DJ The Great

I’m sitting with DJ in the Dining Hall of Aramco Camp. While a jackhammer pounds its way through the road outside DJ is pouring over his Arabic language books to prepare phrases to speak to the Saudi trainers. He has already impressed  them with his basic Arabic skills and they are sure to crave more of it tonight. It was important for DJ to stress that while we are here to teach the Saudis all that we know about New Media, he also wants to learn a lot from them, especially the language.

After the very first night we left the training session radiating with enthusiasm that had rubbed off from the Saudi trainers. Once I gave them the overview of what we were going to be doing, creating a webzine saturated with photographs, videos, twitter feed, and blog posts, they just wanted to jump right in. They get it. All the media that they are exposed to has a purpose, and it’s our job to show them how to be better consumers and thus become better producers, and to instruct them on how to use the technology. DJ and I did not mention the theory behind this, but after the prayer break one student, Abdulrahman, asked about Henry Jenkins. I was blown away with his level of understanding for the material. We got into a heavy discussion about representation and identity and how media has influences on our lives. It will be a wonderful two weeks as DJ, who is more eloquent about the theory than I, talks about the why and I, the techie, shows the how. These students are quick and hungry for it.

DJ and the New Media Trainers

DJ just spent twenty-five minutes figuring out how to say, “Tonight you will learn to use the camera.” The Saudis will probably correct his grammar, but love him for trying.