IcarusPad Blog

James' posts on writing, education, and the absurdity of both.

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Running Scholarly Critiques

All September and October Scholarly Critiques housed here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1HEjn_1r9_NaeRYPj1yjqqhziogSo09Sn3ZsZc2M79IY/edit?usp=sharing

Feel free to leave me a specific comment using google doc’s comment feature!

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Running Research Reflections

Here is a link to a google doc if you’d like to comment on specific parts of my research reflections.

September

I spent this month learning more about gamification.  The first article I reviewed focused on the question of whether, and to what extent, gamification could be exploitive.  Largely it substantiated my own beliefs about the limited extent that gamification could be exploitive, but it helped me be more thoughtful about the ethical concerns in my own research.  Other articles around gamification pushed me thinking in terms of what a “game” actually looks like, and how that can be influenced by gender biases (e.g. what appeals to males may not appeal to females and vice-versa).  This made me reflect on my own design decisions and how I could help gather feedback throughout the process to test those assumptions.

My thinking around how stakeholders participate in research has changed significantly.  In previous research models, I thought the emphasis was on the researcher maintaining a separate distance from the stakeholders.  Action research has helped me see that the researcher can be an active participant, working with stakeholders, asking for candid feedback, and revising to create a productive, and ethical, study.  There is a sizable cohort of researchers working with students this semester, and it has been really helpful to discuss how to collect data and work with students in an ethical and unbiased manner. 

I have used networks of discussion, be it twitter, Canvas, blog posts, or google docs, to inform my research as well as deepen my thinking.  I have particularly benefited from discussing common problems of practice around data collection, ethical issues, and (as mentioned previously) working with students as stakeholders.  I have participated in discussions around Likert scales, forms for student participation, issues with data collection, and revising proposals for the APA style guide.

Ask yourself a question about your research activities, and provide a meaningful answer:

As a solo researcher, how do I check my own thinking around collecting data in a fair and balanced way?

Stringer’s work has provided an exemplar guide, both through his narrative points around collecting data as well as several example forms, graphs, and checklists.  In our discussions in Canvas, other students have provided examples of their own work in these graphs and checklists as well as their sample forms for working with stakeholders.  I have collected this information and used it to consider not only “why” I am asking my research questions, but also “how” I am asking these questions in an unbiased way.

I have had to rethink my strategy around how I approach research as well as how I communicate the outcomes of that research (particularly around APA).  I still struggle with keeping the focus on my own interpretations and commentary.  I will continue to use Stringer as well as discussions and resources from my colleagues in the class to deepen and refine that  focus.

 October

Through the discussions this month, my project emerged more refined and with more specific targeted outcomes.  Peer feedback around my research proposal led me to limit the scope of my project and redefine my stakeholders.  While initially I had considered the students involved in the process the primary stakeholders, I realized that it’s actually the teacher (no longer teachers) that I’m working with who is the primary stakeholder, since the outcome is to better support vocabulary instruction for her students. While I still consider the students stakeholders, having a more refined audience helped me include the teacher in more design decisions, and I think has ultimately led to a more responsive project to create improved performance, the hallmarks of action research.

Changing my project to focus on gamification’s impact on vocabulary instruction instead of the overly vague “digital learning environments” has helped me refine my research around educational technology as well.  I’ve been able to draw on more literature about vocabulary instruction, which has provided a stronger research base.  Evaluating previous students’ work also helped me bring a fresher lens to my own, particularly around data.  In Exploring Technology for a Community: Isolation of "Stay at Home"Mothers? my conversations with other classmates helped surface that connections between overly general research questions led to overly general quantitative and qualitative data.

The discussion thread on “Unpacking a Literature Review” was particularly helpful for my work this month.  Remi helped provide clarity around what a successful literature review looked like when he said that literature reviews are an act of synthesis, not summary. I tried to keep this approach in mind as I continued to work on my scholarly critiques and my literature review.   It’s important for researchers to familiarize themselves with peer reviewed literature for two reasons 1) as a way of providing a research-based foundation for coordinating new research opportunities, and 2) to refine their own craft around research, citation, and investigation.  A researcher should seek to add something new to an ongoing discussion.  If he/she is not aware of the current research then he/she is in danger of repeating research instead of extending, verifying, or challenging the previous research.  Additionally, researchers can improve their own practice by reading multiple peer reviewed articles.  I have struggled with the APA style guide and reading multiple articles has helped me improve on mistakes in citations, tense, use of quotes, and concision.

I have paid especially close attention to how researchers collect data both in terms of the methods (quantitative, qualitative) and the methodology (how they organize or categorize their approach to collecting data).  In many of the articles I have reviewed, researchers have focused on two lenses for interpreting their data (e.g. the fairness account and the meremeans account (Kim, p. 1); gamification in Soviet and American economies (Nelson); structured and unstructured collaborative spaces (Guadioso)).

