While I have been busy with other life things – I still keep a finger on the pulse of #ds106. Mariana Funes had a birthday this week. The ds106 Shrink on the couch gives abundantly of her time, support and attention to all those in who travel #ds106. The #tdc1499 daily create was to honor her birthday with a gif.
I chose a dog and also changing the color span. Mariana is a whiz at creating artsy minimal gifs and a dog lover.
I love the outcome and now that I have done a low color GIF may have found a new obsession.
I am a true believer and #4life fan of #ds106 spirit and connection. Just adding another shout out and reach to round up anyone who is interested in some art making and learning fun.
#western106 begins on January 11, 2016 officially, but like many #ds106 adventures timelines are only there to help one organize and to facilitate connections. You are in charge of you and your own learning.
There has been a flux of activity already in anticipation – even that @jimgroom guy is shootin out awesome stuff in #ds106 style. Scout out the traveler blog list as it grows and see who else is riding along. Then add yourself!
I am encouraging anyone who has ever thought they might like to jump into #ds106 to do so now in #western106. Don’t let the activity of #4life bulls scare you away with some of their fancy creations and deep reflections – they do that because they want too and sharing is the new actual – this ain’t no shoot out or competition (well there may be some along the way just fer fun). Some of them just been practicin more out in the back 40 longer, but can always learn new tricks from the colts. This wagon train is stronger and will travel farther with as many different travelers that join on. This is the ultimate time to become a part of a diverse community AND to share and contribute. When you bring together a wide range of skills, experiences, and viewpoints in one focus the wealth and richness is exponential!
EVERYONE GAINS! If y’all scratchin’ yer head on what is this – start here.
As #western106 is saddlin’ up folks on the range have already been yammerin’ and talkin’ about media protrayals, history, inequities on the serious side of life. But also been playin’ and havin fun with creatin on the lighter side.
@cogdog – Alan Levine is a man with no course and is ridin’ as scout and leading the posse in focus. If you are a kindly sort of cowpoke – keep an eye out for buying him a drink at the saloon for his efforts.
@cogdog has set up a ranch and bunkhouse for gathering and sharing that makes creating together as easy as shootin fish in a barrel. The Western106 Ranch is a great place for bein schooled in how to ds106 create and new folk fresh on the western trail will get their sites in place for some sharp shootin.
As ds106 seems to create #4life members those who are Looking Fer Trouble are meetin up at the 106 Outlaws with Wild Toady. This gang may not be present in some of the Blog riding camp round ups – but will be creating and adding to Ranch work of #western106 along the hills.
Hitchin’ up on the trail will be @phb256 Paul Bond and his UMW one room schoolhouse for more creating and collaboration. And if that ain’t enough – @cogdog is co-wrangling a herd at Universad Sagrado Corazon with Antonio Vantaggiati that will hitch up to the wagon train in February2016.
If ya ever wanted to be a cowpoke, poke fun at cowfolk, or preach n’ teach about the horrors of the past – while you create art western style learning a heap of digital skills, history and life load up that wagon and saddle up!
See you on the range and in the bunkhouse!
What are you waiting for.
Part of my interest in #ds106 was the opportunity to create and to learn from others while I was improving my own skills and developing my learning path to create family memories. I started the journey in January 2015. The first months were following the open course framework and tagging along with the UMW #noir106 learning. Both provided guidance, community and challenges.
Connecting and learning from the traditional college for credit cohort was energy. A multi-generational and multi-experienced group to learn from and view work. @mburtis, @phb256, @jimgroom – provided entertainment, guidance and plenty of challenges. The student groups – well lets just say I made some new friends and continue to follow their growth and passions.
The other tangent was the open course. Wow! Joining the G+ Community connected me to others. @RonaldL, @johnjohnston, @mdvfunes, @rockylou22, @janweb3, @sandramardene, @annacow, the #burgeron106, @iamtalkytina, @christinahendricks and MANY more. Not everyone posts- but many read and follow. And at times you will see a post from someone who feels it is time to jump in.
Summer came and #prisoner106 and the #burgeron106 Bovine County Fairy Tale Festival came about. MORE connects and people to collaborate with and create alongside. My GIF skills were put to the challenges along with video and audio. Seeing the #prisoner106 group had a badge, I connected contributions of the #burgeron106 group and created a badge for the group. 🙂
While all this was going on – Sunday afternoons CST would bring #ds106goodspell on DS106 Radio. Tweeting along with others during the live broadcast by John Johnston and Mariana Funes. Some weeks would also lead into David Kernohan and Viv Rolfe doing a live broadcast right after – two great musicians, outstanding academics and really neat people – and Spike the dog too!. And many a late night listening to ds106 radio Vinyl Tracks with @cogdog Alan Levine.
The Daily Create evolved into The Daily. A great way to stay in the create mode. I haven’t been as diligent in following through with doing daily, but do read it each day. I have created daily – but not always from the prompts. I KNOW sharing keeps things vibrant, and sharing in a like create experience builds connections, skills, and community, as well as making sure one is tethered to support. So my resolution is to read/respond each day and make at least 3x a week for 2016.
