Putting IT in Play.

Dear Don, Allyson, Sandy, Paula, Ali
and Colleagues Across the Curriculum.
 
The Ludic Frame
 
It’s not what-we-know that counts so
much any more, but whether we can
put it in play.  Need we argue?
 
Assessment & Evaluation: heart of perceiving
& thinking.  Fundamental:. no one is never not
assessing & evaluating.  I walk thru a field or
mall, assessing & evaluating—paying efficient
attention to crows in the cornfield,  corndogs at
a  kiosk, more and less ignoring the remainder
of the daze, largely  attention deficient by virtue
of my assessment  &  evaluation agenda..
 
I’m for it: assessment & evaluation.
And measurement, too: all 3, really,
mothers of invention & innovation.
Turn them up, the differences
and the relationships.
 
My subject for M.E.A (if I could frame it right
and put it  in play across the curriculum)—is
collegial CON-VERSE  action: on both sides
of the desk, in real-time among students in
classrooms, in  virtual time among staff & 
faculty riding  the technological electric
communion that is with us always.   
 
Converse-action: the back & forth
of engaged  minding, an untapped environ-mental
resource at hand like solar energy, like wind, like
new clear power, christening oil spilling into a gulf
with delight and un-postponed joy.
 
    Measure, assess, and evaluate that.
 
Obviously, I need help & advice from the office of
Educational Assessment  and Institutional  Research:
how to set  this measurable goal up professionally,
frame it in Chronicle  of Hire Educational-Worthy
terms. Tuxedo junctions: got to know how to dress
right for the occasion.  Don’t talk  dirty at a trustees
meeting even if it’s about  gardening local food for
thought & tearing rigorous black plastic off the
strawberry patch to see what weeds have to say. .
 
1) Think before you speak and 
 
2)  If you haven’t got anything
     really GOOD  to say, don’t say
    anything at all.
 
Appropriate advice for the Assessment-
Sensitive, when  rigorous “finished product”
is what’s being evaluated.
 
Not good advice for Process  Assessment,
measuring our Innovation Modes to  cultivate
local food for thought  without Sunday suits
and scratchy pants on..  
 
Do you see the difference here?
 
 “Finished Product” assessment & rigorous evaluation..
                     on the one hand  
 
“Cultivating Innovation,” assessment & encouragement
                    on the other hand.
 
Got to separate and polarize these two assessment &
evaluation hands so that neither dominates or runs the
show (sound of fury & one hand slapping ) and the 2
can just get along.  Manipulate. Comprehend. Entertain.
 
Maybe you think that’s what’s happening already?

We could measure, assess, and evaluate to see if  in fact
that’s how IT is—have a conversation about IT.  IT: all
that I just said:  measuring  and  assessing and evaluating
our measuring-assessing-&-evaluating.
 
Call IT practicing the liberal art
as  opposed to and  in addition to
the liberal arts work program. .

xxxooo, Sam