Ask yourself a question about your research activities, and provide a meaningful answer:

How much of a focus will English Language Learners (ELLs) be in my research?

One developing focus of my research is on how ELLs can benefit from gamified vocabulary instruction.  Particularly due to the benefits of gamified vocabulary instruction: high repetition, independent, self-driven.  This pivot was based on the demographics of the school and feedback from my teacher stakeholder.  We set up an early way to identify data on ELLs separately from the rest of the class without revealing student names or having them participate in a different way than the rest of the students.  While we are collecting data, I have not read many articles throughout this research process about vocabulary acquisition for ELLs.  I think that this is a strong focus for my November literature reviews since, although the vocabulary app is already designed, we (the teacher and I) can still make strategic  modifications for the benefit of ELLs in particular.

Since I am flying solo this semester, I am interested learning more about how collaborative action research teams function.  I have benefited from the feedback I have received from my research guild members but I have not been able to practice other important aspects of team research (including delegation of duties, other perspectives on literature critiques, etc.).   

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Studies in Vocabulary Instruction

A Review of the Current Research on Vocabulary Instruction - Developed by the National Reading Technical Assistance Center, RMC Research Corporation

http://www2.ed.gov/programs/readingfirst/support/rmcfinal1.pdf

I found this article by researching best practices in vocabulary instruction.  I was searching for research based and documented strategies, and this document includes fifteen studies that were analyzed to draw broader trends.  All fifteen studies are included in an appendix at the end of the document.

Although I’m still refining the scope of my research, this article is specifically related to the type of learning and instruction that I’m focusing on: vocabulary instruction.  I propose to see if a digital format can increase vocabulary gains and retention outside of the classroom by eliciting practice, and competitive desire to participate.

The article builds off the work of the National Reading Panel’s (“NRP”) 2000 study: “The studies examined in the NRP Report (NICHD, 2000) suggested that vocabulary instruction does lead to gains in comprehension, but methods must be appropriate to the reader’s age and ability. The importance of vocabulary to success in reading is well known, but there continues to be little research that conclusively identifies the best methods or combinations of methods of vocabulary instruction. This publication reviews the most recent research on vocabulary acquisition and instructional practices since the release of the National Reading Panel’s report” (p. 1).

This article also uses the NRP’s criteria for data analysis, paraphrased here:

1. The study must have been relevant to instruction of vocabulary,

2. The study must have been published in a scientific journal,

3. The study must have used a control group,

4. The study must have been published between 2001 and 2009, and

5. The study must have included students in pre-K or above (p.3).

The article reaches three conclusions, two of which support my research questions and one that is outside its purview.  The first conclusions that support my research questions are that frequent exposure to vocabulary will help students better retain the meaning of the words as well as use them with greater frequency (p. 4).  The second conclusion that supports my research questions is that targeted vocabulary instruction increases the probability that students will remember the meaning of words (p. 4).

The conclusion that is outside of the purview of my research is that scaffolding the complexity of questions leads to greater gains in vocabulary retention (p. 5).  This is outside of the scope of my research because I only assess students based on the definition of the vocabulary word and thus do not assess students at different levels of complexity.

However, since research proposal is still being revised I think this would be an interesting question to ask my stakeholder participants, both teachers and students.  Would they prefer a different approach to how the vocabulary app asks questions?  Would that promote greater retention?  Would that help keep the app from getting “stale” and thus discouraging use?  It’s a question that I would like to include in my mid and end of process surveys and see what both teacher and student stakeholders say.  Unfortunately, I would not be able to revise the app for that functionality within the two month window.

I’m excited to add my study to the body of work around vocabulary instruction with an emphasis on the first two outcomes from this article.

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Energy Efficiency, Gender, and Gamification

“Lights Off. Game On. The Kukui Cup: A Dorm Energy Competition” by Robert S. Brewer, George E. Lee, Yongwen Xu,Caterina Desiato, Michelle Katchuck, and Philip M. Johnson

The article starts with a bang: “The world is in the grip of an energy crisis.”  Pretty strong language for a scholarly work, but as I’ve now become accustomed to the dry, academic language of scholarly articles, I appreciate the fervor, something in me stirs.  

Though, initially, the article seemed only tangentially related to my topic, the abstract clearly conveyed the parallels:

Our research seeks to investigate the relationships among energy literacy, sustained energy conservation, and information technology support of behavior chang through an advanced dorm energy competition to take place in fall 2011. Game design techniques are used to attract competition participants, keep them engaged, and have a lasting impact in their energy use behavior through retained knowledge of energy obtained via the game environment [emphasis is my own] (p. 1)

“Attract...keep them engaged...have a lasting impact...through retained knowledge…”  Very much what my proposal is attempting to explore: how can digital competition, and gamification, lead to increased success in the classroom?  I’m also focusing on the intrinsic and extrinsic motivations that digital competition can provide, so I wanted to intentionally bring those lenses to the article.

