An Essay as Apology to Those Whose Names I Forgot

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Who r u?
An essay as apology to those whose names I forgot

My friend,

I’m sorry I forgot your name. I apologize if my eyes darted quickly from your face to your name tag, and then back up to your eyes as you began to speak. Did I look confused? Lost? Or out of place when we were talking? I probably was. My brain was working to remember your name, to place you in my constellation. I blame Google for making me stupid. No. I blame genetics and memory cells. Darn you, Mom and Dad.

The fact is that as much as I love coming to educational conferences and hanging out with everyone in person after all the time that we spend in online spaces exploring writing and making cool stuff, I am finding it a wee bit trickier over the years to remember all of you when we finally get to a face-to-face situation. That’s not completely true. I never found it easy and I always thank the Conference Gods who provide us with name tags.

It’s not you; it’s me.

You seem to have no trouble remembering me. I appreciate that. Perhaps my restless online presence translates into a strong physical presence? <Cue laugh track>. Of course, you would not likely recognize me from my “dogtrax” avatar. Unless you squint your eyes, use your imagination and maybe do a few shots of whiskey first. And by the way, if we are at the same bar when you do that whiskey shot to spark your imagination, call me over. I am buying. We can imagine together.

Maybe it’s my walk and not my avatar that you recognize. My wife says I have a distinctive walk, and one of my former colleagues who I ran into at NCTE (no, I did not recognize her when she called out my name and she even taught two doors down the hall from me … 11 years ago … But still, I should have her face in my memory banks, right? Right. Sigh) said she recognized me from afar from the way I was walking down the hallway. I find that hard to believe. Do I have a funny walk? I personally think it is the rest of the world that is slightly off-kilter. I walk with perfectly normal strides.

But, if you recognized me by my walk or from my avatar or from some various hangout or whatever (maybe even from that whiskey bar), and I failed to do the same of you and your walk, I am so sorry. Perhaps your walk is on the so-called normal scale. There were a lot of people there, after all. (although now that I think of it, if we did hang out in that whiskey bar, both of our walks might be a bit funny by the end of our conversation.)

Still, when I hear someone saying “Kevin” or “Dogtrax” from across the room, I think: This .. is … so … cool. Someone I know is here. I get excited about the connection. I do. After all, what we do online should spill to what we do offline, if the possibility exists. When it happens, it’s an amazing connection, like some two-pronged electrical plug. Inevitably, though, I draw a blank when your hand reaches out to me and I feel dumb (again …. Google) and scramble my brain for your name. I mean, you took the trouble to remember me. I should remember you. I quickly calculate, what space were you in with me? What projects did we collaborate on? Are you sure we know each other? I don’t want you to ever think that what we did together is inconsequential nor without meaning, which is why a small panic builds inside of me. I valued our work. I just can’t retrieve your name from my data banks right at this second.

I have decided a strategy is in order. So I have begun stringing various name together, sort of like lights on the holiday tree. Or a run-on sentence. Names name names. I just need to make sure none of the lights go out on that string of ours, and I will be good to go. There’s a whole year to go until our next big conference. A whole year to learn how to remember.

Or a whole year to forget … Damn it. See you at the bar. I’ll be the funny-walking writer who looks a little confused. Come on over and let’s talk about things for a bit. Make sure you introduce yourself first.

Peace,
Kevin

Writing Digitally: A Comic About Connections

I had this urge to create this comic as a sort of reflection point, drawing in connections that have me pushing my own ideas about what it means to be a writer in this digital age. Think of it as a token of gratitude for all those who are helping me along on this journey. I created the comic (making up representative characters for my friends: Simon, Terry, Anna, and Maha) in Bitstrips for Schools, and then moved it into a flipbook creator.

Read — Digital Writing: An Ongoing Exploration

Peace (in the frame),
Kevin

We Need a Map/We Don’t Need a Map

This will be out of context for most of you. Sorry. Simon and I have been “conversating” on the topic of digital writing, and making writing as we have been going along. This morning/last night, Simon posted a poem inspired by a documentary of writer William Gibson shared by Terry that I referenced in a collaborative conversation document that Simon and I are engaged in.

Got that?

Do you need a map?

I listened and read Simon’s post and then decided that I wanted to wrangle it into new shape. I wanted to create a flow chart/decision tree that captured the essence of Simon’s ideas and also revisited the idea of: Do we really need a map? Are these uncharted territories? How is writing a shifting landscape?

Thus, my flowchart ode to Simon’s words:

A Map for These Territories

Peace (to you),
Kevin
 

Book Review: Bad Unicorn

 

Bad Unicorn

I am not sure what to write about this one. I received Bad Unicorn as a donation from a parent at our annual book sale at our school and the title and the cover got my attention. As is usually the case, I took it home to read aloud with my youngest son.

Apparently, this is the first in a trilogy by Platte F. Clark. It tells the story of Max, who has found a magical book that can give him incredible powers. Meanwhile, the world itself has been “sundered” into three zones, with our Earth as we know it just one of those zones. Bad Unicorn, aka The Princess, comes from another zone, and she has been sent on a mission to kidnap Max and the book, and bring them back to a bad wizard.

Needless to say, the unicorn in question is not nice. She is a destroyer, full of powerful magic and a nasty attitude. Oh, and she likes how humans taste, so she is motivated on her mission because she is promised the state of Texas for lunch. Meanwhile, there are these dragons, disguised as humans … and the story gets way too convoluted to explain here. There are echoes of every adventure story you have read in Bad Unicorn. I can’t decide if that is good or bad, however.

