DS 106 Assignment Bank: The Bucket List

This week I went with the bucket list assignment.  My summer theme of change/transformation and risk-taking seems to lend itself quite nicely to this assignment and really, I wanted to go back and really consider a few of my life's choices.  This seemed like a great opportunity to do that.

So, I had a handy-dandy bucket list available.  A few years ago, I stumbled upon on of those ridiculous FaceBook lists.  It was a essentially a bucket list in which recipients were asked to identify the ones they had already completed.  It was a nonsensical grouping of items.  One of the really great things about being on social media for a good length of time is that is can serve as a kind of repository for these types of personal inventories.

So, I went back and, as I recalled, I found my own personal bucket list which I wrote on May 29, 2010.  It seemed like a great idea to take stock now, six years later through this particular assignment which now may become a part of my own digital story.

Here is my list:

 Sit on a balcony in a Tuscan villa drinking a lovely red wine with my husband and watching the stars twinkle in the sky (I have not done this yet--but it is still on my list today)
• Wipe the tears from my eyes as each of my children marries the love of their lives.  (I've done it once and let me tell you, it is a precious moment!)  
• Learn to appreciate a beautiful sunrise. (I am coming to appreciate the peace early morning hours afford me.  There is a goodness in solitude which is hard to find at other times of the day.)
• Learn to speak Italian. (not yet and dropping off the list quickly.  I think at this point in my life, being able to order a gelato in Florence is about as close as I am going to get!)
• Be able to retire knowing that I made a positive difference for at least one other human being as a result of my occupational labors. (I can check this one off.  My career has been extraordinarily rewarding and wondrous!)
• Develop an observable bicep muscle. (Ain't happening--time to drop this one off the list.)
• Attend a performance at the Sydney Opera House.  (This one needs to be moved up on the list!)
• Peer into the eyes of my grandchildren and see a part of me twinkling there. (Done and she's precious and definitely a part of her grammy!)
• Run a marathon  (Time to exit this one off the list!)
• Take a trip on the Orient Express (Does it even exist anymore?)
• Write one really great piece of fiction. (Not the great American Novel—I’d settle for a published short story.) (I still want to do this--and now more than ever since I have developed a real interest in the power of our stories)
• Spend an unlimited amount of time in the Vatican—and it’s archives reading Church Historical documents. (How am I going to pull this one off--I would love to--I just cannot figure out how to make it happen)
• Swim in open water without worrying about the aquatic beasties waiting to make me dinner.  (Time to remove this one from the list.)
• Learn to dance like Ginger Rodgers with my fabulous husband!  (We are two willing, awkward, geeky people.  Do you think we still could pull this off?)
• Worry less, enjoy more, love deeply,  (I am definitely better at this than I was in 2010.  I shall keep on moving in this direction more intentionally.)

I think I may see a great digital story growing out of this list--so I need to keep my mind on it as a possibility for further development.  I was so glad to have found it in my archives which is a great reminder that our social media can actually become a repository of our shared experiences and narratives.

Week 6: Assignment Bank

It has been a week of what if's for me.  What if we could just turn schools upside down?  What if the creative spaces for learning were truly creative, open and welcome.  What if our learning was open--to all kinds of possibilities.

And, I thought it would be fun to share a photo of one of the classrooms we developed over the past two years.  It is a classroom with multiple spaces for learning, collaborating and interaction.  This was designed so that students could have spaces to work independently.  They could also collaborate in a face to face environment.  They could collaborate with other students using web based communication tools and video conferencing software.

They have the opportunity to work with more knowledgeable others including teachers and mentors.
It's a great place--but it was missing one element.  So, I put Toby under our tree.

I used a web-based photo editing program and a transparent photo overlay.  It is a fairly simply but effective procedure which is very intuitive.  My photo editing skills are marginal--but I think this one turned out pretty well.

Re-conceptualizing learning spaces is difficult because we are all somewhat set in our ways when it comes to what schools look like.  Even most newer designs still begin with a series of rooms on either side of a series of hallways.  This is both inefficient and inadequate for creating collaborative created spaces for students.