Second paragraph: “Changing people's behavior is difficult, and to achieve meaningful energy conservation, behavior changes must be sustained. Two strategies that have proven effective are providing direct feedback on energy usage through real-time displays, and a toolbox of techniques such as making public commitments and setting goals” (p. 1).

Again, I find close similarities to my project. I propose to provide direct feedback on how students are progressing through their vocabulary acquisition in “real-time” through the quiz scores on the app.  As for the “toolbox of techniques” I intend to have teachers help set up the process by having their classes set individual goals, as well as, possibly, whole class goals.  To set up an individual goal is an example of intrinsic motivation, but to set a class goal entails two types of “soft” extrinsic motivation: 1) the motivation to not let down your class, and 2) how successful your class is in comparison to other classes.  It seems like a clear way to get some early feedback around how students gravitate toward different types of motivation.  “Soft” is here defined as not having strong consequences regardless of participation.  These consequences may include peer pressure or stigma, but are differentiated from “hard” consequences such as disciplinary actions, grade deficits, or loss of privileges.  

The Kukui project predicts that the greatest risk to its success is its ability to get residents of the dorm excited about an energy competition.  Since they do not have any “hard” consequences, they see the game environment as a way to encourage soft competition.  While I also cannot legislate hard consequences with my vocabulary program, student frequency and accuracy on the vocabulary program will directly correlate with their success on in-school vocabulary quizzes that are directly linked to grade consequences (i.e. hard).  

The Kukui project cites Lazarro’s 4 Keys 2 Fun as a guiding philosophy for their project:

“The 4 Fun Keys create games’ four most important emotions

1. Hard Fun: Fiero – in the moment personal triumph over adversity

2. Easy Fun: Curiosity

3. Serious Fun: Relaxation and excitement

4. People Fun: Amusement”

These echo some of what I had already planned out in terms of soft and hard motivations, but something I had not evaluated was what the Kukui project proposed next.  That different genders enjoy different types of game structures: “Finally, our design must combine and rationalize game elements traditionally considered “male” (mastery, competition, destruction, spatial puzzles, trial and error) with game elements traditionally considered “female” (emotion, real world, nurturing, dialogue, learning by example) (p. 3).”

I had not considered 1) whether my own gender biases have led the game to be more “masculine,” and 2) how to incorporate other types of game elements related to gender.  It’s given me something interesting and surprising to consider both in terms of the rollout of the app, as well as the feedback I collect.

References

Brewer, R.S., Lee, G.E. and Johnson, P.M. (2011). The Kukui Cup: a dorm energy competition focused on sustainable behavior change and energy literacy. In Proc HICSS 44.

Koster, R. (2005). A theory of fun. Paraglyph Press

Lazarro, N. Why we play games: Four keys to more emotion without story. White paper, Xeo Design.  Retried from http://www.xeodesign.com/xeodesign_whyweplaygames.pdf

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Scholarly Critique #1

Kim, T.W. Gamification and exploitation. Unpublished working paper.

http://gamification-research.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/GAMICHI15_kim.pdf

Google’s Scholarly Articles search is a fast, easy way to find scholarly articles on a variety of topics.  The search works by looking for articles that have been linked in other works of academia.  Since my research topic focuses on the psychology of digital competition, I searched for “competition and gamification” and found three articles.

The first is entitled “Gamification Ethics: Exploitation and Manipulation” by Tae Wan Kim, an  Assistant Professor of Business Ethics at Carnegie Mellon University.  The article is closely related to my topic because it details some of the pitfalls associated with competitive digital environments.

The objective of the study is to compare gamification work environments “with two influential accounts of exploitation: the fairness account and the meremeans account” (Kim, p. 1).  First is the fairness theory.  Kim writes:

Imagine a labor market in which labor for gamification is clearly specified within employment advertisements. In this market, some number of competing companies advertises, for instance, cashier jobs. The job descriptions of some companies include reference to the gamified working condition; other companies’ descriptions do not. Would the addition of the gamified work change workers’ salaries in the hypothetical market? Probably not, or, at least, it is unclear. In theory, offering a gamified working environment could allow a company to even slightly decrease wages for those who preferred gamified to non-gamified employment. From the fairness account, hence, it’s difficult to say that gamification is exploitative (p. 2).

“Probably not, or, at least, it is unclear.”  Not particularly definitive or valid, but I think that Kim is right that those who would prefer a gamified work environment would preference it over a similar paying, non-gamified environment.  It’s hard to quantify how much less they would be willing to

accept in salary, but logical nonetheless.

