Everything that does not have a home, just a big old stinking pile of posts.
cc licensed ( BY NC ND ) flickr photo shared by dmixo6 For open participants in ds106, we can dispense of the entire “I dropped out of another &$*#ing MOOC” because there is nothing to drop out from. No one-pace-for-all ramming speed schedule, no weekly lectures, no multiple guess quizzes. We have a very easy […]
Fresh off the electronic press, dripping with electronic ink and smelling faintly of dittos, my words are in the Jauanry/february 2013 issue of Educause Review in the New Horizons department (yawn, horizons) (oops). Look ma, a citation! ds106: Not a Course, Not Like Any MOOC:
Looking for something different from the current hysteria of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs)? A digital storytelling course started by Jim Groom at the University of Mary Washington (UMW), ds106 was set loose as an open course in January 2011. Yet the UMW catalog does not include such a course. Its actual course designation is CPSC 106 (Computer Science)””a small but telling example of how ds106 plays with and questions the norm.
Most classes in digital storytelling revolve around the personal video narrative form as popularized by the Center for Digital Storytelling. But ds106 storytelling explores the web as a culture, as a media source, and as a place to publish in the open. Not claiming to authoritatively define digital storytelling, ds106 is a constant process of questioning digital storytelling. Is an animated GIF a story? What does it mean to put “fast food” in the hands of Internet pioneers? Why would we mess with the MacGuffin? Is everything a remix? Though this is perhaps simply semantic wordplay, ds106 is not just “on” the web””it is “of” the web.
A few weeks (months?) back, I got an email from former Maricopa collegue Vernon Smith who is the new editor for the column, who asked me to write something for them on ds106. His eye had caught the “It ain’t no silly MOOC” tag I had on the site for a while last semester, when it seemed fun to bait MOOCs. Now? Meh. Yawn.
But I did want to write about the things in ds106 that make it special, unique, in my mind. I was happy to fit in some quotes from former students and open participants. It’s a real skim by, but what can you really do in 1500 words?
Thanks to Teddy Diggs for thorough editing. Now when is someone going to convince her to get in her car and drive north two hours to visit me? I’ve been offering to buy beer…
Here is another story demo for ds106, using my Five Card Flickr Stories site to generate a story from 5 random photos drawn from the Daily Create pool. I still find these a lot of fun. Five Card Story: Oh Brother a The Daily Create story created by CogDog flickr photo by Michael Branson Smith […]
This is a demo of a ds106 assignment for my students to get a taste of telling stories with pictures. The task is to use two different photos from recent Daily Create Photo assignments and tie them together with a story, a sandwich if you will. Where am I? Bad dream? Last thing I remember […]
Have you ever had a pleasant, unexpected surprise happen as a result of having shared something online? I’m building out a new collection of these stories, having done it in 2009, 2010, and 2011. Previously I called these kinds of stories “Amazing”, but I got in a little trouble so now I am re-casting them […]
cc licensed ( BY SD ) flickr photo shared by cogdogblog Computers have feelings usually not expressed. They have hurt, anger, depression, and in this case, inordinate feelings of inferiority. Today’s Daily Create was to make a blue screen of death message using type only. My screen just wants to die and not come back. […]
This cartoon is on a card my sister sent me a few years ago; I have kept it on my refrigerator along with the gallery of dogs past. But I’m not that dog, I’m still at the blogging, April of this year is rolling up to the 10 year mark for CogDogBlog. I’m still figuring […]
I’m looking forward to doing a presentation this Friday at Scottsdale Community College on “Imptov-ing Yourself with Pechaflickr” and am hoping to have a few examples of how this improv tool is being used, be it for conference activities or (better yet) educational activities (I have your example, thanks Todd Conaway). So if you have […]
This week in ds106 I give my students the ultimate bootcamp creative challenge – to figure out how to make an animated GIF. The exact wording is “from a favorite movie” but that’s just to get them thinking about topics.
Since I do the same work, I needed to step up too- I did two quick demos of GIFfing in GIMP in this week’s Open Lab, so for tonight’s masterpiece I wanted to show some techniques I have been using in doing GIFs in Photoshop.
I chose a subject that could reflect what to do when you get into trouble in ds106 – activate the GIF Signal!
This is one where I do some dancing around with Photoshop layers and masking out all but the essential bits. One benefit of doing this is your GIF files get dramatically smaller since they have to store less data. I hope I can reconstruct the steps!
cc licensed ( BY ) flickr photo shared by RickC Opening scene, a frenetic office space, rows of desks of young ambitious clerks on the phone, typing reports, several smoking cigarettes. Young Billy runs into the office of the office manager, clutching a report. Billy: Mr Ritter! I found a violator of our copyright! This […]
