Brainstorming

Brainstorming, originally uploaded by Msbea3.

Last week was an interesting one as we worked with audio on the digital materials preparation techniques course (I recorded myself reading one of Shakespeare's sonnets -I'm awful at reading poetry...). It was fun to choose some music tracks and mix it all down and the music helped to cover my flawed performance (trimming also helped!).

I enjoyed listening to the recordings made by the other participants -quite different in tone: a nonsense poem that I loved, a poem written by the participant herself -powerful and passionately read...

I also had a go at creating digital stories and that was a lot of fun too (my first script was lousy but I liked the voices I chose for the characters). The second story didn't have voices; it was a cartoon with speech bubbles and background music. Fun to choose as well. And it was lovely to read and watch other people's stories...I especially liked the feel of those created at Mixbook, but the Flickr 4-6-frame stories with no words were also nice. Simple is good too -and they may appear simple but some (if not all) demanded quite a lot of preparation. I remember two with more than one version where family members posed specifically for the various scenes. Storytelling has that power...it brings people together at various stages and in various ways.

I'm also quite involved in a crosscultural project and thrilled at the positive feedback and interest we've been getting from the people we're inviting to join. It's very exciting.

Last but not least, I've joined the Flickr group that Plurkers have and it's a real treat to get into Flickr and see everyone's photos. I like building galleries there too.

And I love having a PLN that's not only growing but getting stronger, more fun and affectionate each day.

Choose a title -OR, WILLIAM BLAKE'S MAN-MADE MANACLES AS INTERPRETED BY ME

This past week I learned.


This past week I lagged behind with assignments.

I stressed out fretting over assignments.

And I put 2 and 2 together. I experienced something I hardly ever experienced as a student in formal education. The need to complete the task no matter what.

In other words, I put product before progress (Freudian slip -meant process). A notion completely against my teaching beliefs. I don't intend to analyze why at the moment, but I did it. And it sucked -forgive the explicitness.


Especially because I was enjoying all the things that made me get behind. I engaged in different levels of communication and connection with various people;
                          I tried out new things and felt that cherished desire to improve for pleasure. I asked questions I'd  have never let myself ask -in the words of J.R (wonderful NLP Master Practitioner): I asked for my fried egg.


I received a few comments not intended to cheer me up, even though they did -simply a coincidence, serendipity, that brought me back to focus. From a team partner, from a tutor, from my inner voice, from someone in a website team, from my PLN, from some who will perhaps be part of my PLN (perhaps they already are).



I like process. I like pacing - wandering off - losing data that makes you revise and edit without intending to.



I like continuity and constancy in progress. I like fun. I like people.



                                                  And I could never enumerate all the things I learned this week.

Reaching inside out

Another busy day, but in a different way. It started with a live chat about Instructional Design. There weren't as many rooms as in TappedIn, but again I got lost. The chat was being streamed on two sites and I was early so I wasn't able to see any familiar names for a while. Then there were some sound issues (the main speakers' speech came out too low) so that added to my difficulty to follow what was going on. Still: I learned the rudiments of two streaming sites, learned about weekly scheduled chats, and got my apetite whetted for the topic of Instructional Design.

Yesterday I spent a lot of time sorting out my emails into their appropriate boxes; today I began to do that and, as it happens, I got an update on a site I like and clicked on it. That's how I discovered Tumblr (the streaming sites were ustream and edtechtalk). I saw that it was a blogging space and thought-well, nothing really special there, right? It's mostly a matter of taste and technological sophistication. So I went on to see the blog for Storybird on Tumblr. I love their illustrations, and I've tried to write a story in their site (actually wrote a terrible one but enjoyed reading other people's). I saw a "follow" button -by then I'd already registered in the site so I was able to follow. The process in order to get there was long: I kept being prompted to write my first post, to set up my profile, choose a title, a theme and whatnot. I don't know why I went along. But after having set up all that, I decided to do some browsing and see where I'd opened yet another account. I liked it. It's relatively low-key, but you can use it to share all kinds of things. Many people upload their photos and art; you can simply add quotes, or text and video and I think it's the only site that allows you to add audio on its own. So I have another blog, called Musings .There's not much there yet, but from the theme you'll see it belongs to a different side of myself. Just like Journey Journal here on Blogger.

