Category Archives: Digiwrimo

Hacker Feminist Barbie: Pushing Back at Gender Stereotypes

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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

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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

Playing with Light

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Playing with Light

This weekend’s writing prompt for Digital Writing Month brought me right back to the Making Learning Connected MOOC Make Cycle, in which we were asked to play with light. So, too, is the call for this weekend’s digital exploration, so I went back to find a nifty online tool called Glow Doodle, which uses your webcam to create arcs of light.

In the pictures above, I used two different flashlights, playing around with the light trails that they made in the image. I’d like to experiment a bit more with it when I have time. It’s one of those “whoah” sites whose applications beyond the “cool factor” I am having trouble wrapping my head around.

Still, the “cool factor” is pretty strong. Give Glow Doodle a try and see what you think.

Peace (in the afterglow),
Kevin

A video:

 

Digital Writing as Making Music

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(This old post was sitting in my draft bin and I figured now is a good time to share it, as part of Digital Writing Month.)

My friend, Jeremy, once asked us to define “digital literacy” as part of an online writing prompt. I worked with the app on the iPad called Telegami, sort of like Voki. The limited amount of time does not make for a very deep response but I was working to think of digital writing as music composition, in a way. It didn’t quite capture what I was going for (my fault, not the app’s fault).

Still, here is what I created:

Peace (in the voice),
Kevin

 

When a Comic Idea Goes Meta

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MetaComic1

Maybe I’ve been watching too many Christopher Nolan movies but I had this idea for a comic in which the lens pulls back further each time, where each character thinks they are looking at other characters. Sort of like those mirrors facing mirrors in which your reflection forever.

But in a comic …

MetaComic2

So I played around with perspective a bit, adding myself into the middle comic and then pulling back again in the end. I don’t know if it worked exactly how I wanted it to work but it was neat to try to make it work.

MetaComic3

Peace (in the metaworld),
Kevin

When Words Become Image Become Sound

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Last summer, I discovered an interesting freeware software program for PC called AudioPaint (no luck finding an equivalent for my Mac). What it does is takes an image, analyzes its bitmap, and then turns the image into an audio soundscape file. Think about that for a second. It reminds us that all digital projects are really nothing more than data.

This week, as part of this week’s challenge with Digital Writing Month, I decided I would try to write a poem that would be converted into an image that will be converted into audio sound. The result is eerily fascinating, and each piece on its own might be sort of intriguing (at least, it is to me, the writer) but taken together, they mesh and merge in some strange kaleidoscope of composition that I can’t quite explain.

Take a listen to the poem, as painted in audio:

Is this digital writing? Isn’t it? It surely hits the concept right at the very basic level that all of our keyboard strokes are data points that can be manipulated by software, and the challenge is … how to retain our humanity as writers in that kind of environment. I think we do this by putting what we write about into the context of being a writer.

I listen to the sounds generated by the image of my poem, and I find myself seeking out narrative highs and lows, wondering where that wave sine might connect with that word phrase, and considering if the sounds I am hearing have any connection to the theme I was writing about. It’s a fascinating dance we do, here in this emerging world of digital writing.

Between the Media

And then, I thought, what if I took the raw audio file from AudioPaint, and moved it into Audacity, adding in some layers of words from the poem, flipping the whole thing back on itself. Take a listen.

 

Peace (in the sounds of the image),
Kevin

Some Takeaways from #TvsZ 6.0

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The #TvsZ game ended last night, after a weekend of furious activity on all the teams involved to complete the final “mission” that pulled together all sorts of strands of stories, media and collaborative principles. Unfortunately, I was out of the house for much of the afternoon and left the curating of my team’s mission to others. I did create a “myth” story for our team (#DragonBovines) as a comic, in hopes that I could at least contribute something. Others wrote myth tweets, too.
The Myth of TvsZ

But I continue to think about the take-aways from a social media game like #TvsZ and what literacies and skills come to the surface. These are merely my own reflection points:

