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

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

Heading to DC for NWP

It’s that time of year: the National Writing Project Annual Meeting takes place this week and I am excited to be heading down to DC tonight for tomorrow’s workshops and gatherings of friends and colleagues in the NWP network. I won’t be staying for NCTE this year, alas, and wish I were. But there are some pretty cool NWP sessions that I am looking forward to.

I am also co-facilitating with my good friends — Joe, Karen, Christina, and Mia (and Anna from afar, as one of our co-planners) — a session that is a spin-off from the Making Learning Connected MOOC, as we are exploring what “open learning” means. Our aim is to have participants experience an “open learning”-style session, with the CLMOOC as a sort of anchor point.

Consider joining us for this “sandbox” session, if you are at NWP. If this helps, here is our session (B sessions) description:

B12: Playing with Open Designs for Professional Learning

1:30pm – 3:00pm Gaylord, Hotel Ballroom Level, Azalea 1

Over the past two summers, Writing Project colleagues have been connecting with other educators around the world in a massive open online collaboration known as Making Learning Connected, or more commonly, CLMOOC. As designers, facilitators, and participants of CLMOOC, we can think of it as a giant online professional learning “sandbox” where we prototype and collaboratively design ways to connect learning for ourselves, as adults, and the youth with whom we work. Come join us to explore the open designs of CLMOOC and think about the implications for this kind of production-centered, interest-driven, and peer-supported connected learning and teaching in your own context.

Hope to see you in DC!

Peace (in the flight),
Kevin

 

I am Mia (am not)

(This post is part of the Connected Courses Daily Connect in which we are asked to blog in the “voice” of another blogger. I have chosen my National Writing Project friend, Mia Zamora, to emulate for her energetic optimism that she exudes in her writing across many spaces. Forgive me, Mia, if I mangle your voice here.)

(This is Mia, my friend)

I am realizing very quickly just how much possibility there is in everything that is unfolding in the Connected Course networks as well as other Connected Learning networks. Nothing compares to the ideals of so many of us educators coming together for such a deep exploration of Connected Learning! It’s fantastic!

“When I am learning I FEEL ALIVE.” – Mia

I was thinking about this message of teaching the other day. I returned to the concept of “Why I Teach” and isn’t that such a central question to all that we do in our lives? The responses that people posted to that query were intriguing. I do believe we can change the world for the better. We can always be learning, too, even as we teach. We CAN stay in tune with the world.

“Connected Learning is about re-imaging the experience of education in the information age. It draws on the power of today’s technologies and embraces hands on production and open networks.” — Mia

We all have our own learning pathways to follow, and each path will take us on a slightly different journey. The wonder of it is that our journeys often coincide with others along the way. And it is at those intersections where we meet that we can help each other along the way.

“We all feel we are part of a movement that will ultimately be world changing.  We want to invite everyone along with us.” — Mia

Being in the midst of a project like Connected Courses, or even Making Learning Connected, is really being part of hubs of the giant wheel that is Connected Learning. Notice how all the pieces can fit together. If you take a step back, you can begin to see it all in motion. It’s that kind of viewpoint that makes being part of any venture all the more worthwhile.

“Magical things happen when we let ourselves unlearn the criterion of institutionalized conventions.” — Mia.

Peace (to Mia),
Kevin

PS — Process Notes: This “writing in the voice of another blogger” is hard to do! I read Mia on a regular basis, but I had to examine her syntax style and the underlying mood of her writing. I then was struck with the dilemma of, Am I writing as Me (Kevin) in the voice of Mia? Or writing as Mia on my blog, as if she were visiting here? I never quite resolved that question, I realize, and somehow settled into a precarious balance of her positive writing style with some of my own thinking. A blend, then, of sorts. I worried that she might be offended that I zeroed in on her positive message, leaving out how deep she gets with her thinking about learning. I decided to pull in some of her own writing in quotes, to further give Mia a real voice here. I’m not sure it worked.  Go to her blog to get the real Mia Zamora. The one I have borrowed here is only a replica.

Short Video Vignettes from WMWP for #OurNWP

As part of an effort to create an archive of the National Writing Project for its 40th year anniversary (called OurNWP), I went into our Western Massachusetts Writing Project video archives and pulled out a few short pieces that we have done in the past few years, usually around the National Day on Writing. I love how our voices come together as teacher, writers, colleagues.

I also donated to the cause, as the effort to create the archive is slated to require about $100,000 to complete and NWP is halfway there. I gave a donation in honor of a past WMWP Director, Charlie Moran, whose work in the field of writing, and with our writing project (as a founding member), paved the way for many a great idea, and whose thinking has always pushed me forward, particularly around the ideas of digital literacy.

Peace (in the sharing),
Kevin

Where I’ve Been Writing (or at least, published)

While I was away from my blog, I had some pieces published in other spaces that I wanted to share with you.

Working_Draft3-240X300-broom

First, my MiddleWeb column as we end summer is about reflecting on my digital sites and doing a bit of housekeeping as school is about to start. It’s a nice time to reflect on what we project to our families and students before they come into the classroom for a year of writing and learning.