In terms of public school in Denver, the equation is quite a bit easier.  Denver already offers “choice” to students in terms of preferencing their top schools, regardless of neighborhood.  A student who was particularly interested in a gamified learning would be more likely to seek out a school that offers that type of environment.  Additionally, online education is also a feasible option.   

The second account is the mere-means account.  Generally, the account details that if people are treated as “ends” then they are denied their dignity, a right as a rational human being.  Kim proposes a simple, action research solution:

In order not to express disrespect to others, we should consider how others would publicly interpret our acts. Hence, gamification designers have a duty to pay attention to the hermeneutical aspect of game elements. How can designers pay enough attention to the hermeneutical dimension? They can invite the input 3 of future interpreters, e.g., the Target cashiers, ask them how they interpret the game, and carefully consider their feedback (p. 3)

I think it’s both appropriate to consider how others will interpret our actions as well as including them in providing feedback.  Both sound economic/philosophical theories to keep in mind in the application of digital competition and gamification in general to educational environments.

References

Kim, T.W. Gamification and exploitation. Unpublished working paper.

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Possible Research Topics 6720

Hi all!  Here are two of my possible research topics based off the brainstorming activity that we did in our introductions.  Would love any feedback that you have:

1. Design Content culture = How are differences in culture represented through the content designed in social media?

Social media’s influence is undeniable, but how is the design of social media also a reflection of cultural identity and values?  I propose to research a gap in current cultural and social media research.  How is social media a reflection of cultural identity, but how is it also working, intentionally and unintentionally, to shape identity.  I will focus my research on how social media is shaping perceptions of immigrant teenagers from Mexico and Central America.  Proposed cohort of students in research is 10-20.

After my initial search, I only found one article directly related to this topic: http://dc.uwm.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1748&context=etd

2. Competition Learning Setting = What is a way to use competition to create different settings for learning?

While public education has grown increasingly competition averse, eLearning has, largely, embraced competition both in terms of internal and external.  Programs like Duolingo, FitBit, and Temple Run utilize gamification and badging to keep users engaged by constantly trying to “better” their scores, while other programs like Guess Word, Typing Maniac, and a slew of other online apps and games offer motivation through competition with others.  How can internal and extrinsic motivation through competition best be cultivated?  What are the pitfalls of competitive, digital learning environments?

After my initial research, I would like to extend the work of Daniel Pink’s Drive to further explore how competition is beneficial and detrimental, and how the modern high school public school could benefit from more digital and in-person competitive ideas and techniques.

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Iterative Research Questions

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1A31_Gspbckn97E6QLuOJbQT5AMsPGtH69kGxNnQKg9U/edit?usp=sharing

Cycle 1 Blog Post:

Personal Introductions and “Generating Research Questions” Possibilities

In an introductory blog post please address the following:

What's your educational and professional background? Where do you currently work, and/or where have you worked?

History degree, spent some time working in law for the government in Washington, D.C. before moving to education.  Taught high school English for years then transitioned to director of an after school program at a 99% free and reduced lunch school.  Moved to Denver and continued teaching as well as curriculum development and instructional design for a network of charter schools.  Moved to my current position as a curriculum specialist for a local school district.

What are some of your hobbies and interests that make you happy, curious, and an engaged learner?

I really enjoy projects that have mechanical products.  So instead of writing a paper about an idea, you build a program or website or visual that helps convey that idea.  

For students who have previously learned with Remi: What advice do you have for students who are taking a course with Remi for the first time? OR

Don’t just check Canvas assignments!  A lot of the learning happens in a class PLN that is linked through blogs, twitter, etc.  Remi is very supportive and knowledgeable.  Reach out if you need to.

Attach a picture of you, your family, your pet, a favorite place... something that expresses a bit about who you are... and please tell us why you chose to include this picture/media.

Here’s a picture of me looking unhappy on a rooftop with an amazing view in New York.  Pretty typical.

Your general research interests, including the 15 preliminary research questions and statements generated through our introductory activity Generating Research Questions.

Why conflict gaming = Why is gamification creating conflicts in education?

Social Practice Setting = What is the best setting for social media around learning and practicing?

Competition Skill Content = How is competition a lever for building skills and content knowledge?

Identity Who What = Who or what defines a digital identity?

Design Content culture = How are differences in culture represented through the content designed in social media?

Why engagement higher ed = Why isn’t higher ed more focused on student engagement?

Create Contribute Curiosity = What is the relationship between creation, contribution, and curiosity?

Competition Learning Setting = What is a way to use competition to create different settings for learning?

Skill Practice Research = What do we know about the research around practicing skills and brain development?

Setting Design Collaborate =What is the best collaborative setting for design?

What Place Practice = What are people doing to practice and how does that inform a choice fo plce?

Equity Game Mobile = How can mobile games be equitable for people with disabilities?

Play Culture Setting = What is a play culture in the digital setting?

