From: Eugene Matusov
Submit: Post Message
Date: 11 Dec 1996
Time: 23:23:22
Hi Miguel--
I'll try to reply to you in one message.
You wrote, "I thought the potluck was a really nice idea, and to a degree it did work. However, again a little more planning and structure would have been wonderful. I didn't even know that there was a guy from B.U. who was going to try and organize it right as he went along. Or at least that is how I perceived it. I would gladly initiate a structure for an event like that or even take over the planning if neccesary. I just feel like we need to make an impression on these parents and anyone who may want to fund the program. Part of that impression is good planning and organizational skills. So next time let's really plan events and not just 'wing it' through the whole thing. "
I thought it was fun! In part it was a mess (not much although) but I believe it was very creative and constructive mess. Hey, you may learn by now that I don't like pre-planned structure :-) I like improvization.
Seriously, I believe that planning ahead is useful but it has its limitation and should be easily abandon when circumstances are new and dynamically changing as it was during the the celebration on Friday.
Yes, the person who started the meeting was the assistant director. His name is OT. Currently we are planning how to coordinate our efforts in designing and governing Tele Arana Magica. OT seems to be very good and collaborative leader. He has a reputation of being a "doer." Yes, you'll see and hear him more next quarter.
We didn't want to impress anybody but honestly to involve in dialogue with parents (which was a high success). No representative of funding angency was there.
We also think how we can organize a meeting with parents and you guys. We think about open house day when parents can come without kids to talk about goals and expectations for the project (we also plan Open house with kids where parents will be in your role of facilitators working with their kids).
You wrote, "I was wondering who the TA's for next quarter will be? Ed told me he will not be there so is Pablo staying, and who is taking Ed's place?"
We don't know yet (we'll finalize our decision on Friday) but it is highly probable that another TA will be a grad student from Education.
You wrote, "I wantedto know if we are getting more games, besides the new ones we just got? Also, will we be able to test these games before we work with the kids? Since I haven't even played all the new games we got this quarter. This will help so much in being able to guide the child through the game and keep their interest. "
Next quarter we'll have more experienced kids (yes, we expect them to be the same kids) and some experienced students (some of you) who take the class next quarter. All of you had opportunity to come to BU any any other time to learn how to play games. The schedule of the class or practicum do not allow to spend your time on learning how to play games. Honestly, I still do not see necessity in that. I understand your frustration but I think with the project maturing this problem will be gone. It is very difficult to estimate "normality" of our frustration during the first quarter. But I strongly believe that fustration was unavoidable and even helpful to shake out many of our wrong beliefs.
Right now we are working on stabilizing work of computers and installing the Internet for every computer (although I can't promise that both will be ready by the next quarter).
I hope I address all of your questions. Thanks for asking,
Eugene