Category Archives: CLMOOC

The Postcard Poem as Digital Poetry

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Yesterday, I shared out a bit about the twists and turns of a poetry project that involved friends from around the world, postcards sent and found and lost, and an original poem that I had broken apart and parsed out, with an invitation to friends to reconstruct the words and phrases on a digital wall.

Today, I wanted to find a way to share out the original poem, particularly now that we have opened up the wall and others are jumping in, adding words and media and more. The poem is receding in that space as collaborative sharing surfaces. I love that movement, but I still want to keep the original poem intact.

The video above is that poem, told as digital poem, and with a bit of App Smashing on the iPad, too. I used the Legend app to make the animated text pieces (with background images as screenshots of the wall), and then I moved those short videos into the iMovie app to create a single video. Meanwhile, the guitar music is a piece that I wrote and recorded with the new Music Memo app the other night, mixed in the Garageband app, and then moved onto the iMovie app as soundtrack. From there, I uploaded the video into YouTube. Phew. It seems like a lot to juggle but it all worked rather seamlessly to create what I had in mind.

I debated whether to narrate the poem with voice and then decided against it, letting the words speak for themselves on the theme of poetry writing as collaborative endeavor, and using the music to create an emotional underpinning of the poem. (I also am considering asking folks to record their word or phrase, and then stitching our voices together like a quilt …)

Come add what you want to the poetry wall. We’ve opened up the poem to the winds of chance.

Peace (it’s poetry),
Kevin

Let Wind and Chance Plant the Seeds of a Poem

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There is a great scene in the wonderful picture book, Weslandia by Paul Fleischman, in which Wesley, the outcast boy who decides to build a new civilization for summer vacation break, has an argument of sorts with an adult neighbor. Wesley has been prepping a garden, and the neighbor tells him to plant tomatoes, Brussel Sprouts and other common crops.

Instead, Wesley looks towards the unexpected, and makes room for it.

“Wesley found it thrilling to open his land to chance, to invite the new and unknown.”

He decides to leave it to the winds to decide what will grow, and one night, a magical wind of chance does come a-blowing, scattering strange unknown seeds in Wesley’s plot of ground that become the flowering plants that will transform the backyard into the civilization that Wesley calls Weslandia.

The neighbor tells Wesley that if he doesn’t watch out, he will have trouble with the sprouts.

“You’ll have almighty bedlam on your hands if you don’t get those weeds out,” warned his neighbor.

“Actually, that’s my crop,” replied Wesley. “In this type of garden there are no weeds.”

Project postcsrd

Way back in early January, I started a poem project. A connected poem project. A slow-moving connected poem project. Here’s how it began and still is unfolding:

  • I wrote a poem
  • I cut up the poem into words and phrases
  • I sent a word or phrase to a dozen or more people who have been part of a periodic Making Learning Connected MOOC Postcard Project (we send postcards to each other)
  • I asked them in a note on the postcard to go to an online space and add the word and any media they thought applicable
  • I suggested they try to reconstruct the poem, sort of like a puzzle (which is difficult with no context, I know … that is part of the whole endeavor)

And I waited. And I waited. (Not my strong suit, this waiting for projects to unfold … I like to do things nownownow)

Nearly eight weeks later, a few postcards are still arriving (some of the postcards went to other parts of the world.) Some postcards never made it. Some may have been forgotten or ignored. But the Padlet wall where the poem is being reconstructed? It’s pretty cool.

Postcard Poem Padlet Wall

While waiting for the postcards to be delivered, I had also started up a Twitter Messaging forum with the folks I sent the postcards to. Originally, I had just intended to “warn” them about the postcard on the way (my handwriting stinks so if they could not read it, I wanted a way for them to reach out).

That string of messages in the Twitter backchannel has become a very interesting space over the past eight weeks or so, as conversations have turned on the project, on the use of traditional mail for a connected learning project, of patience and perseverance, of global connections, and of the nature of “chance” in an open environment. I feel more connected with that conversation that I have with the poem itself, interestingly enough.

