Tag Archives: Camp Magic Macguffin

Wrapping Up Some Daily Creativity for Camp

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In an effort to keep pace with Week 2 of DS106‘s Camp Magic Macguffin, I jumped into The Daily Create cycle. It was a busy week, so I only got around to finishing the required three.

Also, I did create a possible logo for my camp bunkhouse, Slaughterhouse 4. We’ll see how my bunk mates like it. We definitely were riffing off the Vonnegut classic, partly because he made a YouTube appearance this week for an assignment and partly because one of our bunk counselors is Ol’ Hatchet Jack who is prone to some grizzly tendencies.

I nicked the likeness of Kurt from designer Nathan Fox, remixed it in Photoshop, and added the crossed hatchets in the background as a tribute to our beloved counselor.

TDC 139 – A Photo of Something that Represents the Moon

Photo: Meditation Representing the Moon

Meditation Representing the Moon: A full moon of foamy head against blackened concrete, including some minor tweaking.

TDC140 – A Picture that Represents Quickness or Motion

Photo: Red Sox - Ortiz Doubles

Red Sox - Ortiz Doubles: Great seats made for a great photo as Ortiz rounds first base. #tdc140

TDC 145 – Draw Bugs Bunny Just Like Chuck Jones

Image: Bugs Bunny Sketch a la Chuck Jones

Bugs Bunny Sketch a la Chuck Jones: With Chuck as my guide, thanks to YouTube, it didn't take long to sketch the wascally wabbit.

A Proposed Logo for Bunkhouse 4

Image: Bunkhouse 4 - Logo

Bunkhouse 4 - Logo: Riffing of Vonnegut, who made a YouTube camp appearance this week.

All in all it was a good week at camp, meeting new campers and getting into the challenge of the creative endeavors.

Diving into the DS106 Pool and Camping Magic Macguffin Style – Part 2

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Watching Michael Wesch‘s lecture “From Knowledgeable to Knowledge-able” (part 1 and part 2) was a great return to some  thought provoking material for me. I had the fortune of meeting Wesch briefly and seeing an earlier version of this lecture a couple of years a go at Alan November’s Building Learning Communities Conference in Boston.

It was the first time I got to go to the conference and Wesch was the whole reason that I fought for my district to send me. I had seen all his videos, read a lot of his work on his blog, and couldn’t wait to see what he would present. He presented what must have been an early version of this talk.

There is something heartrendingly beautiful about his story of spending time in Papua New Guinea and it being the harbinger of everything he knows about the Internet. In watching the video, the irony of his experience is what I continue to find so amazing. I sometimes believe that we live in a time of enormous paradoxes. AT&T used to have an ad campaign with the catchphrase, “In a world full of technology, people make the difference.” And they do. Wesch poignantly highlights this, as he explains how he was curled up on the floor of a remote hut coming to grips with his own identity crisis.

Yet, in true classical story form, it was only in a completely distant, foreign context that he could make the necessary discoveries to return with insight. Much that is old is indeed new again, or perhaps, paradoxically continues to remain new.

Image: Harold and the Purple CrayonOur mediated existences help form and refine our identities. For many of us, the medias we choose to engage are the contexts in which we find ourselves always, perpetually emerging. We can take up the challenge of reading and writing our world into existence, in true Harold fashion with crayon in hand, or we can allow our choices to be dictated to us without even knowing, like the fish who is unaware he lives in water.

To me these are some of the themes at the core of what Wesch describes in the pursuit of Knowledge-ability. The most heartbreaking aspect is that without mindful awareness of our choices and reconciliation of their impact on our identity, we all run the risk of looking back on what we have wrought and hating it, much like some of those individual that “reformed” that small village in Papua New Guinea that Wesch observed.

Diving into the DS106 Pool and Camping Magic Macguffin Style – Part 1

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Image: DS106 Jolly Roger Logo      Image: Camp Magic Macguffin Logo

Already having my own domain and website, as well as nearly all of the requisite social media accounts, completing Week 1 of DS106 – Camp Magic Macguffin was a pretty easy thing to start. The bulk of the first week is all about situating oneself to the Web 2.0 environment in preparation for an exploration of both digital storytelling but also the new media reality in which most of us find ourselves.

Despite all of this, I am already running a little behind the pace, but I didn’t really start in earnest until Thursday, May 24. So I won’t be too hard on myself.

I learned about DS106 during its initial open run. In fact, the last few years I have become endlessly fascinated by Massively Open Online Courses (MOOCs) in general. I have been following the work of some of the pioneers like Alec Couros, George Siemens, Stephen Downes, and Dave Cormier for years. In fact, I am almost positive I discovered the original iteration DS106 through Stephen Downes’ Online Learning Daily.

The main reason why I teach is because I am a confessed learning junkie. I have become a bit of a MOOC junkie too, tracking many different ones, participating in some, floundering often, and slowly but surely getting a stronger sense of how better to self-direct and manage my own path through one. They are definitely not for the faint of heart. Then again maybe they are.

For me, the problem is always the surplus. I desperately want to drink from the firehouse, all the while knowing that is not really a viable possibility. Still, it hasn’t stopped me from trying. With each dive into the stream, however, I have taken a little something from the experience that has helped me the next time.

Another problem has always been the fact that I am perpetually enrolled in at least one professional development course for the credit chase needed to advance my salary where I work. Regardless, I have been getting much better in how I partake in the grand online educational smorgasbord, in spite of the additional course and work loads.

Truth is I love the idea MOOCs and have grown to be even stronger fans of the people who are building them.

So I finally felt it time to jump into the DS106 mix when Magic Camp Macguffin was ready to launch its maiden voyage. Plus, I am working to construct an online digital storytelling course of my own designed for high school students specifically, inspired by the likes of Jim Groom, Alan Levine, and the rest. Thus, there was never a better time for me to start playing too.

More to come…