And that's what I've noticed about the means I use to communicate with my PLN: I use Twitter, which I enjoy, but it's very different from the kind of feeling and interaction I get in Plurk. I like belonging to both, and it was actually a person I follow on Twitter that was kind enough to introduce me to her group of plurkers -just like a teacher I'd met through the Ning network was very kind to guide me step by step into the world of Twitter, both technically and socially.

In microblogging, I've also joined two Twibes groups. That was new. Another thing I tried yesterday was Diigo. At first I didn't know why (I mean, it's all part of the course so I give things a try) but as I was filling in my profile with the reasons (and this goes to any of my students that happen to read this: free writing helps) I realised I wanted to use Diigo; I wanted to share with other people the websites I like. I wanted to be able to interact with like-minded people like that. And discover new sites through them.

So that was new as well. But familiar, because I always end up enriching my PLN, which in turn makes me happier in lots of ways.

The penny dropped when I read earlier today a comment from one of my fellow teachers on the Multiliteracies group. She'd managed to share her links through Google Reader, inspired by the Evomlit Bundle of blogs the course made (of which this blog is a part). I've been using Google Reader for a while now and just a few days ago Istarted clicking the share option in posts I really liked. I tweeted some of them but it became a bit of a hassle. I kept wondering where those shared links were going. So I visited this teacher's shared links page. And I realised that my links had probably ended up on a similar page. I was already more than half-way over what I wanted to do! So I set up my profile and read some guidelines and now you can see my shared links on Google Reader .So where does the penny come in? When I started mumbling about Diigo and what a waste of time that had been given that I already had a tool that did the job and I was familiar with. Well, not so much...

I won't get now into the things you can do with one that you can't do with the other; suffice it to say that, just like my various blogs, they all have something special. Just like Twibes are not the same as Twitter lists.

Just like I don't always behave and feel the same way. There is a core and I think it's quite safe to call it wanting to connect.

That's what I like about being here; not having read yet any of the assigned texts I'd like to put forward a working definition of multiliteracies, and I think this post begins to explain it -what multiliteracies mean to me.

Busy Beek (I know it's a lame pun!)

A New Year's begun and with it, new courses...It's summer and I've joined 3 online courses that link technology and education. It's no surprise to anyone who knows me that I enjoy learning new things, and the last few months have had quite a lot of it.

Courses were supposed to start officially today (Monday) but the tasks and meeting areas were available at least since the weekend, which is when I joined and after nomore thana few seconds freaked out. I actually had to draw a plan with the names of the courses and what kinds of tools and resources and spaces would each be using! I think that was Saturday evening -when I also applied for membership where it was required. On Sunday, plan in my hands, I started taking care of my profiles and printed out the syllabuses and tasks for week 1. I caught the freaking out phase just in time and reminded myself that I had the whole week to carry out the tasks. Anxiety began to subside. My PLN also helped a lot. I'm not used to having a solid one, and the one I'm building now seems to be going that way, which makes me terribly happy.

Today things actually began to be fun. I feel a lot better with printouts. I commented, greeted, introduced myself, bookmarked like crazy, took some photos...And even ran into someone I met at a conference in September. That was very nice.

So now I'm tired, but happy (and for more of this, if you're in your 30s like me, you'll remember Alanis).

And I almost forgot the highlight (well there were many) -the language highlight of the day: I introduced myself to a Russian plurker, in Russian and using the Cyrillic alphabet. How's that for a Monday?

And let me add a photo of today at dusk (not great, but not too bad either, I think). Let's hope to get better ones in days to come

While I was gone

It's been a while since I last wrote here. I've been enjoying and strengthening my PLN and also trying to process some of the situations I went through this (well, last) year.


A couple of months ago I couldn't picture what a PLN was. Now I'm happy I'm aware of mine. I've met many wonderful people online and we're gradually building up relationships, and I've also strengthened bonds with people I already knew. I suppose we all live and experience our PLN's in different ways, but probably the core is the same: it's composed by those you care for, that are there for you and care for you, those you can share a good laugh about something trivial and also discuss more serious issues with. Some of the people in my PLN have very different day-to-day activities and responsibilities, but I feel it's our identity and feeling for others, our beliefs and values that bring us closer. I'm happy even just knowing they're out there.

So I've been tweeting, and plurking, and exchanging ecards and emails, participating in other kinds of online social networking, and building projects.