Second, I wrote a piece for the National Writing Project’s 40for40 blog, as NWP celebrated its 40 years with 40 posts from NWP teacher/writers. My piece reflected on a time when I traveled to Chico, California, to take part in a week-long technology retreat, where the people I met continue to be partners in online endeavors across the Internet. The piece is entitled “That Week in Chico” and it was a great way for me to ground myself in a time when so many doors opened up for me.

Finally, I took a break from blogging but still dabbled in Twitter while on break and found myself working on a regular diet of #25wordstory stories, which I then collected and shared out for Slice of Life via Storify. I love these stories for brevity and inference and revision, although it can be a struggle to find just the right words and leave just the right amount of story “out” of the story. You decide if it worked or not.

 

Peace (in the writing mode),
Kevin

Gearing up to Hack our Notebooks

21st Century Notebooking with Inside/Out from NEXMAP on Vimeo.

This morning, I head off to the Western Massachusetts Writing Project Summer Institute to lead a session for Hack Your Notebook Day, using paper circuitry to show the educators a bit about the move to reclaim our notebooks as a space for thinking, exploring and tinkering. Hack Your Notebook Day is a national event, and you can even watch some live webinars during the day as various groups work on hacking notebooks, via Educator Innovator and NexMap. (Check out these resources)

Our WMWP site is participating, as we purchased an entire paper circuitry kit so that we can dive right into the topic. I’m a little nervous, because although I have done this activity with my students (see my post over at Middleweb), I have not yet had the chance to meet the Summer Institute folks, nor have I had a chance to see the entire package of materials in front of me.

KevinH-Student Poems Collage

 

(Scenes from my classroom)

But here is my plan for the day of hacking notebooks with teachers:

  • Start off with a blind question: draw a simple and parallel circuit on a notecard. We’re activating knowledge here about circuit design.
  • Give an overview of Hack Your Notebook Day, and how it fits into the Educator Innovator Summer to Make, Play and Connect;
  • Explain why paper circuitry is something to be considered, showing connections to writing and science, and critical thinking, and design, and more – all of which are now part of our state standards, and which will connect even more when the Next Gen Science Standards get adopted by our state in the next year or so;
  • Show some examples — mine and my students — and walk through the process ideas of creating a circuit layer underneath some writing, in order to light up elements of the writing (with an eye towards the possibility of more complex circuitry later on);
  • Writing assignment: write a poem or short piece of prose with the theme of “light” and then illustrate the writing, leaving spaces where you want to the lights to shine through;
  • Step by Step instructions on how to create the paper circuit (this will take the longest and is the trickiest);
  • Showcase what has been created;
  • Reflect: What have you learned? What are applications for the classroom?

I’ll be doing some sharing of how things went.

I want to point out two more resources, these from Chad, that connect with what we will be doing. These are shared over at Mozilla Webmaker:

Peace (in the circuit flow),
Kevin

 

On NWP Blogtalk Radio: My Wife and Others talk Leadership

My wife is an educator and administrator at a vocational high school, and a leader at our Western Massachusetts Writing Project. Here, she took part of a discussion around leadership and professional development work during a National Writing Project’s BlogTalk Radio program. The talk centers around nurturing and supporting teachers as leaders. She joined Bruce Penniman, one of my own mentors in the WMWP, in this discussion, along with other folks.

New Education Podcasts with NWP radio on BlogTalkRadio

Take a listen:

Peace (in the talk),
Kevin

A Return to Blink Blink Blink

blink blink blink
There’s no easy way to describe this old project (which can now be found housed on a Webmaker Thimble Page). It is  my first real venture into multimodal composition. I had just bought a Flip Camera, which no one had ever seen before, and had this idea for a poem that used three different videos, merging into one experience, so I asked some NWP friends at a Tech Matters retreat in Chico to blink into my camera and repeat the words “blink blink blink” for me. They no doubt thought I was crazy and could not figure out what I was doing, and I could not explain it, either. I taught myself some basic html coding and worked to bring it together.

I’ve hosted the poem itself in a few places over the years, often stifled and frustrated by the limitation of web hosting spaces that would not allow three videos to run simultaneously, as is required with this poem. The idea is that you click “play” on all three videos, and then center your own eyes on the nose. This allows you to experience ‘the face’ of the poem. (I know, it still sounds crazy). I included the text of the poem and also recorded a reflection on the process of writing and making the poem (which was interesting to listen to this morning … eight years later).

If you click on the screenshot above, it will bring you to the poem itself. (The sound quality sucks because it was a first generation Flip and the microphone must have been little more than a tin cup with a string.)

Confused? That’s OK. It was an experiment. I still find it intriguing and came back on it this morning for a blog post I am writing for the National Writing Project. It then occurred to me that Thimble might be the right place to host the poem, and it worked!  I did a little cheer.

I’m still tinkering a bit with the html code but not too much. I like the idea of preserving it as much its original form as possible.

Check out Blink Blink Blink

Peace (in the poem),
Kevin