I had fun with this--and created another aspect of change thinking.

Mashup: Hermione's Nightmare

This week's mashup assignment is inspired by my eleven year old daughter who is actually typical tomboy by day and clearly a mad scientist by night.  She received her owl letter as expected on her eleventh birthday and caught the train on track 9 3/4 just recently to attend Hogwarts.

By the looks of it, she's giving Hermione a run for her money especially in potions class where Willow clearly understands the need for protective eyewear and a smock to cover her robes.  Maybe Willow's parents are not the muggles they appear to be?  Maybe Willow has latent powers which are only now being nurtured.  Whatever it is, clearly Hermione is jealous and more than a little half-blood peeved that Willow is at Hogwarts and excelling!

What provoked this mashup?  We revel in all things Harry Potter and really are kind of nerdy.  As I was playing with the mashup assignment, Willow was lurking and playing around with it too.  As happens so often with digital media, this assignment quickly became a family affair.  And it occurred to me that as I work through this class, I am really also demonstrating how powerful risk-taking can be for my young daughters.  They watch me work through using programs I am unfamiliar with.  They hear me cussing at regular intervals--and then cheering myself on when I manage to pull off something new and satisfying.  They are learning with me that trying something new is important and a way of growing even when it is difficult.

And, it can be fun.  It can be amusing.  It embodies a sense of satisfaction and learning new things can make us laugh even if the process is frustrating at first.  There is something to be said for humor and being silly in our creativity.  That makes it worth it.

This took some work--but it was not impossible.  I used a photo of Willow taken at a science museum.  She was dressed for the part as she was working on an experiment which had the potential to be explosive.  In Pixlr, I uploaded this photo.  Then, I found a transparent photo of Hermione facing in the right direction and looking suitably menacing.  With a little work and practice, I managed to size it so that the proportions looked good and the two characters were placed at a distance from each other that worked well for the mashup.  The proportionality was the trickiest and required a lot of editing/re-editing to make the two characters appear to be sitting next to one another. I am not completely satisfied, but this works.

Best yet, Willow likes it!  She likes it well enough to want a poster of it for her room which means that as a mom, I scored!  So again, learning to loosen up and just have fun with the creative part of the course has been important.

Week Four: Lost in the Word Cloud

I love word clouds.  I used them frequently in my work.  So, when I stumbled upon this option in the DS106 Assignment Bank, I was thrilled.  Not because I already like them, but because they really are great visuals which highlight the important points of just about anything.  You'll find the Word Cloud Assignment linked here.

I chose to do a word cloud on ILT5340 because last week things were a little murky in this course for me.  I really struggled to make meaningful connections between the various assignments and the work I was reading.  It was actually the first time in the course that I struggled to create those connections and overall it meant that the week felt disjointed.  That created a cognitive dissonance for me that made me wonder if I was missing something.

I use word clouds with students as a way for them to learn to see the connections in the work they do. The essential principle is that the larger the appears in the cloud, the more important it is to the overall whole.  The smaller text are generally the links--the concepts which act as catalysts pulling things together.  I needed something visual this week to help me see those links and the bigger picture.  Word clouds really work in this way and honestly, this one has been very helpful.

I used a free word cloud generator at www.wordclouds.com.  I will admit, I did not want to superimpose my own thinking on the number of words or how significant or insignificant they might be.  So, I simply copied and pasted this week's Narrate/Annotate post into the text box in the word cloud generator.  That way, I did not put any artificial emphasis on one word over another.  I thought it was fascinating the words that ended up being the largest.

Hypothesis, the largest word in my cloud, is about collaboration.  It is about sharing our experience with both image and text and elaborating on our insight and questions.  Ultimately, in my summer's theme about transitions, change and risk-taking, we take individual risks in our work and we share the outcomes in our collaboration. I know I am re-thinking areas of my own research and adding to my understanding of storytelling and narrative as I view multiple digital narratives every week--and share my colleagues responses to them.

