As I mused about creating this season’s #AltCV, a recent interaction with #CLMOOC friend Stephanie Loomis came to mind. She was wrapping up a project related to social media profile pictures (you’ll have to ask her for the details!) and messaged me with some questions. She asked me for my interpretation of the following Facebook profile picture:
To which I responded:
I hadn’t consciously analyzed the photo before posting it as my profile picture. However, when Stephanie asked me what it represented, I came up with my description easily, with very little thought. So, the analysis and interpretation were already there, just at a subconscious level.
I was also somewhat astounded by the similarities in Stephanie’s interpretation:
She and I “know” each other only in virtual spaces. The photo spoke for itself.
As Stephanie and I chatted further, we explored the blurring of lines between “professional” and “personal” identities:
In reality, our professional and personal lives co-existed before social media. The difference was that on our resumes, and in presenting our “professional face,” we emphasized our skills and experience vis-à-vis the position we held, or wished to hold. We downplayed our personal lives, only divulging details to our closest colleagues.
Given we are holistic beings, this new era of transparency is refreshing. When we fracture ourselves into multiple personalities (Sybil anyone?), we are inauthentic. So here I stand. Strong, hopeful, and as documented in this 2014 #CLMOOC avatar, a warrior.
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 mostlycare 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.
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.
