Posted in Uncategorized on February 19, 2012 by onepercentyellow
So, I’ve been putting off posting on my blog for a few reasons. I wanted to keep all the social artist work together and wanted to push myself to get it up there. It’s coming!!! I promise!!! In the meantime, I have done a presentation for my EDST630 course through Athabasca. The course is on Education for Social Transformation. Again, I have created an alternative submission for the forum moderation assignment and am a little worried about how it will be received. The grade weighting is small, though, so I’m taking the risk.
TEK is a narrative based form of knowledge approached largely by those in ecology, but also by those in management (see Gail Whiteman’s Why are we talking inside?). The importance of story in TEK offers support for narrative exploration in other fields – especially in presentation of TEK findings. I have used this approach in my assignment.
Further, this connect me again to my word of the year, and the image of the dragon. It keeps coming back to me in new and surprising ways. Now I’m just waiting for the next time I’m afraid to turn that dragon around and let my light shine!
The question, “What is a liberal arts university?” is a little like asking someone to describe post-modernism. Often people know more what it feels like and looks like rather than exactly what it is. A description involves questions of the value and purpose of a post-secondary education, and, as such, becomes a rather self-revealing political statement, rather than a detached list of descriptors. Individuals are involved in the telling of liberal arts stories, and perhaps this passion is the most revealing of all.
In this second video of the Social Artist, we discuss the makings of a liberal arts university in general. For me, this video has been created alongside readings in the theory of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) for my MAIS 638 course with Dr. Carolyn Redl. As a part of CDA not only am I considering the responses to the question, “What is a liberal arts university?” but this new theoretical background has me pondering the context each person inhabits in the liberal arts system and how that has influenced their responses. What’s more, I am reflecting on how my role as editor is manipulating the recordings to speak back to the audience in an abridged, entertaining and engaging format. I find it fascinating that in many ways, my own voice is populated by a series of clips of the voices of my interview subjects.
I have also been contemplating my goals in creating these videos. I want the story I am portraying to encourage people to take up their own conversations on liberal arts and online learning. From this perspective, I wonder how the individuals interviewed view the responses of their colleagues. From the social artist perspective, I wonder how presenting an audience’s words back to them influences levels of interest, involvement and buy-in on a project.
These ponderings are simply questions I have come up with along the process of creating the videos. I hope to share more of my reflections on the creation of the videos and the OLI process in this space. In the meantime, enjoy the show!
In June of this year I returned from my world travels to my undergraduate university, the Augustana Campus of the University of Alberta in order to volunteer at the Council of Public Liberal Arts Colleges (COPLAC) annual general meeting. I simply couldn’t miss the opportunity to connect with people who may be able to help in my investigation of the role of narrative in liberal arts education. I knew that should I attend this meeting, I would be inspired by initiatives at other institutions, and find a way into the COPLAC group. Much to my surprise, I knew one of the speakers! I had been following Jim Groom (@jimgroom) on Twitter due to the activity around his digital storytelling course, #ds106, and he was scheduled to speak, along with John St. Claire and Steve Greenlaw (@sgreenla), on the Online Learning Initiative (OLI) at the University of Mary-Washington (UMW). While Jim was not on the campus in person, choosing instead to Skype into the presentation, I was able to continue the conversation with him via Twitter, and came to volunteer as a reviewer for the upcoming online course.
In the meantime, I continued my masters work, taking Dr. Alec Couros’ (@courosa) Educational Technology and Social Media course, #eci831. For this course, I created a proposal to broaden my role in the OLI. Since the summer I had been investigating UMW’s online presence, and, being an online student myself, was quite impressed with the openness of their digital campus. I wanted to not only assist the UMW with the review of their online learning initiative, I also wanted to showcase the possibilities for connected online space to the folks at Augustana. In order to serve these two needs, I conducted a series of informal interviews regarding liberal arts values and the role of online learning. I have compiled these interviews into short videos meant to not only inform my role as course reviewer, but also to digitally introduce, or e-troduce, these groups of people to each other. In short, I want to become a social artist that helps link these two institutions.
I hope that in this space, interview participants as well as others who are interested in online learning and liberal arts will engage in a discussion of the topics presented. Feel free to comment, even if it’s just a short hello.
First off, as I write this I am struck by the fact that I have live music that comes to me through my computer. It’s lovely to be able to tune into #ds106radio or to skype with Sean Hillaby and have sweet sounds coming to me. Thanks for the tunes all!
So, as I was listening to #ds106radio on new years eve, @Stephen_Hurley was playing lovely piano and chatting (very much like he’s doing right now as I write this blog post) about his yearly tradition of choosing a word to guide him. What a fantastic idea! My own experience with choosing a title (like a musician) and working within that identity had shown me the power of just deciding to ‘be’ a type of person. So I began to think about some of the words I could use to frame my world in the upcoming year.