Media Learning What = How do we get people to learn more than the what from mediaa?

Equity Contribute Design = How could we create an equitable contribution design platform?

Share some initial thoughts areas of inquiry (i.e. topics, problem statements, curiosities), research settings, and how you initially see yourself conducting action research.

Place, setting and design came up a lot in my iterations so it got me thinking about “where” digital work happens and how the proper setting can inform the actual work and purpose of digital contribution.  I’d like to pursue something around how place can be strategically tweaked to create more contribution and more equity in contribution.  I don’t know if it’s directly ILT related but I’d like to create a forum like WattPad where users submit serialized versions of stories, how-to’s, etc. and other users provide feedback and help shape the work.  This could be for text, games, or media.

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Why Tell Stories?

Link to Final Portfolio: https://kumu.io/joneill/truth-in-absurdity-final-project

“Just as the brain detects patterns in the visual forms of nature — a face, a figure, a flower — and in sound, so too it detects patterns in information. Stories are recognizable patterns, and in those patterns we find meaning. We use stories to make sense of our world and to share that understanding with others. They are the signal within the noise.” - Frank Rose

Not only do I have a greater appreciation for how stories help us “make sense of the world,” but at the end of this course, I have a greater understanding of how to make sense of stories.  Between crafting them myself (DS106 and #dailycreates), digital critiques, poems, mashups, photography, audio projects, media projects, L&K summaries, reflections, and remixes - I’ve stretched myself and, I hope, grown.  Both as a storyteller and as an evaluator of stories.

Focal Theme: Truth in Absurdity

What better way to celebrate absurdity than to try and quantify it?  I decided that I would use a website called Kumu.io to organize as much of the work as possible for this course.  Patterns begin to appear.  I prioritized writing assignments over all other modalities, and, interestingly, found that art projects, photography, and media projects all tended to cluster in the same week (i.e. if I did a photography assignment in a certain week, I would tend to do another photography assignment that same week).

Another common theme, in terms of exploring truth in absurdity, was an emphasis on paradox.  Paradoxes of light and shadow (dailycreate assignments), academic clarity and density (L&K chapters), desire to be independently successful while becoming a pyramid scheme zombie (”Grand Zero”).  Paradoxes were present everywhere in my coursework.  My favorite, however, is one early dailycreate I wrote in which a disillusioned and unhappy man finds meaning in saving a queen bee from an unknown future (Colony Collapse Disorder).

As additional literature, and quotes in particular, has been helpful in exploring my focal theme, I’ll conclude with one now as well: “Basically, at the very bottom of life, which seduces us all, there is only absurdity, and more absurdity. And maybe that’s what gives us our joy for living, because the only thing that can defeat absurdity..is lucidity.” - Albert Camus

A quick orientation to my final portfolio:

I used a website called Kumu.io to build a visual representation of my postings, responses, critiques, interactions, and more from the length of this course.  Each posting is attached to a central “Organization.”  The Organizations are Critique, L&K Response, Reflections, and #Dailycreates (I folded the AB assignments into #Dailycreates as well).

The connections between the individual assignments all nested within their Organization is the most conspicuous feature, but if you click each circle you will see that the link to the original posting is included as well as a picture that, I thought, illustrated the posting itself.  Unfortunately, one quirk to Kumu is that some pictures are displayed and some are only available when you click the circle itself.

Additionally, there are many ways to sort, cluster, and filter the postings.  I created metadata for each posting so that with a click you can cluster all the postings by week of the course, by whether they are blogposts or tweets, by visual assignments vs. written assignments, etc.

To view the specific postings that I selected for my portfolio, just click (or leave your mouse) on a portfolio tag and all of the other “portfolio” circles will be illuminated/aggregated.

Tweets about my postings are paired with the posting itself - although I was unable to repeat twitter user handles more than once.

Kumu was a website I didn’t find until near the end of the course, but had I been creating my visual map as I posted it would have been an easy way to track and arrange all of my work for the course.  I think it would be a phenomenal resource to use in another iteration of Digital Storytelling, so that both instructor and students could view each other’s maps and easily track their progress throughout the course.

Kumu is free as long as you create a public map, private maps are on a pay basis.  What better way to conclude a course that is founded on free, fluid, public interaction than with a resource that parallels those same ideals!

Final Reflection

As a Learner

Taking graduate classes that are primarily online is a good way to work with others asynchronously, and sometimes anonymously.  But to participate in something as fluid, and sometimes odd, as DS106 is a completely different experience.  We live in a world that increasingly praises purpose and perfection (”In Praise of Boredom”), but gives short shrift to expression and failure.  The stakes are high these days. Competing effectively means both presenting your best self at all times while also knowing when to downplay your individuality and go with the flow (”A World Without Work, “Grand Zero”).  DS106 explodes these ideas.  Here it’s ok to try, fail, be an individual, join a movement, leave a movement, and fail again.

