unit summary

Eastside Audio Blitz Week 1- behind

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The week went by quickly and I have fallen into the behind category. My week 6, 7, and spring break I have charted a little differently as an open course learner than the path of the UMW cohorts in #noir106. That has proven more challenging. I really have to set up my own markers and targets.

First of all – the #noir106 cohorts are rockin! Wow – so many great creations in design and audio. And a huge surge in community connectedness. Usually about week 6 in an online course the wall hits you in the face – but this cohort saw a wall and said ” We are going over it!”

The instructor led sections have required everyone to comment on at least 10 others blogs, soundclouds, flikr etc. as a requirement this week and next. I have done that already and haven’t been tracking where I go. I did some shout outs in my summary of unit 5. Since I am not tracking points – I am skipping the listing this summary – but you should see me on the comment pages. 🙂 Sometimes I spend more time reading and learning from those than doing my own assignments. 🙂

Special thanks to the UMW students who did check out my work and offered suggestions and comments.

I spent the first part of this week viewing others posts and work (M-Tu). I then got caught up with rooting for everyone to find a group and get going on their team work. Watching the process was interesting and it was great to see the increase in connectedness and sharing. By then it was late in the week and I was ignoring audio and spent time on design for the audio.

Again – I am working through this learning to become better skilled to create family stories. In week 5, I chose my Dad as my character to focus on for assignments. The other side road I am taking is that I am not part of a group for a radio show. I did find a #4life group that was taking on open course 106 participants, but I wasn’t sure if my life and schedules would allow me to carry my weight in a group.  So I have decided to create an “audio event” independently that will follow most of the radio show specifics. I also am building it around my goal of family stories.

This week I created my Personalized Learning Path in writing to see if that would help me stay focused on track. It does – but only if I go back to it and use it!

Some of the assignments I completed during this week are: (you can click on the links to see the assignment specifics and process)

A logo for Eastside.

Eastside Logo

A poster to promote and give a visual design to the audio event. This took some time, but I really enjoyed it and I learned many new things. I did put out a version when I hit the wall and didn’t know what to do or what missing. That is the great thing about the online community. Within an hour I had messages and suggestions which were enough to get me to look at things differently and acted as a huge boost in pushing me to go back and improve. It is that balance of independence and community that creates higher outcomes and makes the learning fun and satisfying.

EastsideRadioPoster

Theme song for Eastside.

This poster is part of the package for the audio event – but was done as part of week 5-design.

Poster: Minimal Design

This puts me behind the cohorts. My rational is I will be working on things while they are on spring break – so I have 1.5 days for every day they have to get things done.

On to the next unit/week!

 

Visually Consumed – Unit 3 Summary

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So many happenings during this week and unit. As I am connecting with #noir106/#ds106 students I find that I am completely absorbed and consumed by this work and not have it feel like work or exhausting. But I do run out of time!

I am so glad I am now an independent learner who must plan and develop out a learning path and not be doing these tasks and challenges to “make the grade”. #ds106 through a university system has it still needing to keep one foot over the fence in the current education system. However, the format, delivery and process of #ds106 can transform a learner towards independence and personalized learning whether it be as a student or a professional.

The open course framework allows for flexibility, choice and voice, but still provides a well thought foundation for building skills and understanding over the span of the units. Since using social media as a professional (or personal) learning community is an integral part, that there are 3 sections of university students working as classes creates opportunities for learning from a wider group. In order to stay relevant and appreciate what I can gain from these students in my development I need to engage and to follow some of what they are attempting.

The #ds106 model has a general frame of how it approaches skill building. The instructor led sections follow a theme within that framework. Spring 2015 is NOIR. Looking at digital storytelling and building the personal infrastructure skill sets through study and use of NOIR films and stories. I am dabbling in NOIR to have some common experiences and opportunity to learn from others. I am also sticking to some of the headless course assignments and flow to use my theme or context. My reason for embarking on this journey was to build skills and experience to begin to use family content to build digital stories.

Unit 3 – Visual
Assignments

This unit begins to look at photography in storytelling. The open course assignments were to use flickr and do some 5 photo stories – no words. I used my own photos and not random ones from flickr to begin to see what I may have or not have in my content resource. Since I don’t have things scanned or organized yet – it was still limited choice. I used pics that we gathered when my dad passed away for his memorial. (July 2013).

INSERT STORY

From here I created my path by doing some of the assignments from #noir106.

Without my creating a character to build I had to use others for the reference starting point. What’s in My Bag?.

Your purse, bag, packpack, murse, whatever, is your constant companion throughout your adult life. What are the essentials in your bag that get you through the day? Take a picture of the items and detail each of them with a description.

My Bag

Animated GIFs were two other assignments and one an improvement and greater learning on process from Unit 2.

Glitch Art Gif and Say it like Peanut Butter.

output_2sCbtvnightmare3xcf

There was also a Photo Safari of which I accomplished with some actively sought shots and some safari through my photo collections. This method worked as life and weather became constraints under the deadline of happening within the timeframe.

I used a Google slide presentation and not just putting the images in a post or linking to a photo album. I could not find a cat.