And then something interesting happened … one of my friends shared the link to the poem project in a blog post about process of writing (which I think is cool to think of it all as a process of writing and collaboration over time) and one of their readers, another friend of mine outside of the postcard project but in other networks, went and left a piece of media and their own new word on the poem wall. Suddenly, the poem was becoming something new, moving out of my hands in an intriguing way.

So, while I have not yet come to a point of writing about my intent as the first writer behind the Postcard Poetry Project (since the poem is not yet completely reconstructed .. this post is not the reflective post I still intend to write someday), I want to open the whole poem itself to the Winds of Chance, as Wesley did when he was beginning his summer civilization project, and I want to invite you (and you and you) to come into the Padlet wall, and maybe add a word and a piece of media.

What shared writing can we create together? What will the winds bring? Come add to the poem. We will write this next phase of the project together. Wesley would be proud.

Peace (in the poem),
Kevin

The Signal From Inside the Annotation Flash Mob Noise

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Annotate

That was interesting. Last night, I followed an invitation of my friends, Terry and Joe, and took part in an online annotation Flash Mob experience, where a bunch of folks mostly used the tool Hypothesis (a browser add-on) to close read and annotate a New York Times article … about annotation.

The article is worth reading, just for the read. (if you have the Hypothesis add-on, you can also read all of the annotations on the article, and add your own)

But the act of annotating an online article together, as a crowd, is always an interesting experience. There are a lot of tools out there to do this, from the comment feature in Google Docs to Genius to Diigo and more. Hypothesis is a nice tool, clean to view, and if the tool is activated, when you come to a page that someone else has annotated, it allows you to view and comment and add to other people’s annotations. You can also add images, video and animated GIFs. It saves your annotation into your own “home” stream.

Annotate Flashmob Hangout

The way the Annotation Flash Mob worked was a bunch of us hung out in a Google Hangout, talked about annotation, and then got to work — all the while talking through the annotation process and screen-sharing what we were doing. Well, I found I could not really talk and listen closely, while also reading closely and annotating, so I sort of found myself in my own little cloud of thoughts for a big chunk of time. There was a bit too much “noise” for my brain to handle, but I did the best I could to listen, read and write.

For me, the best part was the end, when we stopped annotating and starting talking reflectively about the implications of this kind of online annotations for learning in the classroom.

  • Ian talked about having students in his college courses annotate the syllabus with suggestions and comments.
  • Joe talked about the power of the crowd, coming together on a single document (apparently, that is going on tonight with the State of the Union speech) as an example of social networking.
  • Jeremy (of Hypothesis) talked about (or wrote about) how teachers can keep track of student work, and the article references how this might fold into student learning portfolios.
  • Terry noticed Karen working all through the hour, and talked about how one might video-capture with reflection the act of annotation as a way to show your learning and thinking.
  • Remi noted how this kind of active annotation might have more value than Twitter chats and other social gathering activities, where too much affirmation and cordiality might soften some deeper learning and sharing of insights.

Many of us, including me, wondered, as voiced by Terry, So now that you have all this “noise” of annotation, how do you find the signal? How do you curate your annotations, and your crowd’s annotations, into something useful that moves beyond that single moment of time?

We did not have a solid answer, except to note that teaching the art of curation is getting relatively short-thrift in a lot of our classrooms. Ian noted that by not teaching curating, we are missing an opportunity and important skills in the information-rich Digital Age.

I agree. This blog post is one way that I am doing for myself. I am trying to make sense of our Flash Mob activity, but to be frank, the idea of now going back through more than 50 annotations on the page from last night seems rather daunting …

Peace (in the signal),
Kevin

 

Found Poem: Toward a Collective Ownership of Stories

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Defining participatory culture

We’re just launching our #DigiWriMo slow-read of the new book — Participatory Culture in a Networked Era — by eminent scholars Henry Jenkins, Mimi Ito and danah boyd. Terry Elliott has set forth a few collaborative annotation options for people to feed into as a way to demonstrate participatory culture as a shared reading experience.

