A digital ecosystem, fueled by serendipity. Serendip is an independent site partnering with faculty at multiple colleges and universities around the world. Happy exploring!
I’ve been fortunate to be involved with Poem Brut, either as a performer, an artist, an audience member, as a collaborator or as a publisher, since 2017. My Poem Brut commission, which Serendip has generously supported, is a collaboration with artist Patrick Cosgrove.
My Poem Brut commission will consist of an essay and a performance, and each of these will be a ground for exploring genres of speech, customer service, embarrassment, and interruption. Time spent working in customer service (and writing whilst on shift) has alerted me to the variations in speech, the affects specific to such an environment, particularly embarrassment, annoyance and boredom. In service industry jobs, there is a great deal of forced speech; a need to at times speak unnaturally, and at others hold back your words.
Serendip co-founder Paul Grobstein wrote that, ‘both science itself, and the human culture of which it is a part, would benefit from a story of science that encourages wider engagement with and participation in the processes of scientific exploration.’ As a digital ecosystem, it is committed to offering a nonhierarchical environment for collaboration between artists, doctors, scientists, students, teachers, and the general public.
Serendip is a digital ecosystem dedicated to gathering people together for the exploration of science and its implications for art, climate change, disability studies, literature, mental health, pedagogy, social justice, and technology.
This is a term of endearment for Serendip. Salmon dip is a homophonic translation, which is to say that it carries over the sound of the word rather than its meaning. This phrase comes out of the belief that self-reflection constitutes some serious play. (Also the origin of the Twitter handle @notsalmondip).
Dear reader, if you only read one point, in this essay, READ THIS ONE. The more diverse a class’s content, the easier it is to reach lots of students. Using the following is greatly appreciated:
Bullet points Bolding important things Blank space between paragraphs Videos Podcasts Phone Calls Zoom meetings Pictures
While there are no magic bullets, the multimodal approach makes a big difference. At the very least, make sure your PowerPoints aren’t black and white, reading on colors is easier for those of us with dyslexia.