  • A game played in real time across a social media network like Twitter means that many players missed much of the unfolding of the game, and that’s OK. Unless you were jacked to your screen for 48 hours, elements of the game went by you or pieces got completely missed. Realizing that there is no way to know everything is not a weakness but a strength of the game (and thankfully, the administrators were around most of the time to clarify rules.)
  • The need for collaboration and team-building trumped mostly everything else. This is built into the dynamics and flow of the game itself, as you begin by recruiting for a team and then work forward from there. Much of the play was recruiting, resisting and helping teammates as membership shifted across the board.
  • Some literacies that I noticed: writing in short-form, collaborative story writing, media awareness and media creation, hyperlinks as text, collaborative practice, rules negotiations, remixing content, and other skills that I am still mulling over.
  • You don’t quite realize the extend of connections until you get a glimpse of something like the Tagsexplorer that was set up for the game. Check it out. That’s when you get to pull back and glimpse some of the writing and connecting that was going on, as all of those strands reach out and represent connections. Pretty amazing. And the tool is perfect for getting a real idea of activity in a game like this, which can often feel fleeting in the moment.

TvsZ tagexplorer

I will be curious to see how the discussions unfold in the undergraduate classes that were playing the game across the world, and what the students saw in the game. One question should be: did playing TvsZ have value beyond just playing the game itself? What was learned about the self and about connected learning practices?

It may be a game, but TvsZ is always more than just a game.

Peace (in rest mode),
Kevin

PS – here is a collection of comics from our team, as curated by NanaLou.

 

Sometimes, It’s All About the #TvsZ Metaphor

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What a mad rush of playing #TvsZ 6.0 yesterday … in between family time (shopping for shoes, raking leaves, etc.), I popped into Twitter to play when I could as odd things unfolded, from a merging of teams (My team is now #DragonBovines) to multimedia creations, and some trash-talking as the main teams jostled for position in the literary landscape of the game (I hacked some photos last night with my cow character). We were writing poems, making videos and collaborating all day (although to be fair, I missed most of those activities … thankfully, other the other firecows had things under control).

This morning, I got to thinking again (see yesterday’s post) about ways we could bring everyone together — to find ways to collaborate within the game framework instead of working against each other. I don’t know if this will work but I created this comic and put it into ThingLink, and opened it up for anyone to add tags on the Metaphorical Bridge to Survival. I am hoping players from all teams will tag the bridge.

We’ll see …

Peace (in the metaphor),
Kevin

 

 

Some Initial Thoughts on Playing #TvsZ 6.0

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TvsZ 6.0
In game theory, the idea of dynamics is important. Change a variable in any game system, and the play changes along with it. You can make this theory visible for yourself by taking any familiar game, such as Chess or Monopoly, and adding or removing elements/pieces/rules. You quickly realize that while your knowledge of the game has some historic grounding, the changes now put into place add a wrinkle to the perception of play. The game becomes something new.

Which leads me to a bit of a ramble … I am participating in the 6.0 version of TvsZ, or what was known in previous iterations as Twitter vs. Zombies. It’s being run by some very good friends of mine as an offshoot of Digital Writing Month and as part of the grad (I think) classes they are teaching. I find that fascinating, extending the learning about literacy in the classroom to something like a Twitter-based game. Now, this particular TvsZ is not Twitter vs Zombies, as the organizers were wary of having fun with zombies in a time when Ebola and other epidemic crisis flash points face the global community.

Instead, the narrative of this Twitter game (yes, it all played on Twitter, with hashtags and alliances and media and more) is about finding a community aligned with either Technology or Nature to survive an apocalyptic moment in time, where you need to determine what is important and what is not. The game rules allows you to #recruit others and fend off recruitment. It’s a bit difficult to explain here and you might be shaking your head.

The game started mid-day yesterday and continues through the weekend. I popped in when I could during teaching breaks. As I played TvsZ here and there during the day and into the night, some trends I noticed had me thinking about past variations (see a past reflection on why I played Twitter vs. Zombies) and the updates now embedded in this version.

Here, then, are a few unfocused observations ….

