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The Social Stratification course descended into the delta yesterday morning to spend a few days. We started the day with some interesting discussion with our hosts from the Social Science Research Center at Mississippi State University and found our way to the B.B. King Museum.

After a lunch of Po Boys at the Pea Soup we headed to the Shack Up Inn outside of Clarksdale. We spent the afternoon and evening at Ground Zero Blues Club. While at the club we heard from two presenters (Bill Luckett and Emily Broad) about the Delta.

The evening was our first ‘music night’ of the trip and proved to be enjoyable for everyone.

As the trip has progressed Susan and I have commented on the shifting role of technology in the course. The discussions on the bus and during presentations have been energetic and seem to have served the need to encourage reflective thinking in the course. As a result, there have yet to be any technology-centered assignments. As such, while the students have been very engaged in the course, their use of technology has served different purposes including documenting, networking/communicating, observing, and reminding. For example students have used twitter to document experiences and share unique facts and have on occasion used the Facebook wall to comment on an event.

The role of videographer has pretty much fallen to Susan and myself and while I know that we would love for some students to take on that role, the technical issues we have encountered just recording and posting videos while on the road make the point that videography is not as low barrier a technology as we thought in the beginning! We have managed to get into a rhythm though & have lots of short videos posted that show different parts of the course.

The exercise on this trip has mainly been running and this morning was one of our best ones yet. Susan and I ran the pancake flat side road south from the Shack Up Inn this morning & got a good Delta sweat going.

Six days to go. . . ..