Up to V: The Nerdlution Wordvention Fictionary Update


I can’t believe I am at V already in my #nerdlution goal to invent a new word for every letter of the alphabet. The project — which I am now calling The Fictionary — is rolling along nicely. Some words are better than others, but I suspect that is true of the real dictionary, too, right?

Anywhere, here is my Monday video update:

I’ll be completing The Fictionary later this week, and I am working on a plan to gather all of the words (which are published in Notegraphy) together in some sort of online booklet of sorts. (Any ideas on how best to do that?)

T
h
a
n
k
s

F
o
r

R
e
a
d
i
n
g

Peace (in vercabulary-style writing),
Kevin

Write Yourselves into a Poem: A #Walkmyworld Call to Writing

Reflections from Week Five of the #WALKMYWORLD Project

I may be wrong but it seems like we are at an important juncture in the #walkmyworld project, where the shift from documenting and sharing our worlds towards reflecting through poetry hopefully will begin. I’m not sure how ready people are, though, as that leap from putting the lens on things around us (we can be removed from the action, somewhat) to putting the lens on thoughts inside of us (poetry comes from the heart) can be difficult for many, and sharing in a public space … even more so. It brings up the uncertainty that many have of themselves as writers. Yet, if the project is to be more than just documenting,  more than something than just another cute hashtag on Twitter, then I think we’ll all have to move forward, with Ian and Greg and others nudging us.

Upon reading Ian’s reflections this morning, his urging of us to become more collaborative and connected with others in the #walkmyworld spaces had me mulling over how I might write a poem inspired by the tweets in the #walkmyworld hashtag, and maybe use a poem to encourage/invite/cajole others to begin some poetry themselves. My aim is to bring people into the poem itself as way to encourage them to write their own. I humbly “borrowed” tweets from the #walkmyworld stream, finding inspiration within the confines of 140 characters. If you are in my poem, I thank you for your words and ideas.

Here’s what I composed:

 

Write Yourselves into a Poem

Over coffee …

my fingers flutter over the footsteps
of those who would
#walkmyworld with me in these
virtual spaces:

Cassandra, in backwards visual motion
bringing us out and then in again
towards faith;

Jason, with flames firing
out the center of his plate,
an extra helping of warmth in winter;

Kristen, her camera obscured,
capturing the days of others
unfolding as private moments in public spaces;

Ken, in negotiations with the unseen,
a call for action and a slow halt
to the falling sky debris that clutters our days;

Laura, on the inside looking out,
shadows falling against window panes
a lone green sentry standing guard in paradise;

Aubri, with blankets and family
and food and the screen as some beacon
of entertainment escape from the snow;

Julie, pondering her flexible role
as teacher, mother, writer, blogger
in this navigational spaces that don’t quite exist;

Antwon, deep in thought as his mind
runs along the texts of the page
even as the camera finds him in quiet repose;

and Kelly, raising her glass in a toast
to us all, to the world on which we
find ourselves walking thanks to

Ian and Greg and others who have pulled in Haas
as a mean to find words, and rhythm, to express
the everyday magic of the objects of our lives

so go on, write yourselves into a poem
sneak inside a corner of this page
and make yourselves at home …

We #walkmyworld together

Write your poem, if you can.

Peace (in the walking of the world),
Kevin

 

Book Review: Tua and the Elephant

http://ameliabloomer.files.wordpress.com/2012/08/tua.jpg

Tua and the Elephant is a beautiful little novel, and it was such a nice change of pace from my read aloud with my son of action and adventure stories that have a lot of noise but very little depth. Which is not to say that action and adventure are not part of this story in which a little girl, Tua, sets out to rescue an elephant, even as she is being chased by two seedy men who have abused the elephant and want it back. Set in Thailand, this small novel gives such a flavor of setting and character, and moves with humor and humanity, making it a perfect read-aloud for home or the classroom.

Tua is smart and determined, and her heart is what drives the story forward from the first page to the last. You can’t help but root for Tua and care about the young elephant she is intent on saving. Finding a gem like Tua and the Elephant (I saw it on a table at the book store, and was captivated by the cover, and picked it up) is such a refreshing thing, reminding me of the power of story told with compassion and understanding.

Tua lives in our hearts now, too.

Peace (in the story),
Kevin

 

Daily Creatin’ with a Visual Lens

I’ve been diving back into the Daily Create this week after a stretch of somewhat ignoring the daily prompts to “make stuff.” The Daily Create is still an amazing resource for stretching your mind, and I like the photography angle, since that is not really part of how I see myself.

This morning, the prompt was about pixelating and manipulating an image using an excel-based tool. Pretty strange, but I uploaded an image and toyed around to create this madness. If I had more time and patience, I would have been more systematic about what I was doing. As it was, I was just doing, not planning. (but check out the image pulsates if you toggle up and down very quickly. Odd)

Dog Leash Excelerator

Yesterday, the prompt was about using tape to create household art. I set about making Tapeman, and then (as someone noted, as if he were Flat Stanley), I propped him in various elements of the kitchen. He spent the night drinking our bottle of wine and is now paid out flat on the counter top. Never invite Tapeman to your party.