I hope we begin to examine how technology platforms promote and/or hinder participatory involvement.

After reading the first section — which is, as the rest of the book, mostly in the form of a transcribed/edited conversation between the boyd, Ito and Jenkins — I was struck by a number of phrases and ideas. My highlighter (I am reading paper copy of book) had been busy, and as I looked over my notes, I began to see a found poem taking shape.

The phrase “Toward a collective ownership of stories” keep ringing around in my mind. This phrase resonated with me and all of the collaborative projects that we undertake in places like #DigiWrimo or #CLMOOC or #Rhizo(add year) or whatever. While the platforms of technology open up possibilities, it is always the people that make the collaborations happen. We tell stories, together. I am making connections between that work/play and what the three writers here are talking about when it comes to participatory culture.

Those words in the text became the anchor point for a found poem. I had this vision of doing it as a podcast, and trying to get many people to read that line “Toward a collective ownership of stories” together, as a chorus. I might still try that, but I have been swamped and I know others are, too.

Found Poem from Participatory Culture in a Networked Era

You are invited to slow-read this book with us, too. This slow-reading idea means we are not in any rush. The discussions will probably unfold over a few weeks, right into and through the new year. People will get their books when they can. Semesters need to end. The holidays need to pass. We’re starting but there is no real starting point.

Come along with us.

Some of what we will do will be in our DigiWriMo Google Community. Some will be via the Twitter hashtag of #digiwrimo. Some will be at your blog. Or my blog. Some may unfold in Facebook. Some will take place who knows where. That’s good. That’s fine. We like that. Disperse your ideas in ways that help you move forward.

Peace (and participate),
Kevin

 

Comic Response: On the Issue of Poverty and Possibility

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On Poverty: A Response to Daniel

My friend, Daniel, has long been part of my various online networks, and his work around youths and poverty and violence prevention have informed many a discussion. 

As he writes on his blog:

My aim is to help communities create and sustain strategies that make more and better non-school tutor/mentor programs available to inner-city youth in high-poverty neighborhoods of Chicago and other cities. I’m Daniel Bassill. I have led volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs in Chicago since 1975. Learn more about me at http://www.tutormentorexchange.net/dan-bassill.

Last week, he posed a question to his social networks. Daniel asked us to respond with different kinds of media to this query:

“What Will it Take to Assure that all Youth Born or Living in High Poverty are Starting Jobs and Careers by Age 25?”

Daniel often uses mapping to show how data might inform interventions for young people. I went with a comic to respond to him. This both added another element and also restrained my response. I didn’t want to make a multi-page comic, so my three answers are in the middle.

Later, Daniel noted that I had not talked about after-school programs in my comic response, and he is right. While I think those activities are important, I find that the best way to reach the most kids is right in school itself, and I often worry about money and grants allocated for after-school programming take away from needed resources in the schools. I don’t discount the impact after-school programs can have, however.

Feel free to add your ideas to the conversation, in any media that helps you make your point.

Peace (everywhere, all the time),
Kevin

#DigiWriMo: Too Much Consuming, Not Enough Creating

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Troy Hicks, whose books about digital writing and connected reading are must-reads for any teacher, has written a great post for Digital Writing Month about the role that Infographics are now playing in our reading and writing lives — and how the visual shaping of data has the potential to surface stories. I was thinking of Troy’s post when I came across the results of an extensive survey of pre-teens (tweens) and teenagers by CommonSense Media about the role of technology and digital media in their lives.

You can access the entire report and key findings at the CommonSense Media site. It makes for a fascinating read. The infographic at the side here breaks down the findings into more visual understandings.

What jumped out at me in the findings?

How about the balance between the ways in which students “consume media” versus the time they spend “creating media”?

Only three percent of their time is doing, making, creating? Let me write/say/shout that out again: ONLY THREE PERCENT OF TEENS REPORT CREATING THINGS WITH THEIR TECHNOLOGY. (Sorry. Didn’t mean to shout. But it is important.)

We need to change that. We all need to do a better job of putting tools of making and creating into the hands of students. We need to empower agency. We need to show students that being passive recipients of information (including targeted advertising based on technology habits) is not enough.

Consuming, Not Creating

When I am asked why I spend so much time with Making Learning Connected MOOC or Digital Writing Month, or any of the other online ventures that I find myself intrigued by, my answer to the question of why is direct:

I want to discover more ways to engage my students — those 11 year olds growing up in a world in the midst of significant change — as active creators.

So, we design video games. We produce sound stories. We make comics. We collaborate.

Much of this I learned from doing myself with other teachers, trying out new things and tinkering with technology. We need spaces for us to create and compose, too. I wonder what the results of this survey question would be if we asked teachers the same question?

Do you consume? Or do you create?

Speaking of creating, the activity with Troy’s post asks us to make an infographic. I did this one, about a typical writing morning (like right now, in fact)

My Writing Mornings

Peace (in the think),
Kevin

Slice of Life: On Identity, Geolocations, Games and Collaboration

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(This is for Slice of Life, a weekly writing adventure hosted by Two Writing Teachers. But this also dovetails into extending the Making Learning Connected MOOC work into the year beyond summer AND how collaboration is a key element of Digital Writing Month underway this month. Phew. Connections flying all over the place.)

I’ve been interesting in finding ways to bring more of the ethos of Connected Learning that forms the heart of the Making Learning Connected MOOC (CLMOOC) into the world beyond the summer months. Certainly, I try to infuse it in my classroom around choice, and digital writing, and collaboration.

But I have been trying to pay attention to opportunities when I can surface Connected Learning with other teachers, particularly in off-line professional development, where participants may be less likely to have ever heard of Connected Learning or the CLMOOC.

This past weekend, I led a three-hour workshop called Make/Hack/Play (thanks to Bud Hunt for the title of the session .. Bud did his own Make/Hack/Play workshops) for the New England Association of Teachers of English (NEATE) and we dove into hands-on activities in order to talk about what Connected Learning might mean in practice. I was joined by a Western Mass Writing Project colleague, Justin Eck, who is working in a graduate course and designing his own MOOC right now.

We worked on avatars in order to talk about identity — first, with Wiki Stix at the tables and then in online avatar spaces —

NEATE Make Hack Play

We created conceptual maps in order to symbolically situate ourselves in the world — first, with paper and colored pencils at our seats, and then in online open mapping programs —

NEATE Make Hack Play

We considered the literacy elements of game design — first, by hacking the game of UNO and then, by sharing out the new rules with others, and then in online, by discussing Gamestar Mechanic as a space for putting game design into practice for an authentic audience —

NEATE Make Hack Play

The activities sparked rich discussions from elementary teachers through university professors, and I believe that the participants came away with a clearer understanding of how Connected Learning taps into the authentic interests of young people and still provides rigorous academic learning, all in a fun and engaging way.

Would you like to collaborate with us? Sure, the session is over but our Literary Landscape map is still wide open. Here’s what we were doing and here’s how you can contribute. The idea is that we are collaboratively creating a map of settings of novels, all tied together on a single map.

First, think of a favorite novel with a distinct setting.

Second, go to the Google Map.

Third, search for the location of the setting in the search bar of the map. Go to that location.

Fourth, click on the “add marker” icon (it looks like a push pin) in the tool bar and drop it onto the map where the novel’s setting is.

Finally, add the title of the book to the text box and use the camera icon to search for an image of the book to attach to your pin.

I look forward to a larger literacy landscape developing … with your help.

Peace (in the collaboration),
Kevin

 

Gearing Up to Make, Hack, Play

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Making Hacking Playing at NEATE

I am heading across the state tomorrow to the New England Council of Teachers of English to facilitate a three-hour session in hopes of bringing forth the ethos of the Making Learning Connected MOOC into a workshop for teachers unfamiliar with Connected Learning and the CLMOOC.