After chatting for a bit with my sister @plind on skype, I greeted @cogdog and @giuliaforsythe and we shared some stories and chit chat while tuning in to the casa bava new years cast. I shared Stephen’s story, and deepened my resolve (and theirs!) in choosing a word.
I passed on the story throughout the evening and when I awoke this morning, and then promptly went back to bed, and woke up this afternoon, I continued to meditate on my word.
I noticed that @malynmawby had put up a sweet post, and followed her ideas to my first exposure to Joseph Campbell. The interview helped me to further conceptualize my word, both in filling out the ideas, but also in a visual representation as I sat and listened.
Before watching the interview I had considered the word ‘courage’ and what it could mean. Why had such a word leapt out at me? I realized that it was directed at my plans for the summer: returning to Alberta to make music with my friend Sean. While this sounds easy and a whole lot of fun on one level, moments of doubt from the last year have left a lasting impression on me. When we share our gifts, especially those that we are just encouraging into existence, there is always that epic battle with feelings of inadequacy. Self-consciousness can be crushing – paralyzing – and it’s so hard to sing with an elephant of doubt sitting on your heart. And so I chose this word – COURAGE – as a mantra for myself in those moments. I have a feeling, though, that this word will reveal itself in complex ways that I cannot yet anticipate.
Joseph Campbell’s talk of ego (somewhere around ¾ of the way through the video) resonated with me. He spoke of the mythology around the European dragon. It is a selfish creature that guards gold and virgins, two things that it cannot use itself, but that it hoards for its value to others. When we bind ourselves to our ego – to those ideas of what we want to be, who we are, what we can and can’t do, what the aim of our life is – we trap ourselves within our own dragon’s cage. You see, all these things are relational. Not a single one of them exists in isolation from others and from the world around us. I cannot do, be, think, love, dream without interacting with the whole of existence that is around me. That great dragon of my ego guards these notions from the outside forces that give them value in the first place. What’s more, the dragon keeps me in an existence that may be too small to fully encompass my potential. When I hear myself saying “oh no, I couldn’t do that” I will recognize this as my dragon blocking me in, keeping me from, as Campbell puts it, my “soul’s high adventure.” How do you slay the dragon? Of course… follow your bliss.
So the dragon came to be on my bit of artwork that will come along in my nomadic knapsack. It was only after the fact that I realized that the coming lunar year is that of the dragon! And the great news is that the Chinese dragon yields the bounty and is a great laughing spirit that reminds us of the vitality of life. Oh 2012… with courage we shall explore…
As I’m reflecting on the #eci831 experience and actually thinking about something like a grade for my participation, I realize that I may not have been as good a student as I thought. Not that I didn’t do a lot of wandering around the interwebs, connecting myself, exploring spaces of education, learning about digital learning theories, examining how others were using these theories, and determining what, of all of this, would be useful to me and to the analogue educators I am closest with. I certainly did that, but I didn’t capture all that here. Why is that a problem? Because if you didn’t blog it, it didn’t happen.
Over the term I wrote a paper on autobiographical theory in the online world, and came to the conclusion that the development of a digital autobiographical self requires a certain level of presence in the form of artifacts. The lived process, the trail of phrases and photos and links and videos that we leave behind as we play around in this world, is largely how we build an identity in absence. In many ways, this self is strewn around the internet. It lives a little over here in a reply to someone’s blog, and a little over there in a photo I put up, but it can be hard to pin down if I don’t create a home for myself – somewhere my friends can stop by and see me on a regular basis. I’m now coming to realize one of the great roles blogs can play in that development of self.
I’m thinking of it in terms of the way I roam around the world. In the last two years, I have lived in roughly 8 places in 4 countries. In the last year I have not lived in one place for more than 3 months at a time. I have drifted through town, absorbing, contributing, having fun, and sharing with others and then moving on. While I made connections with folks along the way, I have left little behind that they could point to in 5 years and say, “See, Leslie was here!” While there is something liberating about living like The Littlest Hobo, there is something to be said for building things. In that same time period, a friend has done amazing work on her back yard, another has been instrumental in a youth organization in B.C., another has helped develop a community art therapy program in Calgary.
Don’t get me wrong. I know that the things I have created have value. I know that I have made meaningful contributions to the world during this time, but I also know that I could be doing better. I could be building a tiny corner of the internet where I can call home. I can show what I have lived; I can share the beauty of the digital and analogue world; I can amass proof of the kind, sharing, safe, open people of the world and convince others that they need not be afraid. I can do this for myself and for others who may be interested in knowing what I’ve been up to for all this time! (MOM!!!).