I will continue to post to DS106.  I will continue to attempt #dailycreates.  I can’t say that I’ve attempted this same type of continuity for many classes that I’ve taken.  And what if we were able to create a space like this for K-20 students?  What if more of education looked like a “pull” instead of a “push.”  I can only think that we would help encourage more of what I got from this course: continued participation, inspiration, and growth.

Co-Design & Pedagogy

Personalized learning is receiving a big push in K-12 education, but that does not mean that “creative” learning will also get a push.  I think that we have to be careful not to lose the creative/inspirational aspect of personalized learning, and to reiterate something from my last section, we will only be able to create that environment by creating an environment where it is ok to fail.  

Changes to the course?  I think the only major one I would recommend is using Kumu.io (as mentioned above) so that it could create more of a visual map for learners who are more visual (like I am).  As well as helping to keep old posts from getting “stale.”  If were were able to freely explore past posts and see their connections, we might be more likely to continue to respond and reply than just as a way of fulfilling an assignment for that week.

For example, I had early issues with tumblr’s comment system.  People were not able to post comments on my posts.  I had to search through a variety of solutions before I finally found disqus which allowed others to comment on my posts.  However, some of my posts had grown “stale” so they did not receive comments.  Kumu.io would be a great way to further the thread of the conversations as well as creating interesting connections - which I feel is a truly gratifying and exciting part of this course.

Thanks for a great semester to all the folks from #cudenver15, @remiholden, #ds106, and #thedailycreate!

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There are many seats on the struggle bus

“Ahh, you know. Strikes and gutters, ups and downs.” - The Dude

This has been a tough summer.  Not only is this the first summer that I’ve worked full time since I entered education (my teacher blood is boiling), but also I was out of town on multiple work trips and one mini-vacation.  This isn’t all a bad thing - I found inspiration and creativity for #dailycreates through a lot of the pictures I took and places I went, but it also helped me realize an absurd pardox: consistency is the mother of creativity.  

As Ray Bradbury said, “Write a short story a week. It doesn’t matter what the quality is to start, but at least you’re practicing. And at the end of the year you have 52 short stories, and I defy you to write 52 bad ones.”

You really have to find the time to be creative.  And that has been humbling.  It’s like looking at the flights of stairs you climb to your office everyday.  You take them for exercise, but you also take them because you have a place to go.  The real measure of your commitment is taking the stairs when you have no place to go.  Doing some laps during lunch.  Setting a goal, 10 flights a day, 15 flights, 20 flights and then seeing it through.  Then you are really exercising. Really getting the benefits. You are filling that time with something different than the everyday.

That’s been my analogy for this course.  It’s been so gratifying and rewarding, but it’s also been frustrating.  Frustration with myself.  Frustration for not taking the time to commit to an interesting, but difficult, daily create.  Frustration for knowing how good it feels to get work done at the beginning of the week and not the end (see how close this is to exercise?? I know it will make me feel good and I still struggle). 

But what’s the ratio?  Far more in favor of gratifying and rewarding.  It’s particularly favorable circumstances to complain about having the ability to do something you like/love and not the time.  It’s so much better than the alternative.

Now, I have to roll my sleeves up and prepare to keep the truth in absurdity rolling.  My absurde-de-vérité-de-grande.  I’m excited to draw the last connections between the dots and see what greater picture is revealed.  And I know...I need to start early.

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Lankshear & Knobel Final Chapter

Woohoo! Case studies!  Some real world application to some fairly dense academic terms that Lankshear and Knobel have dedicated a lot of thought and time into rebrandeding…or perhaps it is more appropriate to say “remixing”? In all seriousness, I’m excited to see case studies to help ground some of the more complex and nuanced ideas and concepts.  I resisted the urge to dive into the 6-12 study and headed for the Master’s coursework program.

“Our strategy is to have groups of novice researchers investigating their own team-based learning within areas of activity where they are literally ‘beginning from scratch’, that is, collaborating in teams to learn how to create a digital media artifact of a kind they previously knew nothing about. Hence, they learn (together) to produce research within contexts of learning (together) to produce media, as members of teams” (Lankshear & Knobel p. 232).

This all sounds very familiar…it sounds exactly like Digital Storytelling.  That we are intentionally pushed outside of our comfort zone by being exposed to new skills and forums for those skills (dailycreates in particular) and that one of our greatest assets is the knowledge and collaboration available with our colleagues in the course.

I wished for a little more clarity on what exactly a “platform” is, or what their chosen platform was, but was again won over by their intentional focus on creating as much “pull” as possible, even though they acknowledge that there are certain times when “push” is unavoidable.  

