Slice of Life: A #CCourses Folding Story

(This post is both for the Slice of Life writing with Two Writing Teachers and for the Connected Courses. It’s all about intersections).

WRITE a slice of life story on your own blog. SHARE a link to your post in the comments section. GIVE comments to at least three other SOLSC bloggers.

One of the main things that gets me interested in online learning spaces is the possibilities for collaboration. All too often, it seems that the online experience is little more than a replica of the offline experience: the presenter speaks or shares, the audience listens and nod head, and then writes independently, a few folks comment and then … radio silence. (That seems like a topic for another blog post, another day.)

As I did with the Making Learning Connected MOOC, I wanted to spark some writing with other folks, so I set up what is known as  Folding Story and invited people in to write with me. A folding story is when you write collaboratively, but you only see the part of the story directly above you, not anything earlier. (It’s a version of the Exquisite Corpse idea). And you have a set amount of space to write, before sending the fold forward to the next person. I’ve done this with paper with my students (a huge hit) and then found an online space called Fold This Story, which works great for online collaboration.

So, this weekend, I set the story in motion for the Connected Courses, with the somewhat provocative title of “You Call This a Course?” and then I began spreading the invitations through the Connected Courses network. A bunch of folks jumped in, and the story soon took off. For most of the story, it kept to the theme of connections. At the end, it veered into zombies. That’s a folding story for you.

Curious about how it came out? Here it is, as a pdf.

You Call This a Course (A Folding Story) by KevinHodgson

And, as I did with CLMOOC, I decided to read aloud the story as podcast, to give it a consistent voice and just to let you/me hear the story unfold in audio. It’s up there in Soundcloud so feel free to remix the heck of it, if you want.

I have not yet used the Fold a Story site with my students, but we will be diving in this year. I wonder how the stories will unfold …

Peace (in the colored threads of collaboration),
Kevin

11 Comments
  1. Thanks for the Twitter love! I am still pinching myself.
    This is fascinating. I’d love to try it with kids. It’s bound to go off to the zombies with my students.

  2. Thanks for teaching me about a new tool. Will check out Fold a Story now. (Please give us updates about how it’s going in your classroom.)

  3. Kevin, you and the folded story nudged me to try Tuesday Slicing again instead of just telling myself “gee want to that but forgot again” on Wednesdays

    I commented at Sound Cloud and the G+ #ccourses community but according to the SOL guidelines, this is where it counts (OK so I will count it 2x, more if I can figure out where)

  4. I used to do this sort of collaborative story with my students, but we didn’t call it a folded story. I think we used carousel instead. I like how this one sticks to a narrative long than the carousel pieces of old did. A fun and literary team builder to be sure. I can see using it now to then have students go back and revise for story elements to create a more cohesive plot. Thanks for always pushing my thinking with all that you share, Kevin.

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