So , as this “graded” moment passes, and I move into the space again as myself, I consider how I may use it as a showcase, a hearth, a kitchen table, a backyard oasis. I think of how this space will be visited, not only by others, but also how I will return to this space over time. Living as a gypsy I can’t carry much with me, but maybe I can stash a few artifacts here for safekeeping.
Is it a good thing if a reflection on your learning moves you to tears? I think so. It means that I have been affected by the course I have taken. I have let myself be known and opened my perspective of the world to influence. This has been a wonderful experience. Here is my video reflection on my learning along with a long list of links directing you to the people and places on the web that have had a significant impact on my learning this semester.
I must give special thanks to the amazing gabyreel, a friend here in Montreal, for giving me the idea of doing a stop-motion assignment.
Reflection on your learning is always so difficult because learning is for life.
School is a pilgrimiage. It is the movement of the heart and mind in a particular way.
It requires wayfinding and sensemaking as there is no coheret whole. You have to find your own way.
And so we move from one temporary centre to another, never knowing who we will learn from.
But don’t worry… if something is important, it will resurface.
For me, this journey is a map of people. Planetwalkers John Francis and the peace pilgrim have shared the road, showing me that the secret to finding a special place in life’s patterns depends on living in harmony with others and having the right attitude – that being wonder and humility.
I am indeed humbled by the beauty people create together around the world – and the affect that can have. All through the power of sharing ourselves openly with one another.
I have shared john francis’ words with many over the term… maybe you can’t change the word by your actions alone, but you can change yourself. And when you do, the world around you may change by trying to understand you, as we all try to understand each other.
For me, this is the base of rhizomatic learning. When I change myself, though the interconnectedness of thought and knowledge, I have an effect on the beings around me. Through the deep and broad roots that ground the human legacy in the earth, I can tap into ancient wisdom and by sharing those cashes with others, I shift the means of the whole.
Counter to what we have known, this is not a question of Who belongs here? rather it is a space where Free Range Students wander as nomads and encouter Free Range Teachers – our knowledge production happens in the space of everyday life. It is founded on an open oath that holds that the world’s knowledge is a public good – a part of the commons to which we all deserve equal access as beings on the planet.
Who is teaching me? Is the wrong question. I both learn from and teach who I share with.
Who am I sharing with?
What am I sharing?
How am I sharing?
The DIY or do-it-yourself model seems cold – like a mechanical repository of contextless media – but the opportunity to be a producer puts the agency in my hands – am I producing something meaningful? I guess that’s up to me to decide!
In the meantime, I get to participate to collaborate to contribute without boundaries or borders – d’arcy Norman
I am able to participate in live knowledge building on a daily basis with a group of peers – dave cormier
The point of it all is intellectual emancipation - taking us to a place where we understand ourselves and our reasons for acting beyond ideology and beyond the commonplace. – Jerome melacon
One of the ways to reach this space of freedom is through art. “poetry is nothing…..
Purposeful play helps liberate students and teachers from passivity – validating their experience by honouring the process. It is a safe place to experiment and become a producer of knowledge. And from that production we begin to see and understand ourselves.
A gift of authentic human expression cannot be paralleled. It is a gift of self in the form of artifact. And it is the foundation of the online life. Sharing with one another authentically makes social truth transparent and makes a direct challenge at those who perpetuate lies.
“Let your actions reflect that which burns within you like a voice”
Quote by Paulo Freire “True revolution cannot fear the people, their expression, their effective participation in poer. It must be accountable to them, ust speak frankly to them of its achievements, its mistakes, its miscalculations and its difficulties” (Pedagogy of the Oppressed, p. 128)
If I am free
I will choose to be free
With people who are not afraid
To be human
This is the growing space of learning. This is where people are gathering. It is a global space. It is a space of existential revolution. It’s about discovery and change, community as curriculum, personal learning and emmersion and it’s a place where art is welcome, and sharing encouraged. Where the artifacts of the lived process provide presence and authenticity.
This is the space of the social artists
I want to thank these social artists
You have introduced me to each other
You have introduced me to ideas
Validated my personal expressions of self
And made them meaningful
And showed me that they have meaning
I would especially like to thank Alec Couros for being my professor for the past 3 years that I have sat in on this class. And to the 2011eci831 group, thank you for your presence and your willingness to embark on this educational journey. And for letting me play my uke in class!!! Xoxo
Now I have been amazed, in awe, and largely confused by the amount of content that some folks produce online. Jabiz Raisdana, Tim Owens, and, of course Alan Lavine have all astounded me with the amount that they share. What’s their secret? Just be where you’re at! It’s not about putting out a super-polished version of any project, but continually sharing, sharing the process, sharing the moment, sharing the tidbits in mid-creation. So, I figured I’d take up Alec Couros‘s challenge in class last night and #makesomeartdammit with one of the 50+ ways to tell a story. I chose tool #31 as our class is ECI831.