The other large word is Create.  Yes, I've spent a good amount of time creating and mucking around with various tools this summer.  However, my creation extends further than that.  I am also creating context and understanding for myself.  I am learning to take risks with some of my more clumsy attempts and I am discovering that to be uncomfortable for a while is not necessarily a negative thing. The fact that we are doing this inside a shared community makes it a little nerve-wracking but also provides a comfortable environment as my colleagues share when the going gets rough for them as well.

Remi and Lisa, your names are quite small here--and I think that is a nod to the fact that while you are here guiding and facilitating and reminding, your role is not nearly as professorial as it is collegial.  Your voices are here--in the group--but not coming as if you were oracles on the mountaintop--but rather as guideposts from the side.

The word cloud is a helpful clarifying tool for me.  It came along at the right time to propel my work in this course forward.

Plotogon: A New Tool

This week, I found a new tool to use courtesy of ds106.  I had used other similar tools before but it seems that many of them have disappeared from the web.  So, as I was looking at Daily Creates under the video section, I happened across this one.  Plotagon seems to have any number of great educational uses and I decided to make a short video which mocks my current progress in dissertation writing.  --and my love for classic literature which is what this daily create encourages in the original assignment: tdc1225.

One of the drawbacks to plotagon is that you cannot embed the completed video in a blogpost.

Apologies Charles Dickens

So the closest I can get is to provide a link beneath the image which accompanies the video.

I chose to poke fun at the risk-taking exercise I am currently engaged in--otherwise known as writing a dissertation.  I cannot say that I am not enjoying the process.  However, the iterative process does make me crazy from time to time.  So, I decided that with this assignment I would add a little to Dicken's original opening to A Tale of Two Cities which he never could have imagined I would have chosen to lampoon here.

The process was really not difficult although the software does take some work before it becomes intuitive.  Plotagon is available as an app here

The essential first is to create a character.  As I chose to narrate my own plot or classical piece of literature for this movie, I created a character that looks much like me wearing my dissertation writing uniform of sweats and yoga pants.  There are a huge variety of ways to style and dress your own characters.

You then can proceed to write your plot.  I copied and pasted the text in the text box but I found the animated voices too robotic for my liking.  I needed a voice which was more expressive so I decided to record my own.  Again, this is a fairly intuitive process which involves a few more clicks but is easily accomplished.

The fun begins with the animation and giving your character actions to perform.  My movie is fairly simple in this regard.  I restrained my character from too much drama and instead she slapped her disinterested buddy only once.  To be fair, I don't necessarily believe that writing a literature review is cause for violence.  However, friends really ought to at least attempt to appear that they are interested in my topic!

As you add elements, you can preview them by hitting the play button.  They are easily modified or deleted and a drag and drop feature allows you to move them to different places in the narration.

This would be a wonderful tool for students in the classroom to demonstrate many different types of learning.  I can see it used as I did to inject some humor into an assignment or used to describe or explain a newly learned concept.  I found the process lengthy and definitely thought provoking.  However, the tool gave me ample flexibility to move elements and 'restage' my final production in a way that I liked.

So, in spite of the serious nature of my summer theme, I think I have successfully managed to find some humor in it.  We all take risks.  While the character in this short video laments that her risk taking represents both the best of times and the worst of times, her friend, like many of mine, is relatively unaffected and disinterested.  This is actually pretty representative of how thin this process can become for our families and friends who can only observe it from afar.

Hopefully, you too will enjoy the humor I intended!  I downloaded the plotagon app which is available here.

TDC1623: A Remix of Sorts

Daily Create 1623 is a challenge to overlay a flag across my hand.  I chose not to do that--but to extend it a little bit.  This week was a horrific week for a place that holds so many happy memories for our family.  On Thursday, I awoke to the unimaginable news of the tragedy of the young family whose child was killed by an alligator in what otherwise is known as the Happiest Place on Earth.