Tapeman

For Valentine’s Day, the prompt had to do with remixing a set of stock images with snarky comments. I tried to capture the digital disconnect with this one.

False Valentines

And finally, there was the visual palindrome prompt. My mind raced (eh, sorry) to the phrase of “race car” and you would not be surprised at how quickly race cars can be found in a house with three boys.

Visual palindrome

How about you? What’d you create this week?

Peace (in the share),
Kevin

Curation Makes the Difference: The Ken Burns App

Burns App
I admire Ken Burns for his storytelling and imagine him in my head a lot when it comes to digital storytelling. He transformed the way we think about still images with voice and music. But sitting through hours and hours worth of DVDs, even on subjects near to my heart like jazz and baseball, is something I just can’t do. (even though one of my neighbors is an editor with Burns and I feel guilt about not watching her work on a regular basis)

So I was intrigued when I saw the new Ken Burns App, and gave it a download. Here is what I was looking for: a curated collection of clips from various Ken Burns documentaries, culled and pulled together along various Big Ideas by Burns himself, with narrated introductions. I got all that, and more. The themes include art, politics, innovation and race, and while you only get one collection free (innovation), I ponied up the $9.99 for the rest because I just had to experience the Art collection (which mixes Billie Holiday with Frank Lloyd Wright with Woody Guthrie and more) and I am not regretting it. The experience is like a video mix tape, but with quality of storytelling and video production. I was hooked with the first segment.

The app is beautifully crafted, too, with a real feel for the way that touchscreens can be used to experience story. I suspect it will take me some time to get through all the collections, which is fine by me. I’m diving into the stories in order to learn more about America, and about filmmaking, and about digital curation. The Ken Burns App gives me plenty to chew on around all of those topics.

Peace (in the app),
Kevin

Book Review: The Last Wild

For all the truth around “not judging a book by its cover,” I admit that sometimes it is the cover that attracts me to a book. So it is with Piers Torday’s The Last Wild. The cover was so intriguing, and the novels’ name, too, that I just had to pick it up when I saw it out at the NCTE convention. I’m glad I did, as my son and I just finished it as a read-aloud, and now we can only wait for the sequel to see how the story ends.

The book is set in a dystopian future, where animals have been killed off by disease (called “red eye” or “berry eye”) and all humans are now huddled around some city centers to avoid contamination. The protagonist, Kester, is a boy who has been stuck inside a children’s boarding “school” for six years, following his mother’s death and his father’s work as a scientist and vet. Kester is mute, unable to talk, but he narrates for us in a loud voice and soon discovers that he has the ability to “talk” silently with insects and, yes, animals.

Because not all the animals are dead, and they have come to break Kester out of his school (jail) so that he can lead the last wild (a group of animals) towards a cure for the disease that has ravaged the world. Torday’s book is full of adventure, and difficult choices, and a re-imagining of the world where man has done nature wrong, and now it is time to fix the problems, and save the animals. Quirky characters, and evil antagonists, abound here.

I’m glad the cover the caught my eye. We thoroughly enjoyed The Last Wild, and wait for the next book.

Peace (in the wild),
Kevin

Re-Envisioning the Failed Digital Composition

All hail the fail. So said my friend Terry the other day as part of his response to my post about a digital composition that I attempted that just did not work for me. But part of failing can also perseverance (a theme which we did a whole lesson around in the classroom the other day) and as I took in Terry’s comments via Vialogues (see below) and then read some reactions from another friend, Molly, I began to rethink how the piece might yet come together.

Here’s Terry’s comments on the composition and some of my responses:

Here is Molly’s tweet:

It was a combination of both of their voices, plus my own doubts, that stuck with me, and as I was out shoveling last night (for the fifth time that day), it dawned on me how I could maybe “fix” the failure, and it required moving away from the video app that had inspired the composition to begin with. I realized that the PicPlayPost app was one of my problems. It was Molly’s comment about finding a way to cut and connect that made me realize that I could use Popcorn Maker, perhaps, to re-engineer the video sequences, and cut out the Tellegami ads at the end of the videos, too. (which Terry agreed gave the composition a very halting effect).

So, here it is.

What’s interesting is that my original intention was to try to avoid a sequential left-to-right kind of video message and that is what I went back to. But with Popcorn, I could add another layer of music, and the project is now remixable by anyone who wants to give it a whirl. That was something that Molly could not do with PicPlayPost, although that was her first instinct (which I applauded). Popcorn can still act quirky at times, and is periodically laggy. But, if not completely at ease with how it came out, at least it better matches my vision.