We’re going to make, hack, and play … to pull a phrase from Bud Hunt (and later, Karen Fasimpaur) that has become the title of my workshop at NEATE … with mapping activities, avatar creating and game hacking, all with a reflective stance on how Connected Learning might open up possibilities in the classroom for student learning and engagement.

Bringing the ethos of an online community into a live space is sort of an unknown … but building bridges from the open learning from the CLMOOC and the principles of Connected Learning into a session where we can be doing things and creating connections is an exciting possibility.

I’ll let you know how it goes …

Peace (in the make),
Kevin

Considering the Emergent (Or Waiting for the Unknown)

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CLMOOC Emergent Branches

(Year One Emergence Ideas: CLMOOC)

The concept of “emergent ideas” has been on my mind this week through a few different lenses.

First, I am planning out a three-hour Make Hack Play session for the New England Association of Teachers of English (NEATE) Conference next weekend, and the ethos of Connected Learning and the Making Learning Connected Massive Open Online Collaboration is driving my planning of the session. I hope to get teachers making things in a playful environment while also grounding the fun in Connected Learning ideas.

As I am pulling together an overview of the CLMOOC, and how one plans for the unexpected, the “emergent” projects that came out of left field and took on lives of their own, with little or only somewhat, guidance from the CLMOOC facilitators remains some of the more magical memories of that project.

Emergent Ideas of CLMOOC

(Year Two Emergent Ideas: CLMOOC)

Then, in a podcast interview this week with Chris Guest about the upcoming Digital Writing Month, my co-facilitators Maha Bali and Sarah Honeychurch and I were talking about how we are working on a plan for November’s monthlong exploration of digital writing, but that we most fondly remember “emergent” projects and collaborations from other open learning spaces (such as Rhizomatic Learning) that formed the anchor of those experiences, for us, as participants.

Our hope is that all sorts of emergent ideas bloom in Digital Writing Month, but how do you plan for that? First of all, you can’t. If an idea is open, then open is the idea, and facilitators have to keep the hands off the wheel as much as possible.

But facilitators can establish fertile ground for ideas to take root, and facilitators can “notice” these ideas and gently move them along. Facilitators can validate what might seem like a crazy idea and see it can work. Facilitators can become the conduits for collaboration.

Here’s an example already with Digital Writing Month, and the month hasn’t even begun (it takes place in November): the Storyjumpers Project.

It began with a tweet from Bruno, who was thinking of signing up for Digital Writing Month, and then after doing so, he wondered out loud, on Twitter, if a collaborative story, moving from blog to blog, might be possible. That was all we needed, and soon, we had an open Google Doc up and running, and now 18 people (including a youth writing group in Vermont) from all over the world (literally) have signed up to “pass the story” throughout Digital Writing Month, from blog to blog.

Story jumpers at digiwrimo

To be honest, we don’t know how it will unfold, and whether there will be chaos or beauty, or something smack dab in the middle. But that won’t stop us from trying this kind of collaborative writing adventure. There’s a story to write, and we’re going to write it.

Finally, I look at my own classroom of sixth graders, and wonder how I can best lay the groundwork this year for emergent ideas in that space, too. The difficulty is that waiting for the unexpected in a traditional school experience is often at odds with curriculum mandates. Learn this. Learn that. Teach this. Teach that. I struggle with this tension, and continue to ponder how possibly the “Genius Hour/20 Percent” concept of open student inquiry might prop the door open to emergent thinking in a more sustained way. I’m getting there … I’m moving there …

Meanwhile, Maha and Sarah and I wonder what will emerge next in Digital Writing Month. Who knows? I’m a facilitator and I have no idea. And I am fine with that. Expect the unexpected, and learn more about the world. That’s how learning takes root and flourishes.

digiwrimo 2015

Want to know more about Digital Writing Month?

Peace (in the unknown),
Kevin