Here is the second assignment for #ds106:
Read Gardner Campbell’s short article titled “A Personal Cyberinfrastructure.” Additionally, you will need watch Professor Campbell’s presentation on the topic at the 2009 Open Education Conference called “No More Digital Facelifts: Thinking the Unthinkable About Open Educational Experiences.”
I read the article, watched the talk, even listened to Tom Woodward’s Remix of the talk. I took notes on Gardener’s thoughts and let them stew. I thought of writing a traditional intellectual response, which I felt would most likely be profound and moving would be lost in the shuffle of echo chamber noise. One aspect of this course is figuring out to have one’s work and subsequently voice heard over the din of vying ideas.
We are after all telling stories, and no story teller that I know, likes to tell stories to an empty room. So the medium becomes the message. How we share our ideas and stories, become just as important as whatever it is we are trying to say. I didn’t feel a traditional blog post, offering my thoughts on the talk or article would be worthwhile.
As I stared at my notes, I started to notice the non-vital words floating from the page. I began to cut and paste and move text like a demented scientist searching for the essence of his message. What was left, was the barefooted thin poem you see below. I then did a search for CC images tagged as gold on Flickr d created this collage to accompany my piece.
images by lukesaagi, Swiv, guillaumeo, Ko_An, Auntie P
bags of gold
vulnerabilities are fine.
that is where learning happens.
a sense of wonder:
strange correspondences and grand harmonies:
bags of gold.
play,
tinker,
publish,
archive,
assemble
import and export,
internal and external,
information and connections.
awaken self-efficacy and creative possibilities.
build: digital presences
in the web itself
looping back
to vital ideas
unrecognized
underexplored
ideas into
a new context.
modes of communication
make them audible.
the real revolution won’t happen until each student builds
an ingenious experiment.
technology gradually creates a totally new human
not passive wrappings but active processes.
vision goes beyond
what can be imagined and expressed:
bags of gold.
I am looking forward to seeing what form these words will take next…
Nifty.
Reading those lines loosened something in my mind– just can’t grab it yet. Nice work!
Pingback: An Arms Race of Awesome | Noise Professor
I have to agree with Noise Professor, this is amazing. An poem and accompanying image, and the whole thing you have done here focuses on just what poetry we are making—what’s more is it makes me think about Audre Lorde’s quote about Poetry”
Just somehow it seemed to me to fit perfectly with Gardner’s presentation and this post.
Love that quote and you are right, fits perfectly.
Pingback: Bags of Gold | Abject
Pingback: Keep The Flow Going | Intrepid Teacher
First off, the pictures are beautiful. Secondly, the poem is awesome. I keep seeing pictures and text and video on the ds106 site and I keep thinking that I need to start posting something other than text. But now I’m thinking, why do I need to post something other than text for the time being, why not rework the text? Why not create a poem? You have given me a new creative vision. Wonder if I’ll be able to come up with a poem sometime soon?
Thanks Sam. I am just getting my head around re-working ideas and remix culture, but that is the beauty of the Creative Commons culture that people want you take their ideas and play with them and see what you can create. That is also something I love about this course, that it is asking us to really think about how we tell stories. I hope to find a variety of media to articulate my thoughts throughout the course.
Looking forward to seeing what you create soon. BTW non-of those pictures were mine, found them all on Flickr. If you haven’t already be sure to check out Brian Lamb and company have done with this poem: Bags of Gold the song.
wow. that is all.
Pingback: Learning 2.011 Presentation | Intrepid Teacher