  • I admit, I was confused at first about the team concept, but then I aligned myself with Team Technology. I thought, all these young people will want the Technology over Nature. (I was also confused because an earlier version was Zen, not Nature, but I think the organizers went with Nature so as to not confuse students who are playing with philosophical concepts that would draw away from the game … maybe … I am not sure). So I thought the pendulum would swing to Tech. Wrong. Very wrong. For much of the afternoon, I seemed like one of the lonely technology beacons in the game, and then got recruited in a mad rush to Nature by a bunch of players. I could not defend myself and switched teams. Reading the tweets of the players on Team Nature, and realizing of course that it is a game, I could not help but think of the game as a way to push back on the intrusion of technology in our lives. I mean, the numbers even this morning remain overwhelmingly against technology in this game. It’s fascinating, particularly if it is a cultural criticism of our lives becoming digital and a yearning to break free of it now and then. Maybe the game has given some people a chance to express that contradiction (ie, they are playing a game on Twitter while renouncing technology).
  • In previous versions of the game, the narrative arc of the game was clear. The zombies are out to get you, and you better use all of the rules of the game to remain human. Or if you become a zombie, become relentless and get the hoomans. I’m not a zombie-literature fan, and find zombie stories rather boring. I never got into The Walking Dead. But I enjoyed the dichotomy and simplicity of the game. You were human or you were zombie. Zombies (antagonists) chased humans (protagonist) and humans banded together to thwart zombies. This is not a criticism of the architects of this 6.0 version, but I am feeling a little lost in the survival narrative of the game right now. It seems like teams are out to disparage other teams to shift the power balance by increasing recruitment. I get that. But unlike previous version, I am not sure where that is taking us. (I am hoping there are grand plans afoot to make it clearer.) I was happy to see a new mission on “food” this morning.
  • Related to that last point, I began to feel during the course of the day that there should be more ways to bring the groups together. It’s a survival story, right? It does not have to be a zero sum game (ie, you perish so that I can survive, or vice versa). I began to wonder if there were collaborative points that could be inserted into the game narrative, as a break to bring people together, no matter the affiliation. That led first to me creating a collaborative poem space — a #hidingspot — where folks on any team could write together. I also suggested a possible rule called #danceparty, in which if someone shares a technology- or nature-themed music video, the game stops and becomes a global dance party for five minutes. Imagine that? Yeah. I’ll be thinking more of ways to bring the game’s players together instead of pushing them apart. We’re all hooomans, after all.
  • It’s been intriguing to watch other groups emerge, too. Along with Tech and Nature, some groups of students created Dragon and Fish teams. And then last night, a friend with #ds106 connections created the Bovine team, and I was happily recruited. I wonder how this splintering of teams affects the overall narrative. Hacking games is a way to gain agency in the system, and I am curious to know how it will start to come together and make sense on a larger scale. I understand the smaller scale of the game. I want to see the larger picture.
  • I appreciated, too, that the organizers have opened up the Rules Document and allowed players to suggest rules for play, providing a space for anyone to get involved in how the game will unfold. We are not shackled by one vision of the game, although someone will become arbiters of the rules in the end. This is how digital writing plays a role here. I could write to the makers of Monopoly, and make suggestions, but what are the chances my words and ideas would be read and used? Unlikely. I know my suggestions in #TvsZ will be read and maybe included. Even if a rule change is not implemented, I feel empowered by the process. And that happens because of a click of a switch that makes a closed document an open document. That’s a powerful example of collaboration.
  • Finally, a huge hats off to the game’s organizers for exploring this kind of Twitter-based game for learning with their students. In the past, I’ve wondered how I could adapt Twitter vs. Zombies for my sixth grade classroom, and came up empty. I think this shift in the rules might be a way for me to revisit the idea, if I can find a solid “hook” to the narrative for my students … or maybe a more solidified goal for how the game ends (do we all become one large community again? do we defeat the darkness with a blast of light? do we build a spaceship and head off into the sky?) I will keep looking to the game unfolding this weekend as a possible model for how it make work.

Peace (in the think),
Kevin