Fall 2015 – Tales of ds106 ran at UMW and I dipped my mouse a few times, but fell behind. The group did not tweet as much which is my primary way of tracking activity of ds106. Other groups were creating and I along with them. Alan Levine was a keynote for the K12 Online conference and put out a call for submissions of content for him to meld into his presentation as examples. This provided the opportunity to take some work from the summer to another level by putting audio to video and I contributed Ds106 and the Ed Administrator.
Other fall creating was in GifItUP2015. I was WAY out of my league. But what I have learned most about this online world is that you may think you have 1M people looking at your stuff – but you need and are happy if there is one – so why not? There are no body clues, no eye contact, no way to connect unless you put things out there. If you put things out that are not so great or maybe not too polished – chances are no one saw them anyways – BUT maybe someone did and now they understand or see that you did not get sucked into a black hole and fall apart, giving them the courage to reach out or share. Share often, share good, share not so good – be human. I digress – the GifitUP was such a joy and frustration. I started – got stumped – stopped. And then someone in the community would do something or comment and my interest and ability to focus again would come back. I created 3 and submitted 2
– I am personally pleased. I am also even more amazed at the creations and have the bug to create more.
I have learned many things.
Videos need to be 5 minutes or less if you want others to view.
Design is essential and FUN!
keeping track of your personas, your stories, and being you can get confusing
connecting is essential
taking risks and sharing is of most importance
play nice and appreciate others viewpoints and passions
audio takes longer than you think – but is key
you are your worst enemy. Make art – have fun. There are times when you need to be serious and deep, but many more times when being on the edge and silly will get you into new places that will push you further. JUMP!
Tweet often
Share more
Supporting others will build your own skills
OMG – going thru the same stage as @mvdfunes of at the end of her headless13 cohort
So much created and done this year. Even more the work of others viewed and admired. You can look thru the blog archives, and the links to Flickr, YouTube, Soundcloud , My GIFs on Tumblr, etc. on your own (more links in footer) – I won’t repost it all here. 😉
And if you haven’t yet jumped into ds106 – WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR???
Thanks to so many and all who make this a great adventure. On to #Western106 and #outlaws106 in 2016 YEE-HAW!!
I have been in this online world since 1993. I can actually find footprints back as far as 1991 – although those are somewhat limited and not as available anymore.
As I have gone through the growth of digital media and sharing things of course have changed. At first it was easy to maintain personal and business info, then flowed into having two separate identities. How many of you had 2 or 3 “cell phones” because of having to keep work and personal separate for privacy and billing purposes?
The the timeframe of it is who you are so it is all together.
Then comes the time where you become like the character Sybil (1980’s character) and not only have business, personal, professional, but also alter identities and characters!
Part of my decisions in how I maintain info was based on “how to maintain info”. So for the most part I am me – one identity mostly konarheim in everything I do online.
Now that I have joined the ds106 club and improving my skills and learning all sorts of new neat stuff that I am applying to family digital stories I am finding that I do need to somehow protect my family in some ways. I know it can’t be 100% but some protocols do need to be in place.
The first challenge is photos. I have 40K of digital photos from 1998 to present that are now in the cloud for backup and family access. To make them available without too many issues they are on Flickr. But they are under my konarheim account which I have used for years as my social photo account. To move all the photos now would be insane. So my decision at this point is to use a second account as my social account. Had I thought sooner, I would have created the second account for family only – but too late for that now without investment of money, lots of time and headaches.
Some of my issues come from jumping on board early or using tools available – as they always will improve and evolve. I don’ t regret those decisions. I fully understand nothing stays the same and longevity means messy.
So just a warning – that as I change over there may be broken links and missing files and if I catch them I will fix.
If you have any great management ideas – I’d love to hear them.
As I am cleaning up historical I am also thinking of how to organize and where to store present forward. Knowing full well it will be the best informed decision of today and undoubtedly can be improved upon when the next new things pop up tomorrow.
Loose ends getting tied up – well at least some in this game of life.
When I started going through the archives for the GIFItUp2015 I had bookmarked this Toulouse Lautrec poster as a possible subject to GIF. I have always liked the style of Lautrec and I could see the confetti flying. I just wasn’t sure how to do it. I need to remember that GIFs allow for the eye and brain to fill in the “in-between” and every hair of movement isn’t necessary. The mind is a wonderful and amazing thing.
I thought Puppet warp would be the way to go – as now that I tried it I think I should use it for everything. WRONG. After many attempts it turned out to get this to work I needed to scale back and get simple. A frame with eliminating some of the hands, and then adding the confetti and words in a waterfall motion down the page. I used the pencil tool and the dry brush setting for the confetti sections.
A little more care could have gone into removing the center for work. I used the clone tool -but didn’t attend to all the gradations in color and one frame is quite a bit lighter and sort of glitches out. My goal was to see the confetti fly and finish a vision to an outcome. I will save it for another day and tweak when the time is right.