I thought of the many wonderful times I have had with my own children in this very same place.  The times I have held a toddler's hand as she splashed at the water's edge near the very same place young Lane was lost this week.  I thought of the preciousness of the parent-child bond and the powerlessness those parents must have felt knowing that there was nearly no chance that their young son would survive such an attack.

I cried.

So, instead of superimposing my flag over my hand, I chose something more profoundly personal.  I took a picture of my child's hand enfolded in mine---a sort of emblem of protective motherhood that parents worldwide can identify with.  Then, I superimposed the fantasy that is Cinderella's Castle.  It is just an illusion of magic, of good always prevailing over evil, of safety and security of Prince Charmings on white stallions saving the world.

We know it's an illusion.  But the alligators in DisneyWorld are real--and sometimes, they attack.

So for Lane and his family--may you remember the good hand-holding times and the magic of castles and fairy tales.

Week Two Reading Critique: Exploring Empathy

What a great week of readings.  I have to admit, I am enjoying the recommended readings almost more than I am the required ones--and perhaps I should be less apologetic about that.

"An Open Letter to My Students" was such a great piece.  I know on its face, it may seem to be of less value than some of the more academic readings we are doing.  However, at this stage in my life, I wish I could go back and re-live some of my earlier academic experiences through this lens.  I was an undergraduate in the early 1980's--and yes, a good number of you were not born yet.  In the 80's, it was all about achievement, prospering, conspicuous consumption and, as an undergraduate, we were all hyper-focused on the almighty grade point average.  When you become focused on a gpa as a measure of your success, you become dependent and reliant upon someone else's measure for your achievement and success.

I so wish that I had not been quite that intensely focused on grades--and more focused upon learning to develop my identity through my own lens instead of through someone else's perception.  This is heady stuff--which I am even now just beginning to wrap my own head around.  However, there is a wonderful freedom in exploring the boundaries of your own understanding in a way that makes sense for you.  Which is only saying that I am enjoying exploring the boundaries of my own understanding in a way that makes sense for me!

To that end, I stumbled upon a jewel of an article about digital storytelling and empathy in my reading journey this week.  "Mirror Neurons, the development of empathy, and digital story telling" proved not only to be interesting but also a purposeful look at how telling our own stories allows viewers to engage in a mirrored experience and that current research on the brain supports the idea that when we engage in the experiences of others in this way, the biological structures known as mirror neurons actually fire and we experience the experience of others in a very intimate personalized way.

The other aspect of this article is the concept of developed by Michael Wesch which is really worth digging into a lot more deeply.  Wesch has explored vlogging, or video blogging as a way of creating a mask, or identity, in both a very private space but yet one where the whole world has the potential of watching.  A vlogger is essentially alone--with a video camera--speaking often very personal and intimate thoughts directly in the camera.  Within this private space, which appears to me to be somewhat analogous to a confessional, the vlogger is solitary and simply alone with his thoughts. Yet, once the vlog is published, it is at once a most personal reflection released into a most public space.

Wesch describes this as a whole new space for creating, contextualizing and communicating and refers to it as a "context collapse."  The digitally mediated environment is in fact a different kind of space where communication takes on a different aspect that it ever has previously.  There is Wensch explains a "freedom to experience humanity without fear of anxiety."  Like the experience of empathy--this is a drawing in rather than a pushing out and away.

This is fascinating material to dig into.  I'm learning to be surprised at the serendipity that is ILT5340 and just go with it.  The readings themselves present multiple ways of understanding ourselves and the material and I'm just happy to explore where it takes me.

References

• Hess, M. (2012). Mirror neurons, the development of empathy, and digital story telling. Religious Education,107(4), 401. doi:10.1080/00344087.2012.699412

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 Two Daily Create #1: The Highest of Highs and Lowest of Lows

This week, for an audio Daily Create, I chose to create an audio which reponded to this question "What does this song mean to me?"  As I looked at several of the posted responses, it occurred to me that most respondents were choosing music with lyrics.  I am an avid classical music listener and actually, aside from the occasional choral piece, tend to listen to chamber and symphonic music rather than more contemporary music.  For this reason I chose Edward Elgar's Nimrod Variation which is one of my favorites.




