Week Six: What would you Change?

I love this video.  I have to admit after stumbling by accident into the Jubilee Project last week, I ended up digging a bit deeper into this during week six.  I find that so many of their videos line up perfectly with my focus of transitions and change and risk-taking.  However, they do have a bit of a formulaic feel after you watch a few of them.

The storytelling part of this really creates empathy between the individuals in the video and the viewer.  Every woman who has had a child can identify with the woman who wants to erase the stretch marks she has earned as a result of pregnancy!  We all wonder if we should cover those grey hairs or not--even men these days are doing more than just dabbling with hair color which is quite a shift in my adult experience.  (Of course, they could go the route of my husband who opted for bald as a recourse to turning grey!)

The digital literacies demonstrate in this video are fairly sophisticated--without appearing so.  This is deceptively simple in terms of setting.  Just a tall stool in an open room somewhere.  However, the lighting is perfect.  The camera angles are flattering.  The background music enhances the overall feel of the message--it's a good fit for the message.  All of the technical features come together for a cohesive whole.

It is in the message though that the strength is really found.  This is what the Jubilee Project excels at--the delivery of a message which is thoughtful and thought provoking.  It takes me back to one of my favorite quotes from Robert McCammon's A Boy's Life:

“You know, I do believe in magic. I was born and raised in a magic time, in a magic town, among magicians. Oh, most everybody else didn’t realize we lived in that web of magic, connected by silver filaments of chance and circumstance. But I knew it all along. When I was twelve years old, the world was my magic lantern, and by its green spirit glow I saw the past, the present and into the future. You probably did too; you just don’t recall it. See, this is my opinion: we all start out knowing magic. We are born with whirlwinds, forest fires, and comets inside us. We are born able to sing to birds and read the clouds and see our destiny in grains of sand. But then we get the magic educated right out of our souls. We get it churched out, spanked out, washed out, and combed out. We get put on the straight and narrow and told to be responsible. Told to act our age. Told to grow up, for God’s sake. And you know why we were told that? Because the people doing the telling were afraid of our wildness and youth, and because the magic we knew made them ashamed and sad of what they’d allowed to wither in themselves."

Then I view a video like this and it occurs to me that we were all kids once who would only change their bodies by growing mermaid tails or wings so they could fly.  I wish we could embody that wishful ambition for living magical lives instead of allowing that to become consumed by the trials of daily living which quickly reduce us to making a living rather than living a life.  Those are two very different things--the first of which will never require a mermaid tail or a set of wings.  So, in periods of transition and thinking about risk taking, I am wondering how to make that mindshift backwards and rekindle the comet fire within myself and the students I serve.  

Week Five Reading Critique: Moving Past Fear

It has been an interesting week in America--and a tragic one.  As I reflect upon the course readings, it occurs to me how very much our entire culture has shifted away from hope and toward fear.  Several weeks ago, I had the privilege to speak at an education conference.  As so often occurs at conferences, the speakers enjoy a pre-conference dinner and the conversation shifts to the various themes each of us will explore.  As educators and innovators, the group I was with lamented that we have so many possibilities and yet in our schools, we are so often discouraged from even attempting to maneuver away from very traditional ways of doing things.

One educator, and a coordinator for the entire conference stated, "My district is light years away from adopting any of these practices."

And then I recalled what a district leader in my own district had said to a group of principals, "This district can absolutely do nothing for the next 3-5 years and it will not jeopardize our accredited with distinction status at all."

As I was sitting with my fellow presenters, it occurred to me, we have all begun operating from a position of deep fear.  We fear rocking the boat.  We fear a negative evaluation. We fear engaging deeply in innovation and design thinking.  We fear change.  It is simply easier to maintain the status quo than to explore anything new even though it has profound possibilities for expanding our ability to share understanding and to re-conceptualize our work in new contexts.

This is shameful.

I read each of this week's readings and as I was reading, I could hear the voices of the status quo ring in my ears:

"But, if students do this, they my be exposed to information the district has not approved."
"We cannot take on this kind of liability."
"What if parents complain?"
"Parents will object to this."
"We'll lose control of the scope and sequence."
"Our system is not set up for this."
"Our teachers/staff/IT department cannot support it."
"This violates our curriculum review policy."
"This is not in the standards."
"We don't have time for this....we have to use every waking minute to prepare for PARCC!"

And, I wondered how we are ever going to open the schoolhouse doors and trust that our students and staff can 'manage' the ambiguity that is the world we live in today.  The old paradigm has become less and less responsive to what our students are facing and yet, within our schools, there are few acceptable structures to even have the conversations.  This seems counter intuitive to what our schools should be doing.

So, in our school, we will be engaging in the Dear Future President exercise--and truly engaging in the political process, debating each other, engaging in a meaningful conversation and discovering what it means to be a participant in the process.  Because until we are fully engaged participants, we are not fully engaged citizens.  And this week, in America, it seems to me that we need to use every space we have, whether it is in a brick and mortar building, a public street or a digital condensed context, we must start engaging, conversing, and creating meaning for our lives which constructs mutual understanding and cultural awareness of the very different lives we each experience.

