Tag Archives: Digital Storytelling

Open Canvas

Hello Ds106ers and the rest of ya too! It has been a while since my Bava Light has been burning at full capacity, but never mind all that- I am here to say that I am back! At least I hope so, I got lost a bit in the shuffle of DS106 Radio and the previous audio assignments, no excuses, just lost the itch. I guess this is normal in a 15 week MOOC course. One that I am in no way obliged to take, and one which I am receiving no “credit” except for the satisfaction of pushing myself and making some art! Enough looking backwards, let’s see where we are now. First of course there is the latest assignment Telling Stories in The Web:

you will be intervening in the code and design of a website of your choice to tell a story. You are not to photoshop the design of the site (if you can), but rather intervene in the actual html and CSS of the site—though you can photoshop particular images on the site.

The great aspiration from Martha:

I want students to have to grapple with the code. It’s not that I expect them all to become expert coders or even to understand everything they encounter, but I do want them to develop a basic understanding and healthy respect for what goes on under the hood of a Web page.

I want them to develop an understanding of the architecture of a page: how do HTML and CSS work together? How is content separated from design?

I want them to think about how a story can be told in a single page. Web pages are complex information spaces. There are often a myriad of opportunities on a page to let a story unfold: menus, titles, texts of articles, texts of links. What do these elements represent rhetorically and how can we use them to construct a single-page narrative?

I want them to think about the choices we’re making as we tell our story. The Web provides us with a truly unlimited platform of spaces to co-opt for narrative. As we choose the site to build upon or through, I want to talk about what that choice represents. And as we enact the story in that space, I want to keep interrogating those choices.

Finally the great tutorial that made it all so easy. Wow! Crazy huh? I know. If I am to understand this right, I can take any website, play under the hood, and change the entire look, feel, and message by manipulating the code? Sounds like magic. Like subversive-web-culture jamming. Sounds like Bansky on HTML. Sounds like fun. What’s that Obama?

Is that really Sarah Palin?

A new movie about Glenn Beck? Don’t believe me? See the site for yourself here.

Pretty intense I know. The more I played, the more my mind spun. I had a very hard time forcing my mind to settle on one major narrative. I could could not create lasting take, so I played with a few short poems. I dabbled. I tweaked. I played. I think I began to learn and understand the lesson Martha intended, as there were times when I wanted to change an image but it was written in a script or in Flash or in some other language I do not speak. (Yet!) I did however began to see the web in a much different light. It is much more malleable and fluid that I had thought. It can be so easily manipulated to make one idea seem like another. Our images, our words, everything on the web is a few code edits away from being something completely different. What does this mean in an age where the Internet holds so much of our knowledge, or ideas, our identities? What does it mean that we have created a world, a vault, a mirror of ourselves that can be warped and reshaped by any member? What do words like Truth, Real, Authentic mean in this world? How do we learn in a world where nothing can be trusted, even with our own eyes? How can we influence others? How are we manipulated? What values must we understand, create, or share in a world where we share a space which we can all alter and change?

Beyond these questions and the silliness of the sort of political satire I shared above, there are a myriad of educational implications for students. They must understand the all too easy deception that can occur on the web. More importantly they can (should?) begin to understand how to manipulate the web to tell their own stories as well, which I think was the point of this assignment. No matter which side of the screen a student is on- we should be made aware of how the experiences of web are created.

I find it hilarious that we so often warn students not to trust Wikipedia, because anyone can edit the pages. Nevermind that this crowdsourced space is most likely the most democratic form of knowledge creation we have ever known, but now anyone can easily fiddle with a little code and recreate a mirage or a smoke screen to create an alternative reality. A different story. Nothing on the web is safe or static from our imaginations. Read the fine print carefully:

What implications does this have on the idea of teaching kids about digital identity? Even if they groom and tend their online brand to perfection, someone can easily alter it as easily as they can spray paint a wall.

I apologize if this post is all over the place, but I have been like this all week. I feel like the very structure of the web has been removed and now I see it as a wide open canvas on which I can play. Not only can I create original content and carve out legitimate specs online for my own expression, but now I can also alter and manipulate the work of others. Like all post-modern, subversive, culture jamming street art, with great power comes great responsibility. Issues like ownership and copyright and creative commons and common decency are all muddled together into a great big ball of gray area. Perhaps uncle Walt has something to say:

There is also a post in here somewhere about how much fun it was to learn something brand new and play with my limitations. A post about how excited I was to follow the tutorial for awhile, only to take detours and see where I could go on my own. There is a post in here about the joy of discovery and that moment, when you realize you know how to do something you didn; before and suddenly a small piece of the world makes that much more sense. But I am too tired to write that post tonight, hopefully you can stitch together the pieces yourself from what is here.

Join me in the comments-What do you think about all this? This conversation could be lots of fun.

A Learner On My Hands

4 Replies

We’ve been doing a lot of work with images, media and language in our classroom lately, and I while really should be writing up those projects and getting my workshop (which will be on language acquisition and digital tools) for the 21st Century Learning Conference in Hong Kong ready, I have chosen to quickly jot down one of those, “this is why we teach moments.”

We were out in Peace Park, a stunning area on our campus, taking photos today. By we, I mean my 7th grade ESL class and me. They are working on a short image based slideshow which highlights verbs. More on that in coming posts. For now, all you need to know is that they will be asked to take several pictures of their everyday habits (we are studying present tense verbs) of things they do on any given day. But rather than have them take a series of thoughtless, average, and poorly lit snapshots, I took a lesson to talk about what makes a photograph interesting. We spoke of light and angles and subjects and basically concluded that to take a nice shot, we simply need to look closely, pay attention, and tell a story with our photos. Much like poetry I reminded them, but instead of words we use images. (Again this flip-flopping is the gist of my session: Language is about expression and the vocabulary of digital media is beyond words.)