It took me about 20 minutes to create this tabblo with the bulk of the time being spent writing and uploading the photos.
onepercentyellow began playing music together on a trip to Goa, India in 2011. Within an hour of Sean Hillaby’s arrival, the duo were booking gigs in the artist-rich landscape of Arambol.
Living in a rural Goan home, onepercentyellow began playing together, recording, and writing songs.
Their highlighted performances include playing to up to 2000 people at the Anjuna night markets and weekly sporting bar performances.
Yes, Goa was a great place. onepercentyellow pictured here during the Holi celebration in India. … See my Tabblo>
Posted in Uncategorized on November 5, 2011 by onepercentyellow
Ever wonder why it takes naming a thing in order to validate it? It may be lamentable that I sometimes have a hard time seeing the value in something until someone else does, but I’m always happy when it actually comes to pass. Such is the case for my recent discovery of sketchnotes. Giulia Forsythe, sketchnotist extraordinaire, tweeted a these twosites with great descriptions of sketchnoting – the process of visually representing the note-taking or thought-making process for later recall and sharing. Finally, those doodles that I’ve been devoting so much time to – I’m actually meditating on ideas while I colour – have value in and of themselves. I have seen Giulia’s visual representations and have wondered how the hell she creates those wonderful pictures (don’t even get me started on the animated gifs!). While my sketchnotes may be in plain ol’ ink and paper, it is the site where my research is serendipitously unfolding itself, and, in the end, I predict they will be key in presenting my reflections on my learning over the course of the term. Look at that use value!! In addition, I am always delighted when I take a look at how a drawing unfolds over time and find hidden messages to myself. Like a good book, I’m excited to see how it turns out!
So thanks to Giulia for giving me the key(words) to validate my doodling and recognizing it for what it really is – WORK! I mean PLAY! I mean WORK!… um… It is also because of her impeccable tradition of sharing that I have signed up for my first flickr account so that I, too, can share my sketchnotes. Letsmakesomeartdammit!
When form meets content, the heavenly chorus meets in perfect harmony.
This week has been about making my edumecation work for me. After posting my shout-out video to University of Mary-Washington and getting amazing response from those fine folks, I decided to tackle the ECI831 googledoc. Personally, I prefer having the suggested readings available before our guest speakers arrive in class so that I can more actively engage in the presentation, so I decided to take the blank page as an open invitation to share my reading journey. I decided to start with Dave Cormier’s 2008 post on Rhizomatic Learning. As I began reading, my ears alerted me to the fact that the autodj was ruling the#ds106radio stream (likely through some kind of punk or a discussion on the ontology of screaming). I realized that I had not done my duty in killing the autodj and decided to take a page from @DrGarcia‘s study manual and put out a broadcast monologuing the thoughts swirling in my head.
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hey there #eci831, I’m going to read @cormier ‘s post on Rhizomatic learning on #ds106radio tune in if you’re game http://bit.ly/flo4OG
(side note!! I just went into the HTML to figure out how to end the table and go back to full left justify! Geekin’ out moment… I’m so easily excited!)
From there, I read Dave’s other post on Community as Curriculum and one on the importance of having a philosophy of education, both at his suggestion, and shared that with the ECI831 googledoc in progress. I made a bunch of reading notes and took the amazing @giuliaforsythe‘s suggestion of recording my reading/thinking out loud on #ds106radio. She then pushed me that one step further and asked me to post the recording on my blog with the meta-reflection to go along with it.
This was my first time archiving a #ds106radio cast. It was super easy (in nicecast it’s just window-archive) and there’s only about 15 minutes of my talking on there (only! jeez! How long will I ramble on!?). From there I put out a couple songs by independent Alberta artists – Scott Cook, Jesse D and Jacquie B, and Wool on Wolves.
As for the meta-reflection, the process of writing this blog post and creating a storify (thanks to Tannis Emman for boldly going before me) has made me realize that this entire process has happened because of a rhizomatic learning environment. I need not remind you that in other circumstances, I would have been shut up in my little room with my little books thinking of all this on my own – waiting for my weekly class for the chance to engage fully. Instead I put out my first reading, get directed by the author to two other salient posts and get pulled along on his journey of rethinking the theory. Dave even put up his most recent post on our googledoc – giving me yet another opportunity to connect and share in the thinking. While the comments after mine show that I have missed the context of the “nomad” learner (and given me more to read up on), the process has pushed me to grow just that much more. Another great link about the possible ways trees communicate, sent by the one and only @jimgroom gave me such a beautiful image to meditate on – those tall trees in the forest are all connected. When you’re looking up to those who have grown before you, realize that they’ve got the resources, the stuff of life and learning, to share with you. All you’ve got to do is get back to your roots.
