623 Posts Tagged "ds106"

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Riff-o-GIF-o-Glasses

Riffing Todd Conaway’s Riff of David Kernohan’s MOOCs Are People Poster: Sneak preview of tomorrows presentation #designassignment666 #ds106 pic.twitter.com/EYXodAGy — David Kernohan (@dkernohan) February 13, 2013 We riff a riff a gif! Leading the riot bus! Rocking the streets of London mayhem! Why? Because we can. And it’s a ds106 Riff a Gif assignment

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#nightAtORD

Two flavors of this story, a series of comic renderings (done via the Halftone iPhone app) or an extended storify. [View the story “#nightAtORD” on Storify] A few thoughts. The whole ideas seemed like a fun way to pass the time via tweets, photos, some audio. It actually is an fascinating experience to observe the […]

Photography

Thirds in Your Photographs

This week in ds106, my class starts a week of looking at visual storytelling, primarily in working with their own photographs. For me, this is some of my favorite stuff since I love taking photos. I’d like them all to get better at taking interesting photos, moving from snapshot mentality to be composing in their […]

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GIFing the Silent Ones

angel-judged

Angela, in dire need to get medicine for her dying mother, makes some unwise decision on the streets of Naples on how to get the 20 lire- the opening bit of the 1929 silent film, Street Angel. I’m watching this movie, well at least the first bit, as part of the Coursera open course on The Language of Hollywood: Storytelling, Sound, and Color.

In the scene above, she is sentenced by judges who don’t seem to care a whole lot about her or her story, she’s just another on a treadmill, and the guard who brought her in escorts her out. It’s a nice full cycle, perfect for beng GIFfed

Given my previous track record of less than one week duration in Coursera classes, I had already let most of the week slip by before showing up for class. I cannot say I am thrilled at the courser design. The first week has 5 “mini-lectures” each about 15 minutes, in which the professor mainly tells me things I could much more efficiently read on my own. Then he reads to us from a book.

Ouch.

And then there was the first quiz. I might have busted the honor code here, but frankly this is a joke, insult, or just plain _______.

Frankly, I just skipped this question just to screw up their analytics.

But really, the five week course format is:

  • Lecture video, with brainless quizzes.
  • We watch a movie.
  • Followup Lecture
  • Final multiple choice quiz, if I can squeak a 70%, I get a certificate. Or a ribbon. Or a sticker with a rabbit on it.

If this is the best design Coursera has going, I don’t see how higher education, broken or rotten tree or whatever, even has a worry. I would be embarrassed to paint this as the triggering disturbance sending tsunamis of change out.

But I digress.

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E.T. MOOC

Inspired by tonight’s #etmooc live animated GIF variety show from Jim Groom, Tom Woodward, Michael Branson-Smith, and Brian Lamb, I could not help but stay up later than advisable making a GIF. It’s a break in the action from grading. No, it’s just like an idea that gets in your brain, and will not stop […]

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The Bavatag Repairman

cc licensed ( BY NC SD ) flickr photo shared by NoiseProfessor This still cracks me up, and I had rustling around my iMovie a certain comercial that I wanted to mashup, so here it is, featuring the lonliest edtech repairman (note one f-bomb in the audio).

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Author, Author, Me? Are You Talking to Me?

educause

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…