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Day two in Wellington took us up to the top of the Terrace, where the Victoria University of Wellington is perched. A bit of traffic direction confusion provided a detour though downtown, a place I have wandered before, but we were on track once spotting the beehive shape of Parliament (hey I took a photo here back in 2000)
We met up with Stephen Marshall, who looks marvelous in a bit of Navajo decoration
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The sessions they had requested for me in both the morning and afternoon were related to storytelling. In the morning I did my newly remade “what works” in digital storytelling, Storythinking > Storymaking > Storytelling
I’ve filled it out more with examples to demonstrate principles, such as comparing the differences between two technology product commercials, but one has a more “storified” approach; compare
http://youtu.be/9zf0dqzTUPk
and
As always, Kurt Vonnegut’s Shape of Stories video goes over well. I love pointing out how brilliantly he brings the point home using the presentation technology of a blackboard and chalk.
Also new in the mix is are video examples shown in the Budweiser Puppy Love video, where the dramatic tension is first edited out.
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In the second hour I had the entire room do a round of pechaflickr; I like asking the group to each take a turn, but I also give anyone the option to not participate. One man in the back opted out (others told me he is one of the funniest people around) as he wanted to observe. I realized later how right it is to not force people to participate, they should always opt in (he thanked me after).
They chose the tag “viking” which did well for providing a good mix pf pictures. I have taken to noting as it goes around, when people augment the picture with something not literal, and at least 3 people (group size was 24) did it in this round.
This of course always goes over well, and totally changes the energy level in the room. I like to start with this in other sessions, but it worked good as a bridge from the more presentational part to something more active.
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Next I introduced the Storybox and sent the group out to gather media, then showing them after how to contribute back to it. Again, because we had about 35 minutes, we mostly got to the adding part and not much into the examining/creating part.
Some sneak peaks of media, a lot of people follow the suggestion for a photo of shoes, several in imaginative formations– wouldn’t the future people of the world be able to tell something about life in 2014 from it’s footwear?
Eight Shoe Lineup– a peek nside the Storybox
The mysterious black garbed person
Following a fine lunch in the campus cafe, my afternoon session was the whirl wind tour The ds106 Files: Outbreaks of Infectious and Open Acts of Creativity, an augmentation of the first version spotted a year ago in Alaska
I try to give a sense of the benefit of the distributed/aggregated architecture, the lovely syndication bus, and why we make this choice to have people publish, reflect, and create in the spaces they manage. In other sessions about it as a mode of a Connected Course, I have been trying to make a distinction between how we feel in a room we rent (a hotel) and a room we live in (our own homes).
There was a lot of energy and excitement about the Assignment Bank. I’d like to be able one day to do more with the part we tend to do least with, the ds106 inSPIRE. This was the brilliant concept developed by two student’s in Jim’s class in Spring 2012 — a place for participants to nominate the work of others that have “inspired” them. Fleshed out, you can cultivate a “best of ds106” (or whatever course it is) as picked not by the instructors, but the participants.
I was inspired by a flyer I saw in the hallway:
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“Change the Web: Change the World. Can you make a difference through digital technologies?”
I hope the answer is yes.
It was then off to the Wellington airport for a return flight to Hamilton, quite the bumpy affair with a high windstorm coming in to visit. There was this weird guy looming in the airport, he might be involved in some local industry
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This was a super fast breeze through of Wellington, not giving it nearly the attention worth its attractions. I had hopes of visiting the Reserve Bank Museum of New Zealand where they have a working version of the MONIAC, an analog based computer developed by New Zealander Bill Philipps in the late 1940s.
But we ran out of time.
I will be baccccccccccccck.