Isn't it glorious? At the same time, it evokes something so deeply sorrowful. This is a unique characteristic of music. In the same piece it can bring you to tears and great joy. Sometimes I experience those emotions simultaneously in the same piece of music.

For my daily create, I used a very simple technique.  I opened the Nimrod Variation from YouTube.  I played it at a very low volume on one screen.  Then, I opened Soundcloud and simply recorded my impressions directly to Soundcloud.  This gave the whole recording the impression that I may actually have been responding to an interview question or in a spontaneous rather than rehearsed way. I think it gives the recording an impromptu and informal quality which I actually like--in spite of the fact that I tend to fill space with an 'um.'  It seems more authentic than a scripted response.

My end product sounds like this:

Week One: Daily Create 1616 (Or Messing with Haiku DoubleSpeak!)

This was pretty entertaining and a lot harder than it looks at first. I liked the idea of playing with a poem form that required a certain number of syllables like haiku and then I found this particular haiku which pokes a little fun at the form itself. Finally, I recorded it using my sound recorder in Windows 8. Believe it or not, it took a few tries before I got it to where I liked it.

As far as the technical specs go, I used the haiku image and put in in a single PowerPoint slide.  Then I used a PowerPoint add-in called Office Mix which allows you to actually record and present your slides to create the audio recording I ended up using.  I also tried importing the Windows 8 sound recording as well--but this one just had a better sound quality.  Voila'  Double Speak!

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.

Transitions, Change and Risk-Taking (aka Week One Daily Create!)

So, I start a new journey --or continue a journey that I started a few years ago.  In any case, this seems like a perfect opportunity to blog for a few weeks on the topic of Transitions, Change and Risk-Taking.  This is my theme this summer.  I am in the midst of so many of life's transitions.  I have a child who just became a parent for the first time--which means I am privileged to be a grandmother and learning how to do that. I am also transitioning from a parent to a grandparent which is a whole new journey which means not always needing to worry but also to sit back and simply take in the joy of knowing that my own son is becoming a great dad in his own right.

I have another child who will be married in September.  She and her fiance' just put an offer in on a house.  Life is strange when you watch your children grow up and it seems like yesterday when you were reminding them to hold onto your hand when you were in the parking lot. Where has life gone and when did those days turn into years?

And, in the midst of all of this, I am writing my dissertation.  So, I arrived to the whole doctoral program a little later than many.  However, I arrived with drive and curiosity and the thrill of the risk taking.  I'm excited!  I am excited about my research topic.  I am excited to explore something new for me.  I am excited to see where this will all take me.

Then there is the undeniable wonder of the stability of being married for nearly 31 years to a most amazing person. And yet, every day of that has been a transition of sorts as we move through the ambiguity of a marriage relationship together. It's great to have a place of stability in the midst of a world which shifts beneath our feet nearly every day.

Life is so good that it was not hard to find something for my daily create during week 1.

I have to figure out how to embed videos--So I will keep working on that.  This week, I decided to play with WeVideo which is a tool some of my colleagues have been using but which I never really had the time to explore.  I actually found it pretty intuitive for this Daily Create.  Basically, my daily create was to explore three things that made me happy. Finding those photographs was easy and even putting the short baby video was fairly simple.  I want to keep on exploring editing features.  While I managed to get captions included, I did not manage to get a voice over on the WeMovie track.

WeVideo really is a step by step process:

1. Choose a topic.
2. Upload images or video which is a drag and drop process.  It doesn't get any easier than that.
3. Drag and drop them into the order that seems logical.
4. Add music.  I chose from the royalty free music embedded in the WeVideo Editor
5. Choose a theme from the options in WeVideo.  This helps create the snazzy opening and the transitions between images.

It is super simple and pretty entertaining!

Stay tuned.  This is a summer of new things, transitions, change and risk-taking and I'll be using this space to explore that.  Onward and Upward!