After our brief chat on how to take a decent photo verses taking a million snapshots, we headed outside. I watched them crouch down under tables, get up close to flowers, walk around and really look around them. I gave them bits of advice, but tried to stay out of their way. I came across one girl who was taking an extremely close-up shot of a flower. I quickly showed told her about and showed her the Macro setting on her camera and explained that should help with the focus.

As I was walking away, she started to jump up and down and shouted something enthusiastically in Bahasa. What? What is it? I asked. She quickly became shy and said nothing. I asked again, pleading to know. One of her friends told me that she had said, “I am really starting to love photography!”

That was it! That is why I teach, because from that excitement we will make the connection to poetry and language and a love of learning. I am no longer dealing with a student; I have a learner on my hands, and there is very little you cannot do with one of those!

Stones

10 Replies

Sometimes it’s the simplest stories that have the most meaningful impact. I outlined the fledging collaborative project that has begun with some SLA students in Zach Chase’s class in Philadelphia in the letter I wrote them. A look at the comments could prove useful for context of this post. As promised, I have taken the nuggets of poetry from their comments on my Flickr Set and set them to song.

Here you go SLA, my song to you. What will you do with it? Download it. Remix it. Add your voice to it. Set it to images. Create a video. Rap it. This version is only a draft and is not even close to being “done.” Tear it up!

Stones by intrepidflame

Here is another version by a teacher in Canada:

Stones by Bryanjack

Looks like NoiseProfessor in California has added his take to the mix. Take a listen here.

The nature of art in the twenty first century is that it never ends and doesn’t belong to any one artist. We are in this together…your move!

stones

sometimes I wonder how many stones
there are in the world.
i found a light in your simple “Hello”
like the way grass dances in the breeze
Choosing between clashing vibrancies
she sings ohh how she sings

i can erase what i choose to forget
we fear the pen because it leaves a stain
like the lives of rocks and flower,
that tell the story of the world.

These are the years in which life is beautiful.
Each and every day a miracle.
A tiny person in a large world
filled with intrigue and wonder.

a warm orange flower rests against my skin
sweet serenity full and wide
I grab the spoon of your smile and dig
in these moments we forget ourselves
we breathe the ecstasy of golden silence
heaven has not been that far off after all
we just had to open our eyes
we just had to be open

These are the years in which life is beautiful.
Each and every day a miracle.
A tiny person in a large world
filled with intrigue and wonder.

I don’t watch television much anymore
but whenever I do I can feel it on my hands
the dusty residue
from carrying fistfuls of stones.

lonely I lay flat
Among dull gray stones
I want to go home

I want to go home

lonely I lay flat
Among dull gray stones
I want to go home

Mired In The Age

42 Replies

To the Students of Zachary Chase in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, (Or any other class whose teacher came across this post and wants to participate.)

A few days ago I shared, on my blog, the fact that I had finished the first month of a yearlong project in which I would take a photo everyday for a year. Why did I feel the need to broadcast this information with what we affectionately call the World Wide Web? Not sure. I tend to share anything and everything that leaks from my life. The photos the songs, the tweets, the insights, the rubbish, the random thoughts trickle out and dribble into a vast abyss I am old ends somewhere with you. Well in this case your teacher Mr. Chase.

You see, Mr. Chase commented on my blog:

Do you mind if I use some of these as journal prompts?

To which I responded

Yes, please feel free to use them as prompts, would love to read what kids write. Maybe if they post on blogs, they can leave their links as comments on Flickr. Would love to follow the stories of these photos. Could be a fun project.

Hmmm….brain turning for new ideas.

Mr. Chase:

Alright. Just posted the journal assignment to moodle. I’m curious to see how this turns out.

Me:

Cool. Sounds great. Would be cool to have a small collection of short stories or poems based on these images. Would love the interaction.

Sounds simple enough right? No big whoop. We are, after all, mired in the age of the social web, where people are connecting and creating all over the world. My question, however, is are they? Are you? Is this an everyday thing for you? Because while we all talk about collaboration, I am always floored when it happens to me. I was very moved by your words, your poems, your creativity and your engagement. I stayed up passed midnight watching your comments as they came pouring in. I had goosebumps and at times nearly cried. Take a look the comments for this blog post for a deeper look at why I find your action so important.

I just wanted to let you know that while, quickly typing a few words on some random Flickr set may not have been much more than a class assignment for you, your actions meant a lot to me. So what of it now? What happens next? Well that is up to you. I hope that this introduction can be a way that we continue to explore the power of art and words and connections. I was a born teacher and student, I would love to continue to teach and learn from you. Are you up for it?

I know teachers tend to throw out mixed messages, “Be open, share. Be careful, be scared.” I hope you use your judgment and the experiences which you have been taught by the more than capable teachers at SLA to move this project to the next level. This could be an authentic real world experience to create something beautiful with a larger group of people than those within our immediate community. (I invite other teachers to share this Flickr set and this post to see where it can go. Ask your class to leave poems, stories, haikus, comments anything. Maybe we can write a book, record an album…)

There are many things we can do with the images, the words, the connection. I hope that at least a few of you will share a few ideas in the comments below. I don’t know who will respond, but that is the beauty of sharing in whim, if you throw enough out there, occasionally something beautiful will come floating back.

After receiving your words, here is what I will do: I will scour your words mining for verses to a song, which I will sing and record. I will contact you soon about maybe singing a collaborative chorus. What else can we do with the words, the images? Who else is on board?