Many parallels to this course.  Particularly the anxiety in the beginning transitioning to “considerable enthusiasm” for “the media creation aspect” although I wouldn’t say it necessarily was in conflict with the research.  I really enjoyed digital critique assignments even though they were not as mechanical/creative since the goal was to find a story that was particularly illuminating of a certain theme or idea.  

I was especially impressed with how quickly this type of collaboration resulted in common and effective group language (which helped create short-hand clarity for more complex projects), as well as creating an impetus to create.  It’s noted that many of the participants reported that they completed assignments more quickly and with more interest than they would have otherwise due to the collaborative nature of some of the writing assignments.  

Quest to Learn

An incredibly robust and nuanced vision for a school based, learning environment.  I like the inclusion of the parents and other stakeholders as well and the focus on “cracking” elements of the design for certain programs.  It reminds me of teaching young students to write.  There is only so much you can do by obeying the laws of grammar, punctuation, and conventions – when you start to make choices for intended effect, then you begin to “crack” the game, just as the students of Quest to Learn have.  It can be a powerful lens for appreciating the craft of the writing as well as the content of it.

“That is less important, however, than the fact that they seem very well connected in meaningful and motivating ways to diverse practices. There is plenty of tinkering, a lot of hands-on involvement with tools, a good deal of networking, and endless practice at learning what it means to take on different identities. There is an organic connection at every point to grounding information gathering, concept development, and understanding in concrete, purposeful practices” (Lankshear & Knobel, p.253)

This section really resonated with me.  I’m really impressed that the school has so genuinely integrated an experimental, problem-solving, and creative culture, while in many traditional schools, students still struggle with having the space to try, and fail, with new ideas/concepts/skills.  I feel like that is one of the greatest tragedies of education, that we’ve made it so high stakes.  Quest to Learn students, would most likely try and fail until they had found a better way.

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I feel like a...

Original Assignment - http://tdc.ds106.us/tdc1293/

i feel kind of like a tendency

the little brother to habit

the big brother to isolated incident.

My mother was a propensity

and my father was a proclivity.

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“In Praise of Boredom” Digital Critique

Original article here - http://harpers.org/archive/2015/08/in-praise-of-boredom/

Leave it to Harper’s to romanticize boredom...but what I worried would be a ponderous “things were better in my day” narrative, turned out to be a very interesting look at experiences and factors, both within and outside of our control, that shape who we are.  

Straying from the “A short history of being bored” approach that many writerts have adopted, the writer, Claire Messud, discusses how her experiences with boredom were formative both as a child and now as a parent.  Messud’s other article on Harper’s is also about parenting which has become a bit of a cottage industry in terms of writing articles that deal with parenting in the digital age.  

Messud’s writing is lyrical and accessible, though she strays into some overly dense/academic sections every once in a while.  When the article really shines is when she’s exhorting the benefits of boredom in poetic language:

“When I recall my formative years, of course there was loads of reading, and travel, and biking, and TV. But there was also a whole lot of boredom. I guess that’s what concerns me, as a parent: that my kids, who lack for nothing even more than I did, are not only unversed in material deprivation and insufficiently familiar with self-restraint but, most terribly, they know nothing of nothingness. Having no truly empty time, they’re unfamiliar too with the unexpected and exhilarating flowers that can grow there.”

But there’s an element of overly rose-colored glasses to the writing as well.  Boredom, after all, is boring.  And no matter what intellectual flowers may eventually bloom, the fields of boredom are mostly barren.

Messud doesn’t just write about boredom, but more holistically about how time is spent.  There is a section where she compares spending time with intellectual pursuits to spending time with things meant to be entertaining.  And while it walks a very fine line of pretentiousness, in the end I think her point is substantiated.  

Her main point is that we have become an extremely purpose/success driven culture and that that undergirds our ideas of how one should spend time, even outside of the office (answering emails, planning trips, doing finances, etc.).  The slippery slope is that if this is how we spend our “free time” then we begin to see demand more and more entertaining forums to truly break us out of our work mode.  But if the goal of art, movies, and music becomes only to entertain then we lose the chance to appreciate the challenging, the complex, and the slow-to-gratify.

The article is well-crafted and her personal experiences (both as a child and as a parent) help keep the academic discussion grounded in real-life examples.  A quick Google search will return dozens of articles about the death of boredom and whether that is a good or bad thing, but I found Messud’s writing and perspective illuminating, both in terms of how she crafter her descriptions of long, boring summer days, and the implications for how we view art and culture in general.

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Reflection Week 6

More travel and more successful posting from the road.  Well, mostly successful.  I’ll name it right now: I did my L&K summary on Chapter 6 and not Chapter 7.  Curses!  Just when I was hitting my stride!  Chapter 7 is on its way!

I really enjoyed the make your own Super PAC assignment, and I was able to incorporate a few more travel photos in my “magic lighting” and “cast a shadow” assignments.  My choice assignment turned out to be a fairly depressing poem about Mondays.  

