The Classroom as a Sacred Space - Siva Vaidhyanathan

Complete video at: http://fora.tv/2010/04/21/Siva_Vaidhyanathan_The_Classroom_Is_Sacred

Siva Vaidhyanathan, media professor and author of The Googlization of Everything, describes the classroom as a sacred space. He calls the classroom "a fifth space," distinct from public space, private space, commercial space, and the state.

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Professor Vaidhyanathan's keynote address, entitled "'The Classroom is Sacred': Digitization Without Commercialization," addresses the myriad challenges facing university faculty, administrators and students in finding the best ways to embrace emerging digital technologies to improve teaching, research and learning without giving in to commercial pressures or arguments about efficiency or cost savings. Prof. Vaidhyanathan suggests that we approach the implementation of academic technologies in the classroom with a sense of experimentation and modesty. - CUNY

Siva Vaidhyanathan is a cultural historian and media scholar, and is currently an associate professor of media studies and law at the University of Virginia. From 1999 through the summer of 2007 he worked in the Department of Culture and Communication at New York University.

Vaidhyanathan is a frequent contributor on media and cultural issues in various periodicals including The Chronicle of Higher Education, New York Times Magazine, The Nation, and Salon.com, and he maintains a blog, www.googlizationofeverything.com. He is a frequent contributor to National Public Radio and to MSNBC.COM and has appeared in a segment of "The Daily Show" with Jon Stewart.

Vaidhyanathan is a fellow of the New York Institute for the Humanities and the Institute for the Future of the Book.

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[MultiUniv3rsal]

@BrokenBassBin There are only 2 types of 'space' Public and private. There are no words that exist that aren't encompassed in those 2 types. This man is getting paid to waste your time.

[MultiUniv3rsal]

Nothing is sacred.

[matchbox555]

what point is this guy making ?

[mikzilla0]

I went to an online college; I'm curious what he would say about the online classroom and if that is a "sacred space". It doesn't have a teacher "preaching" knowledge, it doesn't have the rows of students. Students learn on their own.

[MultiUniv3rsal]

@Asiablue Zing! Actually that was pretty funny

[Asiablue]

@MultiUniv3rsal Actually, there are 3 types of spaces. The third is 'wasted,' an example of which you have generously provided with the above comment.

[TheGodlessGuitarist]

Wow, he managed to speak for 3 minutes without saying a single thing except that universities grew out of monasteries, which is only true in a very blinkered sense.

[Robfenix]

This guy is trained in communications/media and still says "um" that much?!

[numbah1pinoy]

Oh alright, I guess this guy's head is just full of shit. lol

[numbah1pinoy]

@MultiUniv3rsal Exactly,

[jalgjalg]

"Sacred" is a word stupid people use when they don't understand something but still want to come over as profound.