So, while this may be less of a reading critique this week--and maybe a critical commentary on the general state of our world--as educators, don't we have a responsibility to propel our students forward with courage rather than to operate from positions of fear and self-protection?  It seems to me that we do.

Week 5: Story Critique: Blind Devotion | Jubilee Project Short Film

WOW! WOW! WOW!

This digital story comes about as close to perfect as any one I have viewed thus far.  It is charming and powerful in its presentation.  I stumbled upon it through the eyes of my thirteen year old daughter who asked me if I was looking for a tear jerker.  While my theme of change/transition/risk-taking has often lent itself to tear jerker narratives, this one is powerful, profound, and yet lovely.  It does not cross the line in to something overly saccharine and inauthentic.  But rather, tells a story of a profound life's transition for the two characters involved.  It is the second narrative I have used this course which tells the same story from two different points of view which I think can be a really great tool to understand perspective.

The overall look of the video really captures the story.  It uses subtle colors--almost black and white.  This really mirrors the story line of a woman who is slowly losing her sight.  The colors are not bright--but muted as if to echo what is actually happening in the story line.

This is a professionally edited story.  The video scenes are spliced together in a way that produces a cohesive, clearly told story.  The narrative is simple and clear.  It tells the story with minimal pathos which keeps it from being overly sentimental.  Yet, at the same time, I can identify with the anger and frustration of this disease process.  The soundtrack is subtle and yet it adds to the story --and even includes a back channel narrative which adds dimensionality to the story that otherwise would not be present.

The story may be about a huge life's transition for both characters.  However the theme is about love, tenderness, caring and nurturing a relationship through a transition.  It is a universal theme easily recognized by anyone who has shared some of life's more difficult moments within a relationship. This is long in terms of many digital stories--but as a viewer, it contains many of the story elements that could be found in a feature film.  It is skillfully rendered in a way that a complete, multi-character story takes on its own life and creates a sense of empathy for both characters.  Very skillful camera, lighting, and dialog work is clearly evident.

This story really spoke to me--not because it tugged on my emotional heartstrings.  It spoke to me because in life's transitional spaces, there is opportunity for relationships to grow closely together. This story illuminates those narratives in an eloquent and powerful way without feeling like the intention is to manipulate the viewer.  I think this is a difficult balance to strike especially with difficult topics.

Week Four: Digital Story Critique

This week I have chosen a very intimate and personal digital story to highlight.  In my own research, one of the areas in which digital storytelling is emerging as a tool is in healthcare.  There are a number of sites which highlight digital stories produced by patients and their caregivers.  These are both sobering and empowering, which in itself is a unique combination of emotions.

The author of this story is telling a very personal story in a very intimate way.  Delving into issues of life, living and death and dying create a vulnerability and an empathy which serve to draw the viewer into the story.  We all become participants in the universe through viewing this story and as significant as we may feel in our current place, there is also a certain insigificance when we consider the vast universes which lie far beyond where we are.  "You see more, You see further. "You see deeper."  

The literacy dimensions in this piece are perhaps not as sophisticated as in many other remixed pieces.  However, the writer has chosen a piece of music which really blends together with the story and with his story.  I personally enjoyed the analogy to images from the Hubble Telescope.  As a dying man, he is clearly thinking deeply about what he is learning in the process of dying and he is indeed seeing more deeply.  There is also a vocal quality which is strong and while the music does not overpower his narrative, it does enhance the strength and resoluteness of his story.  The written narrative is the strongest part of this story. It is actually a very simple story visually.  The author includes nothing personal in the visuals.  Every photograph is an image from the Hubble Telescope. There are no transitional elements.  

I am not sure that I would characterize this as a story brought to life. This is housed on the University of Houston Website for educational purposes.  This story is authentic  The photos are all still--with no video elements other than photos changing.  I am not entirely sold on this as I feel that they do not necessarily add to the strength of the story or the power of the narrative.  

This is such a strong story that could really rest upon its own power.  I honestly would have loved to have seen the story teller's face and watch him tell the story.  I would have liked to have heard the story from his perspective.  I did note that it is posted anonymously at the author's request.  Perhaps it is painful to share something as intensely personal as the story of one's perspective on one's own death. That being said, when you are looking at eternity in the face, photos from space and galaxies far removed from this earth also have a certain power.  I would have altered the visuals in this producti

Week 3: Story Critique: "I took a chance"

This story caught my eye because I of my thematic approach to this summer.  I'm looking at change, transformation and risk-taking.  This is one of the first creations by a student which links up with that idea directly and which addresses fear of risk-taking in an original way and with an original voice.  It is notably short but none-the-less engaging.

