November 14

#DigiWriMo Storyjumping Part 18: The Cold November Rain

This is part 18 of a storyjumper for Digital Writing Month. To read the whole story (so far):

Part 1 Bruno’s blog started us off with a personal narrative.

Part 2 Kevin’s blog began the story.

Part 3 Maha’s blog continued…

Part 4 Sarah’s blog…

Part 5 Ron’s blog…

Part 6 Tanya’s blog…

Part 7 Kay’s blog…

Part 8 Ron’s blog…

Part 9 Dana’s blog

Part 10 Tania’s blog

Part 11 Maureen’s blog

Part 12 Sue’s blog

Part 13 Rhonda’s blog

Part 14 Yin Wah Kreher’s blog

Part 15 Scott’s blog

Part 16 Jeffrey’s blog

Part 17 Wendy’s blog

For a geographical map of participants, click here. If you would like to participate, add your name to this Google Doc.

Previously:

[As they turned the next corner they could not believe their eyes. Their two friends Smidgy and Wry were walking towards them! They ran towards them with huge grins and a laugh. The first thing they said was …..]

…”Smidgy! Wry! What’re you doing here? We thought we were the only legal aliens here!”

They hugged each other fiercely, feeling centered for the first time since arriving here in this odd Times-Square-that-was-not-quite-Times-Square. They stood in the drizzle, talking excitedly, until Haras realized she was drenched, and chilled to the bone. “Keith and I were looking for a tea house. Do you know where we could go?” “Ah, I know exactly the place,” responded Wry. She led the way as they hopped the subway to the West Village.

Bosie Tea House
http://www.yelp.com/biz_photos/bosie-tea-parlor-new-york

Once inside the tea house, Keith and Haras were unsettled to see a blind man sitting and running his fingers over a tattered map. “Um, guys,” said Haras, “maybe we should go somewhere else.” “Oh, no worries,” replied Smidgy, “that’s Facino Cane. He plays the clarinet and has been looking forward to you two bringing your sax and uke to jam with him. He’s been standing outside holding a candle in the cold November rain, hoping you would show up.”

Still uncertain, Haras approached the old man. “Excuse me, sir, who are you?” “Haras!,” he replied. “I’ve been waiting for you. There was a scuffle somewhere… it’s all fuzzy, but I think Keith was involved…?”

Keith approached even more cautiously, remembering the altercation at his house. “You know, old man, even though my fear has subsided somewhat, shadows still remain. I mean, we’re not even really in New York, I’m not really Keith, and you died like 200 years ago.”

Abruptly, the old man jumped out of his chair and grabbed Wry*. “Where’s the other map?,” he demanded. Whirling, he turned and faced the other three. “If you don’t hand over the other map, your friend here dies. You think you have two weeks to figure it out, but here where we are, it’s November 29th.”

[Over to Wry*, aka Mariam Shoaib]

November 5

#AltCV and #DigiWriMo

Phew. That’s all I can say. When the #DigiWriMo folks issued the call to create an “alternative CV,” “based not on degrees and position and peer-reviewed publications, but on what we think is most important about who we are and what we are genuinely most proud to have accomplished,” I decided to make the exercise a challenge. More of a challenge than I anticipated, really.

Animaker is a tool I have barely glanced at, but which has fascinated me for some time. So, I decided to use it to create my #AltCV. Thus the adventure began. Animaker has an eleven-and-a-half minute tutorial. I watched it once. Fumbled through assembling a few “scenes.” Several things did not come together as I wanted them to. Went through the tutorial again, to find the explanation for the nuances I was missing. Like all good learning experiences, the process was iterative. I would make some modifications, replay the video, identify the improvements I needed to make. Again and again.

In my work as a PBL (project-based learning) coach, this is an aspect I impress upon teachers. Students need to be given feedback on their work, and the time to revise. Not only once, but multiple times. My all-time favorite example of this is Ron Berger’s video of  Austin’s Butterfly:

It is all too common for educators to get caught up in the but-I-have-all-this-content-to-cover mindset, so students don’t have the occasion to delve deeply into any given topic, nor do they have the opportunity to reflect on their work, and to make improvements.

This year in our Meliora group, we are studying World History. To some, I will sound like a heretic, but I care little about what these students carry away in knowledge and facts about World History (well, I do hope they remember “les grandes lignes,” the major points). What I mostly care about is that they develop deeper thinking and analytic skills. We spend significant time discussing events in history, and making connections to today, to my students’ reality. By using open-ended questions, “why?” and “how do you know?” being perhaps my favorites, the students are required to think, and to defend their rationale.

I also care that the students learn to reflect on their work, and to actively find ways to improve it. As they develop projects, I offer feedback throughout the process. They also conduct peer reviews of each other’s work, so they can learn to critique using “kind, helpful and specific” (a phrase coined by Ron Berger) feedback.

As I went through the development of my #AltCV, I was also applying Standford’s d. school ideology of “iterative generation of artifacts intended to answer questions that get you closer to your final solution.” As they further explain in the excerpt below, iteration is fundamental to good design. Interestingly, they discuss iterations within a process, in my case the complete video, and then within a step, in my case a single scene. That is exactly how I tackled it, narrowing my focus as the flow began to take shape.

d school design thinking excerpt

I would argue this design process can be applied to many, if not all, academic disciplines. When I work with Meliora students on their history projects, we first look at the big picture, their overall argument/thesis, then over time narrow the focus to particular details that need fleshed out and refined. Likewise, when solving a math problem students need to learn to determine the process to be used, then drill down to the detail. And so forth.

And, now, for my #AltCV: