Open dialogue in the classroom

This is a bit of a reflection on things done in class, how they were done and why these teaching decisions were made.

• creative story telling activities done over a few weeks - one of the students just wrote a blog post about these activities and the impact of these activities to her learning

• making rubrics in class - applied to digital storytelling - conversations while they were doing this - I had four working groups gathered around large chart paper; I wandered from group to group to respond to points, challenges and discussions. This created conversations about having time to practice something before they were evaluated on it - as they had a rubric due for another instructor without having any time or opportunity to explore & experiment in guided practice.

These items, from the eyes and voices of my students are NOT items I would take into the open. These are personal, reflective and focused on my relationship with these students. Not open for open publication. But important for the feeling of openness within the classroom in terms of topics of conversation. 

Why didn't I think of that!

I'm working on adding articles to Zotero this morning and came across a research piece done in the UK about open media classes at Conventry University in the UK. It caught my attention because of one of the names involved in this photography course - Jonathan Worth. I'd gotten to know about his work in open photography through a Virtually Connecting hangout.

As I'm peeking into the site where the course is described and results are outlined, I'm thinking of the connections to my own work in the MDL4000 course. That's when one statement hit me and I'm thinking - why didn't I think of that!

• move from broadcast model to collaborative and connected interactions
• inclusion of open students, working professionals and enthusiastic amateurs in conversations and feedback

When I meet teachers at conferences or talk to them about my course work, the often ask how they could take my course. I never made a connection to offering their participation in the course during the timeframe my own students are doing the course. It would be so easy to build external (outside of Lakehead University spaces) participation if I were to 'offer' this course to others as I teach it internally to the teacher candidates.

The #netNarr course that Alan Levine and Mia Zamora are currently teaching is done just like that! Why didn't I think of that! It may be too late for the MDL4000 course since it's on it's way out and wouldn't be sustainable in it's full year framework. But the 3239CDL course could certainly be opened to working professionals - not as an AQ formatted course since that requires university approval - as an open offering to engage with others in open digital spaces for self directed, self driven learning. I will need to think about this and talk to Mia and Alan to see how they've framed their course to engage others in openly connecting with their students.

Reference

Digital Alchemy and Networked Narratives http://netnarr.arganee.world/ 

McGill, L., & Gray, T. (2015). Open media classes at Coventry University. Jisc Final Evaluation Report 2015. Retrieved from http://comc.loumcgill.co.uk  

Purposeful Play

The application of OPEN learning in my work returned to some purposeful play in the physical classroom this past week. The students are digging into the beginning pre-production phase of their digital storytelling project. This stage includes concept mapping their ideas into a 'story map' using Mindomo. As part of this work we had a period of time of purposeful play in class. The purpose was to create a concept map of their understanding of digital storytelling after reading and discussing this topic. First step - signing up as a 'teacher' so their use of this digital tool can continue into their next placement and beyond. Then code-breaking within the space while completing the task. They immediately shared their findings and how to accomplish elements in the creation of their maps. Some went further to partner in the digital space with another person in the class. Others used the presentation option to extend their learning. Some returned to their readings and discussion notes to make sense of the topic.

The second OPENLY shared purposeful play came from creating radio bumpers for VoiceEd Radio. This was to support the first anniversary radio-thon planned for the following Saturday. The script for the bumpers were pre-written so knowing what to say was eliminated as a barrier. The 10 second message was randomly distributed to pairs of students so they didn't have to 'go it alone'. They could record the message together, take turns, or one individual could be the 'voice' while the other managed the technology. The intention was to add a music intro, as a hook, and multitrack audio production using either Audacity, GarageBand or other audio recording tools. Since this activity was device agnostic and non-tool specific, students could select and apply the tech they had available to them. Knowing that their audience would reach beyond our classroom spaces added an additional purpose to this learning task.

The third purposeful play event was the collection of images to create a video to accompany a song. The song was played in class without seeing the accompanying music video. This was done in order to assist in the visualization of images to support the voice/music. The song lyrics had been collected and imported into a Google spreadsheet, shared openly to the students. They selected a portion of the song to collect and curate images. Then the students went to any of the open, creative commons licensed locations for images (Pixabay, Unsplash, Morguefiles, Flickr CC) to find images for their section of the song. The purpose of this task was to get students into these image warehouses to code break the site mechanisms for image curation. These may or may not become locations for them to apply image collections for their digital story production. The play had purpose - experiences with image selection, script development, directions for film production and sequencing of image URLs.

Purposeful play has a space in any classroom as a way to dip into a topic, learning experience or assignment skill development. It removes barriers and supports students as they learn, build skills and demonstrate their learning in culminating tasks.