to Overrides Lived Reality

  The Anatomy of Obsessive Control: When Ego Tries to  Overrides Lived Reality ​Conferences are meant to be spaces for shared learning, critical exchange, and mutual discovery. Yet, anyone who frequents these gatherings has likely witnessed a specific, troubling dynamic: the room or a conversation hijacked by an individual whose need to be right completely eclipses their capacity to listen. ​When that dominance is directed at someone carrying first-hand, lived experience—such as a young Ukrainian woman speaking from the reality of a nation at war—the dynamic shifts from mere conversational friction to something far more corrosive. ​It reveals a psychological posture marked by obsessive control, extreme rigidity, and the absurdity of unearned authority. ​The Fixation on Control ​In social and intellectual settings, obsessive traits often manifest not as personal anxiety, but as an unrelenting demand for compliance. When an individual exhibits a rigid, dogmatic insistence o...
Post a Comment
Read more

Beyond the Fact-Hoarder: Why the Information Age Demands Emergent Thinking

Image
​ Beyond the Fact-Hoarder: Why the Information Age Demands Emergent Thinking ​We live in an era drowning in data, yet our public discourse remains strangely captive to an archaic mindset. Call it the "fact-hoarder" phenomenon: the habit of treating knowledge as a collection of trophies, brandished to flex intellectual dominance, guard social hierarchy, or win arguments. In a world where the sum of human knowledge doubles in real time, clinging to the ego-driven posture of "knowing it all" isn't just exhausting—it’s entirely disconnected from reality. ​To navigate an environment saturated with endless data points, we need to abandon dogmatic certainty and embrace an approach rooted in field anthropology: emergent thinking . ​ The Trap of Dogmatic Certainty ​Dogmatism requires a closed loop. It treats facts as static, isolated objects—monuments to be built, defended, and used as weapons against dissenters. The ego-driven thinker starts from a rigid premise (...
Post a Comment
Read more

The AI-Human Learning Loop: A New Model for Wikipedia Editors and Lifelong Learners

The AI-Human Learning Loop: A New Model for Wikipedia Editors and Lifelong Learners Introduction The rise of generative artificial intelligence has transformed how people discover, organize, and understand information. At the same time, Wikipedia remains one of the world's largest collaborative knowledge projects, built on human judgment, reliable sources, and community review. Together, these developments point toward a powerful new approach to learning and knowledge creation: The AI-Human Learning Loop. This model does not replace traditional research or human expertise. Instead, it combines the speed and flexibility of AI with the careful evaluation, source verification, and collaborative editing that define Wikipedia. The result is a continuous cycle of learning, critical thinking, and public knowledge sharing. From Curiosity to Knowledge Every Wikipedia article begins with curiosity. A learner encounters a person, place, scientific discovery, historical event, or cultural trad...
Post a Comment
Read more

The AI-Human Learning Loop: A New Model for Lifelong Learning

Image
The AI-Human Learning Loop: A New Model for Lifelong Learning The emergence of generative artificial intelligence has transformed how people learn. Instead of relying on a single textbook, classroom, or search engine, today's learners can engage in an ongoing conversation with AI while drawing on books, videos, academic research, and personal experience. This dynamic process can be described as The AI-Human Learning Loop—a continuous cycle of questioning, discovery, reflection, and application. What Is the AI-Human Learning Loop? The AI-Human Learning Loop is a collaborative approach to learning in which artificial intelligence enhances, rather than replaces, human curiosity and critical thinking. AI serves as a research assistant, brainstorming partner, tutor, and editor, while the human learner provides judgment, creativity, ethical reasoning, and lived experience. The loop begins with curiosity. A learner asks a question, explores the topic with AI, verifies information using tr...
Post a Comment
Read more