The editor of EDUCAUSE Review, a good friend and fellow Arizonan, has been nudging me a few years to consider writing an article. Sure I blog a lot, but a publish article requires things like grammar, references, and coherency… so last Spring I suggested co-authoring as a crutch.
Over the summer, I was honored to collaborate with Bryan Alexander (that guy can write! We wrote the draft on Google docs and tagged madly our resources) on the article just hitting print/PDF/web in the November/December 2008 issue – Web 2.0 Storytelling: Emergence of a New Genre:
We are hoping to stir up some conversation about this, and are eager to have some push-back on our assertion. Our research googling on the topic mainly brought up… us! But as we’ve talked about it in our presentations and workshops, we get lots of nods of agreement.
Our article describes Web 2.0 Storytelling as “telling of stories using Web 2.0 tools, technologies, and strategies.” emphasizing two components- microcontent and social media. We feel the rich media, non-linear capabilities, jumping of media platforms (or even ARG-like going out into the real world) make for a much different kind of expression than producing a personal video of some dog story.
So we want to generate some conversation, resource sharing, responses in story form. Our plan is then to have an open wiki-based discussion space for the month of November, after which we will archive the site as a resource for EDUCAUSE. The wiki address was provided in the print and web versions, which went live Friday (I thought we’d have til today), so here is our Web2Storyteling wiki:
Please help us out by getting some things into the four main response sections of the wiki (it is open to editing, no log in required). There is nothing more self-reinforced as lonely as an empty/sparse wiki. When people see a blank space, it seems they hesitate to be the first to write.
Please please pretty please toss something into http://web2storytelling.wikispaces.com/— I am hopeful with the light inbox and RSS readers that not all edtech heads are at EDUCAUSE conference in (lovely) Orlando.
Hi Alan and Bryan,
For the 18 months or so, I’ve been encouraging teachers and administrators to use Web 2.0 tools to tell their stories. As I was working on updating a Webinar I’ll be doing next week on this topic, I ran across your article and wiki. I’d like to encourage next week’s participants to go to the wiki and contribute, if they are so moved. Is that okay with you? Also, I’m sorry to see that you plan to close the wiki the end of this month as I’d love to keep sending folks your way.
Thanks!
Susan
@Susan Brooks-Young: Hi Susan, thanks for your message. I don’t know if the decision to close the wiki is final; to me, they should always remain open like a 24 hour diner. There was some desir to provide educause a fixed product, which to me is fine if it is just a PDF snapshot of where the wiki is come Nov 30,
Yes, by all means please encourage your workshop group to add.
Hi Alan,
Thanks! I will include a link to the wiki on the online agenda I am creating (http://sjbrooks-young.com/id183.html), will explain what it is, and will encourage participants to visit and add to the wiki. This online session will happen next Tuesday (11/11).
If the wiki stays open past Nov. 30, I’ll continue to send folks that way.
Best, Susan