What I can say is that the pace is quick, the humor flies fast and furious, and it was a rather enjoyable read-aloud. I just put the second book (Fluff Dragon) in my “to read” bin, as my son was wondering where the story continues. And we are all about keeping him reading …

Peace (in the magic),
Kevin

NWP Reflection: Making Bots; Talking Writing


At one of the sessions I attended at the National Writing Project meeting, with the theme of expanding the contexts of composition, I sat at a table and made a brush bot. We ripped apart a cheap electric toothbrush, yanked out the motor, connected a battery with a soldering gun, and then used various arts materials to decorate our bots.

We then set them loose on the table. Meanwhile, we talked about the connections that this kind of Maker Faire work might have on the classroom, with connections to science (via circuits) and writing (via either fictional narratives of the bots or the expository texts that could go along with creating something like a bot — a “how to” do this text).

Mostly, it was fun, and frustrating, and with that frustration (why didn’t this work?), there was the exhilarating sense of success when it did work, and the bot ran around the table. Or scooted in circles. Same thing. We had lots of laughter and lots of helping each other out, and it reminded me the power of making things out of other things, and how I need to do more of that in my classroom.

Peace (in the share out),
Kevin

Where Arts and Science Intersect

I reviewed Walter Isaacson’s book, The Innovators, the other day. But his last few lines still resonate with me, particularly as I participate in the Digital Writing Month activities.

InnovatorsQuote

THIS is what I think about all the time as I write with technology. It is not the technology or the tool, or the subject area in which I am writing in or writing about, it is the ways in which the digital tools allow me to dance across all of those lines and make art.

You?

Peace (in the think),
Kevin

Slice of Life: She Makes Worlds

(This post is part of the regular Slice of Life series over at Two Writing Teachers.)
kait game collage

Yesterday, my sixth graders all set up and started using their new accounts in Gamestar Mechanic as we gear up for a Video Game Design unit in which they will be designing, building and publishing video games to show knowledge of cellular structure. I’ll write about that another day …

But as I was getting ready to invite this year’s sixth graders into our “classroom” on Gamestar, I began weeding some former students out. I let them stay in the premium space until I need their slots for my classroom account, and then I boot them out. They all know this, so it won’t be a surprise, and they don’t lose their work. They just lose their premium status (unless they want to pay Gamestar). As I was removing students, I noticed something that caught my eye.

One of my students had not only created 61 video games, she had also reviewed 1,140 games of other players and left 2,120 comments on other people’s games. Now, that’s a lot, and I wondered what was going on with her since she left our school last June. I know she loved the site, and that she is very social by nature, but even for her, this amount of activity seemed excessive.

So, I trolled her account a bit, checking out her games, and it turns out, she was up to something very interesting. Throughout the summer, she had been constructing an informal network of other gaming kids to create a series of game design challenges, using the comment box/review box features for the games to organize the network of other kids. They would plan “meet” times in Gamestar, and then leave a thread of comments as they planned out the next activity, and then go through a voting system, and then announce the winners with a published game. They “followed” each other to keep track of the activity.

On one hand, this is the most inefficient system to do this kind of community building. The site is just not built for this. On the other hand, I am so proud of her for hacking the system to make it work for her, to some degree, and for constructing this whole framework of young gamers in Gamestar Mechanic. Reading through just some of the comment threads (there is no way I can get through 2,000 of them), I can see these kids navigating what it means to write in online spaces and using media to create things together and to find common ground among interests.

All of this … on their own, completely outside of the radar of any adults, as far as I know. I only stumbled upon it accidentally. Needless to say, I did NOT bump HER from my classroom account. I’m going to give her the room she needs to do what she’s doing, and see where it takes her.

Peace (in the game),
Kevin

Where the Conversation Takes Us (Bits and Pieces)

My friend, Simon, and I have been having a “conversation” or a written dialogue that has touched on us as writers and our work in various networked spaces and online communities. We’re moving in a lot of directions, often at once. This conversation began with a post of his that included some dialogue that I remixed, and then … well … that act of remix sparked something that got us writing together.

I’ve taken bits and pieces of that discussion and created this digital journal, or scrapbook, or maybe it is just the jetsam and flotsam of two people writing through what it means to write these days. Words become music become image become poem.

Bits and Pieces

 

Peace (in thanks to Simon),
Kevin

Hacker Feminist Barbie: Pushing Back at Gender Stereotypes

So, this is interesting … coming out of a controversy in which Mattel pulled a book from its Barbie collection in which Barbie is cast in a role as a computer engineer, but the story is framed as Barbie being someone who needs help from the boys to get things done, like the actual coding and programming. Lots of push back, as there should be, and then a few folks set up this site that allows you to hack and remix the Barbie book with your own writing.

I like that kind of push-back. You should give this a try, too. I am thinking of how to bring this into the classroom during the Hour of Code, perhaps. Maybe …

Here are two of the pages that I hacked …

Hacker Barbie

Hacker Barbie2

Peace (in breaking the stereotypes),
Kevin

 

A Story in Icons

Story in Icons
Telling a story of a day in only visuals is tricky business. Today’s Daily Create suggested we use the new icon library that Google put together, and so I tried here to represent my morning as I continue an interesting dialogue with my friend, Simon, about writing and stories and all sorts of interesting odds and ends.

You can find the Google Icon library preview here: http://google.github.io/material-design-icons/ I just copied what I needed (coffee) and tried to represent my ideas as best as I could.

What story could you tell?

Peace (in the icon),
Kevin