Because this is a student production, it seemed useful to use a rubric created by a student to assess it. I opted to use this one described by Jason Ohler on his site:

For the first element of story flow, I would say that our student definitely did a very good job of creating a narrative about a topic which was focused, and which made sense.  While some would say that this topic was a bit juvenile, I could easily see my middle school students identifying with it. Many students at this age are working with larger ideas of identity and their place in this world.  I thought the topic was both appropriate to that as well as a great starting place for using digital storytelling without being intimidating for the student.  

The student's craftsmanship was evident.  I did like the mix of still photos and the video.  As she described what she thought children were like, the transition from still photos to video was effective and picked up the chaos of what she assumed small children were.  Additionally, the music background was effective and did not feel like it overshadowed her telling of her story.  I felt that overall it all worked together.

This is clearly an original story told in this student's voice.  She told it carefully and paid particular care to her voice tone and inflection.  You could hear the sadness as she described her feelings of being lost.  In the next moment you can hear her enthusiasm for really enjoying her time with the smaller children and her real excitement about the time she spent with them.  "They are hilarious!" I can almost here the exclamation at the end of that sentence in her own exclamation.  

This video clearly shows the student's effort and time.  It is well developed.  While it is short, the story is told with an effective economy.  It is easy to listen to primarily because she took the time to tell it effortlessly.  This works for the teller and the listener in this case.  The topic suits her and it is clear that her volunteer time has changed her and that she has enjoyed taking this risk.  

This is my first critique of a student's story and I think I need to search out more examples from younger digital story tellers to help flesh out my own thoughts regarding the use of digital story telling in the classroom.  

Week 2 Digital Story Critique: I Am From

My theme this summer is about Change and Transitions.  I am very interested in using a poem called, "Where I'm From" by George Ella Lyon as a part of my dissertation project.  It has been widely applied in the world of digital storytelling and used as an inspiration for many others.  This is one of many examples available.  I particularly like the use of this poem as inspiration as it does address who we are in relationship to our past histories and how those fit into the larger story of our identities and purpose.  In other words, they are about the transitions we experience as a part of becoming who we are.

I used three criteria in order to critique this particular digital story.  First I looked at the media grammar.  This element includes many different elements.  I was disappointed that such a personal story did not include the voice of the author.  I believe that by simply using the poem as captions to the photographs, some of the personal voice was lost.  I would have loved to have heard the author's inflection and emotion in this piece as I believe it would have added a level of empathy on the part of the viewer.  The photographs were excellent--in particular the photograph of the hands was exceptional. That one persuaded me to want more from this.  I wanted to know more about these people, this family, their history. I did not particularly care for the music.  It did not seem to be the best fit for this story.  It's springy rhythm did not really speak to ideas like patriotism or spirituality--some of the deeper themes of the story which were undoubtedly important and even essential.  I would have chosen differently.

So, while I was not particularly impressed with the use of media grammar in this story, the story was told with great economy.  The photos were chosen carefully and were perfect illustrations to her own I am from poem.  The pacing was very good--each slide was just long enough.  The viewer had time to read just as the slide advanced.  I feel like I know this person to an extent.  I don't know how well I know her--because without a human voice, the production feels stilted and a bit distant.

My fundamental issue with the overall production is the lack of transitions.  The slides simply switch. The music starts and ends abruptly.  It is jarring--much like reading a student's writing when there are no transitions employed.  I would have loved to have seen this storyteller experiment with transitions to see if the story was enhanced through the use of them.

Overall, I would call this a great start at digital storytelling.  The foundation is solid but I'd like to see some elements enhanced and added to really create something powerful for this storyteller.

Week 1 Critique: I just hugged the man who murdered my son

This short narrative spoke to me in so many ways.  I am working on a dissertation topic which involves exploring emotional intelligence and how telling and sharing narratives can create empathy. As I listened to this particular dual narrative, I am struck by the degree of empathy that is shared by the story tellers.  It is a dual narrative because we hear it from the point of view of the murderer and the mother, the perpetrator and the victim, the forgiven and the forgiver.  It is powerful material.

And yet, it is so brief.  In the short couple of minutes, this story conveys so much shared history--and tells of both the worst of humanity and the best. This is where I think that digital storytelling can be so very powerful and really why I have decided to research it on a deeper level for my dissertation.

So as I look at the rubric this story is told simply.  I believe to tell it in any other way might cause it to lose some impact.  The story itself is simple--profound and powerful.

I go back to my theme for the summer.  And I consider how this story embodies the ideas of change, transitions and risk taking and I believe that this story embodies that theme for both of the tellers.  I cannot imagine losing my son to a murder.  Even as I listen to this mother, I cannot imagine forgiving his murderer much less living next door to him.  That is a risk I can only wonder at.

Equally so, how does a murderer forgive himself and cleanse himself from the shame of taking a human life?  I don't know how that happens either.  Yet, to listen to this story, I realize that the change, transition and risk-taking that I have experienced pales in the comparison of the depth of these two stories woven together into one which tells the bigger story of empathy and forgiveness in the worst of human circumstances.