Daily Creates Unit3

I attempted to keep up with the students and do at least 3 daily creates this week. Creating a 2048 game board was a challenge as I couldn’t find details on what the purpose of the game was – only that it was addicting and based on math patterns. It was addicting to play the different boards – but I still don’t understand what you are supposed to try to do! I used my donkey planters as the subject.

Planting Asses 2048

The other creates were:

Droodle Call

Liberate Art Cards

 

ds106 Bootcamp Unit 1: The game has started!

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Wow – I have taken the leap and started DS106! I have been wanting to do this for a few years now, but work and family and life was heavy and each time I got close to starting I procrastinated and found a reason not to become involved. What a mistake!

In this first unit I have been welcomed by others – rather quickly – which has been comforting and unnerving at the same time. There is no standing in the back of the room and observing once you add that hashtag to anything you do. The great thing is, this community is welcoming and accepting. The underlying value is respect and that everyone is good at something and everyone stinks at things too. If you don’t share it all, you don’t grow. And as long as you are not doing anything to hurt someone else – try it – you may surprise yourself.

As I watched the videos in the unit, they were a good reminder of many of the things I believe. Art – make it damn it! My background is that I studied to be an art teacher/art therapist in my undergrad program because there was an over abundance of elementary school teachers. I had no classes in high school, no actual art making experience before I entered the program, but they took me anyways as it was new and they needed some students. I was surrounded by “artists” but I didn’t let it get to me. Instead I submersed myself in the community and didn’t worry that my art was not at polished as others. By my senior exhibit my professor who needed to label everyone’s style determined that my art was in line with children and mad men. I wore it as a badge of honor!

Nuggets:

  • #1 Don’t do it for the money or you won’t have anything.
  • #2 If you wait for perfection you will not be successful. Make mistakes, lots of them, and fail forward.
  • #3 READ everything you can get your hands on! Love this – but I am still a scanner – not one to read complete novels. Lost that in my graduate studies in not being able to stick with one thing if it was long. But in this nugget I read a Fast Company article that totally describes what I think every collaborative team should have and why learning is important – plus seems to fit this journey well:

    THE CASE FOR NOT KNOWING WHAT YOU’RE DOING

    FORGET TRYING TO BE AN EXPERT, A BEGINNER’S MIND IS WHAT ALLOWS US TO CREATIVELY MOVE OURSELVES FORWARD. BY

Advice from previous students: 

While most of the advice I read, watched, listened to, was from students in a traditional semester experience it was validating to hear that at times this will feel like lots of work, but staying on course and keeping calm, challenging ones self to establish some habits it becomes easier. Learning is practice. If we don’t practice and practice often it will always be overwhelming. Keeping goals attainable and building upon them. And most of all – ask questions, pay forward, stay calm, and create!

A common piece of advice was to remember to do these summaries and to do them as you are working – not at the last minute. Journaling has never been a strong suit of mine and one I hope to polish during this journey for it to become habit and hopefully learn to be more succinct for myself and any readers as the units move on.

My Accounts:

I actually found I had accounts in many of these places but have not connected or in some cases not used at all! DS106 I can see already is providing me a framework for establishing a presentable way for me to connect and maximize the many attributes of the accounts for creation and communication. Focus and direction to establish a strong foundation in which I can take to the places my mind has visioned. So chasing shiny objects, but with results!

bnkhbair
Me and hubby taking selfies for my niece’s 18th birthday video.

 Who am I? My About Page

What did I learn in this Bootcamp 1 Unit?:

I learned I have learned things in my journey that I have not used to create art. Many digital tools I have explored as part of helping others get started and they did the creating. Now it is my turn to use to create instead of to support the technical side or to only be the muse or encourager. I think if I would have been able to figure this out and have focus, many things could have been different. So mistake one – no regrets – move forward.

The hard part of this unit was in sticking with it and not jumping ahead or doing things part way. Also not to wait for perfection or the perfect prompt. I am learning that feeling uncomfortable is okay and means something is happening that could be good – I just don’t know it yet.

I don’t have direct questions yet. Well maybe – How the hell did you get this organized and so on target that it is still creating the energy it does after its initial run? There is the element of sustainability and scaling and it seems to be part of this? There are lessons here that can apply to other work people do.

What do I dread? – not sure yet – taking everything so far as looking up and not at my shoes.

Still have another Daily Create to accomplish to reach 3 for this unit. I have to admit – these are intimidating. It reminds me of Daily Shoot. Sometimes the prompt connects immediately, sometimes it doesn’t bring any thoughts to mind, sometimes it brings to many ideas! I did look at the submissions of others- that was even more overwhelming until I realized some take it beyond the quick create and turn it into an actual assignment instead of just getting the creative juices flowing. As I am in Open DS106 I may go back to past Daily Create prompts and make attempts in order to establish a closer to daily habit. The real time prompts will be better for community building, but also could be a show stopper until I have wider variety of modalities in my practice bag.

Here are my first two. (or use the nav to Daily Create Section)

IMG_8901 Daily Create 

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