Peace (in the remix),
Kevin

Graphic Novel Review: Jellaby

There is no way you could not fall in love with Jellaby. Not just the graphic novel of the same title, but the monster/creature/alien/thing that forms the heart of this new graphic novel series by Kean Soo (with a great introduction by Kazu Kibuishi).  Jellaby centers on a young girl, Portia, whose a bit lost and lonely in a new place and who discovers in the woods near her house an oversized, yet clearly young, creature that is also lost and lonely. She names the creature Jellaby, and Soo’s artistry really brings Jellaby to life with huge eyes, small wings and a large heart.

The story is a riff on the “Can I have this dog that followed me home – please please please?” idea but Soo has created a real believable world with Portia and Jellaby and then later, her new friend, Jason. The two kids are on a quest to find a portal back to Jellaby’s home, and the perfect cover for transporting a monster on a train is Halloween. This graphic novel — subtitled “The Lost Monster” — is the first part of a larger story of the three friends (and I’ve seen some of Soo’s work in the Flight collections so I know he has a flair for storytelling with heart).

 

You know what I appreciated?

At the end of the novel, Soo writes a bit about where the story comes from and explains some of the artistic elements. For example, the book is completely dipped in purples and pinks. As I was reading, I thought: that’s a pretty clever way to establish the mood of the story, and it does. Our visual senses see the world of Jellaby through the colors that Soo uses. I was thinking, how smart. But it turns out Soo used that colors because it was cheap, and he had figured that when/if the book ever got published, the publishers could easily turn the purple to black. But the publisher liked the purple and pink hues, and so it was kept. Interesting.

Peace (in the story),
Kevin

Calm and Unity talk Community

The question to explore this week with the #rhizo14 course is the concept of “community as curriculum” and whatever that means. It brought up to my mind the continued tug and pull of what we mean by community when we refer to online spaces.
So, I created this tappable story exchange (which I shared out a bit yesterday, too):

And I was reminded of a presentation by Bud Hunt on the topic of community versus network spaces from the K12 Online Conference way back in 2008 (I think).

Listen to Bud: http://k12online.wm.edu/k12online08lc09.mp3 and find some of the related resources at either the K12 Online Space or at his blog space.

Peace (in the space),
Kevin

Warts and All: This Digital Composition Failed


This past weekend, I had this concept in my head about trying to make a statement about how the technology we use hems us in as much as it broadens our possibilities. I could see the pieces unfolding, as a series of videos told in a combination of contained tech-generated pieces that slowly move into a video piece with just me speaking in my own voice.

It looked great in my head.

I went into Tellegami and used the text option to create the first videos. I wanted that computerized voice to speak the lines about constraints (although this is no reflection on Tellegami, which I enjoy). Then, as the third piece unfolded, I would add my real voice to the mix, ending on the fourth video without Tellegami.

It doesn’t look so great on the screen.

In fact, I almost killed the whole thing after I published it because the effect for me is a big “yawn.” Instead, I figured might be valuable to figure out why it didn’t work. I’m so used to only sharing the pieces that I like and the ones that came together, but just like in the classroom where there should be a “warts and all” reality around solid writing (it doesn’t appear magically), I figured it might make sense to think about where this digital piece went off the rails for me.

First of all, I admit: I winged the writing. Normally, I would have spent more time writing what I wanted to say. Oh, I knew the “Message” of the piece but I forgot a crucial element: the rhythm of words as a whole piece so that each part is like a stanza of the poem so that each piece works off the other in a rather organic way. I was sort of rushed for time and decided to forgo writing down the “script” and the playing with words, as I so often do. So, instead, with each segment, I was inventing the lines in my head on the spot and each time I recorded (I had to do each a few times), it came out a little different. The result is something less than cohesive to me, to my ear. It doesn’t sound right. The words are not complementary to the whole.

Second, while I do like Tellegami, I was struck by some of the automated voice limitations and by the limitations of what the character looks like (I know, this is ironic, given the theme of the piece). I struggled to keep perspective on how these limitations could help the message, but I never bought it on the creative side. This push/pull nature of creating with digital tools can make for the frustrating experience of “settling for the results” as opposed to making it work the way your creative mind wants it to work. This is the tension around agency.

Third, I didn’t realize until later (or rather, I forgot) that Tellegami adds a little Tellegami tag at the end of each video. That’s what you get with a free app. Normally, it’s not a big deal. But here, where the piece is built around a hand-off of ideas from one video segment to another, that delay for advertising is jolting. Any cohesion immediately gets lost as we wait around for the ad to finish. That drives me crazy.

Finally, I used my latest favorite app (PicPlayPost) to pull the videos together into one media collage but tinkering with settings and playing with the layout never got me to where I wanted to be. I can’t explain what I was aiming for, really, except to say that the way the video “looks” is not how I “saw” it in my head, and that disconnect with the vision of the piece is why the entire composition fails for me. (And the audio levels drive me nutty, too, even though I did some tweaking with it. That has to do with my iPad, which is an older version and has some microphone difficulties).

I’d love to know what you, the outside observer, think about the piece. Be critical. I can take it.

🙂

Peace (in the piece),
Kevin