I don’t know if it’s the increasingly warm weather or the fact that we’re 6 weeks in to the semester, but I’m starting to feel the summer stir.  It feels like we’re close to the end of something...

Onward and upward! I give myself a 8.5/10 for getting most of the work in early and responding to about twice as many people as I typically do on a weekend.  

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Cast a Shadow Assignment - http://tdc.ds106.us/tdc1286/

Was in Washington, D.C. all last week for a conference so tried to capitalize on my location for some #dailycreate assignments.  This is Scott Circle at sunset.

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L&K Chapter 6

“How can we best distinguish between participating in social networks as an ‘organic’ dimension of interacting with others on- and offline, and engaging in social networking in a more ‘strategic’ sense of trying to extend the reach of one’s acquaintances with a view to leveraging value/accruing benefits from a targeted or otherwise enlarged field of social contacts?” (L&K, p. 176)

Basically, where does Facebook end and LinkedIn begin?  This delineation may have seemed fuzzier in 2005, but today it’s been more clearly defined since it’s been, in many ways, increasingly monetized.  Networking sites like LinkedIn allow for companies to involve themselves in a more social and connected space than previous employment sites like Monster.com and theladders.com.  The primary reason is that the social nature of LinkedIn invites continuous participation whether one is actively searching for a job or not, whereas Monster.com is a more static network - look when you need to, jobs are available when they are posted.  

LinkedIn’s emphasis on making connections with others and having them certify your expertise, increases the collaborative nature of the site which is a rare ability considering the competitive nature of most job searches.  Facebook operates in the same way.  Your individual profile is important, but not as important as the connections you make with others, particularly in the ways that they “augment” your profile/identity through tagging you in pictures, posting on your wall, encouraging you to play games, and, of course, buying you gifts.

Benjamin Todd Jealous said, “In a democracy there are only two types of power: there's organized people and organized money, and organized money only wins when people aren't organized.”

Facebook and LinkedIn have been revolutionary in creating a structure for people to organize, communicate, and collaborate. 

“The concept of ‘networked individualism’ portends a significant shift from societies organized around groups – kinship, workplace, local groups, etc. – to societies organized around the individual as ‘the primary unit of connectivity’ (Wellman et al. 2006: 165).”

The advantages of this system are clear, although the priorities may seem confusing to social networking neophytes: “[I]ndividuals with few weak ties will be deprived of information from distant parts of the social system and will be confined to the provincial news and views of their close friends (L&K, p. 185).”

This shift questions some firmly held beliefs around traditional familial and kinship structures.  Blood is thicker than water, but is it thicker than profile views and status likes?

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Adam Savage & Alton Brown Comic-Con Walkthrough

Original Video - http://digg.com/video/adam-savage-alton-brown-comic-con-matrix

Story Flow

A non-traditional story with a traditional story structure.  We have characters (Adam and Alton), conflict (create an asynchronous costume that is funny, similar to the movie, and enough of a disguise so they are not recognized), rising action (will they be noticed on their walkthrough) and the resolution - Adam’s summary at the end.

Craftsmanship (use of medium)

While Alton’s and Adam’s personalities animate the story, I think an important element of craftsmanship here was the planning that went into making this walkthrough successful: 1) putting their costumes together piecemeal since the licensed costumes were awful, 2) choosing a “pose,” and 3) swapping out their easily identifiable camera man. 

The camera man shot a variety of interesting angles, I think in part so that it wasn’t so obvious that he was shooting Alton and Adam specifically.  I liked the opening shot of their boots walking the floor (since it was a nod back to the commentary on the shoes when they were putting the costumes on). I also liked the camera’s attempts to shoot “through” objects in the foreground (particularly the Boba Fett statue).  Finally, the camera’s swivel to the Comic Con banner at the end of the walkthrough was a nice way of providing closure to the scene instead of following Adam and Alton out of the building.

Truth in Absurdity

Remixing is very much at play in this story.  Not only do Alton and Adam remix their costumes through necessity (the licensed ones are crap), but also for effect.  They want to increase the reality of the costume, but also keep the comedy of the costume.  This is why they choose a Pastafarian spaghetti wig instead of a more authentic set of albino dreadlocks. Had they committed to 100% authenticity, the costume would have left a playful space to inhabit a more serious one, and that would not have fit either of their personality types.  Not only do they keep the experience fun for themselves by having elements of absurdity, but they also are more likely to elicit the types of responses they want in their audience (smiles in pictures instead of seriousness).

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Mondays

No one complained about Mondays

when we roamed the plains.

There were no groggy hellos or red eyed commutes

no morning meetings or cat posters

when large, terrible things roamed the earth 

and everyday we gained and lost

blood and grass.

Original Assignment - http://tdc.ds106.us/tdc1233/