Summaries

Reflections on DS106 process to turn into a habit for work in general.

Dailys – Getting in the Groove

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The daily create may be enough for this summer – maybe it will grow into some projects with others. And there is the summer sessions at UMW to follow and interact with as well.

So I am trying to stay in the groove and make sure I do at least 3 daily creates each week. I think that was also my New Year resolution, but I never hold myself to those anyways since they are usually announced with the partying of NY Eve. 🙂

I am sure I will be doing some video and family story projects this summer. The plus of doing ds106 as well is learning new things to apply to creating those family stories. I have the site up and have added for birthdays etc. My original plan was to do the history – parents, grandparents etc. Much of that is lost and only in artifacts that I have to go over. While very interesting, that history is short-lived with my own kids. Once they get the 100,000 foot view that is enough. I finally figured out it is personal memories and connections that make one want more detail.

Foe example – I found a cassette tape of my sister and grandma having a conversation. It was a school project it sounds like. I remember very well my grandma’s laugh and that was good to hear even with the old tape and lots of noise. The part that didn’t register was her voice. I didn’t remember it the way I was hearing it. Now I am not sure if that is good or bad. But the laugh was very good to hear.

As Alan Levine aka – @cogdog – posted in his blog – capturing memories while we can  is what to do. I missed getting my own parents. A few snips on some old video, but not much. But those 5 seconds here and there is gold to me and bring back so many memories in my mind.

So the direction I am now taking is capturing the memories we are making and not reporting the history. Those who are present now will have them to recall and relive moments and share with their immediate others as they grow older. I guess you could say it is capturing the present as it becomes history not an archival dig. There will be some looking back further, but more likely in the overview and 100,000 foot point of view to add context to today.

What does that have to do with daily creates? Well, each time I do one it improves my skills, makes me think of things differently, reminds me of someone or something. It also shows me how others looked at the prompt and what they created. When doing that I see my content in new ways to present, save, capture and enjoy.

So here are this week’s – and I hope to keep up the pace.

TDC 1592 – A stretch for sure – writing!

tdc1592

 

TDC 1593 – Hoping for some summer collaborations!

 

TDC1595 = The Socks story that just won’t quit!

#TDC1595

TDC 1596 – I found some footage of this flying squirrel. I was actually thinking Rocky from Rocky and Bullwinkle, but liked this one instead. It was kinda scary as the 31 second video was political and has the squirrel flying into the twin towers as a terrorist. The dialog was not in English either – so not sure what it was saying. Hoping using it for a positive spin is better. I used the YouTube GIF plugin – deleted frames to make the file size smaller and added the text layer.

http://konarheim.tumblr.com/post/144754571945/dailycreate-ds106-tdc1596-squirrel-tricks

2015 #ds106 Reflection

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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. 🙂

A collaborative video project – Goldilocks and 3 Bears created from audio and design elements created by others as I had the chance to create and edit. A radio show – The Labryinth Tales  for Prisoner106 as a group. And learning how to mashup by creating my own video during video week.

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

http://gifitup2015.tumblr.com/post/132355357358/gif-it-up-2015-entry-from

http://konarheim.tumblr.com/post/132563686755/gifitup2015-gif-it-up-2015-entry-by-kathy

– 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

NOW I know why @mdvfunes created the 106 bullets! No need to do more now – it has been done – just listen to ds106goodspell and the 106 Bullets. 🙂

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!!

Work day Duds - #western106

 

Odd Week but reflection shows results in #106 Villages

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I haven’t been consistent with weekly summaries. Many of the #ds106 “advice” posts are to start the summary early in the week and add to it instead of waiting until the last day. VERY GOOD ADVICE!

Giving it a go this week….and when done realized I had a productive week even though while going through it I felt like I had slacked.

I seem to have hit a plateau this week or maybe just falling into a realistic pace. I have spent some long hours on things the last few weeks because I could. This week has fewer leisure hours for some reason so not as intense of attack. I also seem to be hitting the midstream wall and content is not coming to me without lots of effort and thought.

Prisoner106 group kinda helped with that – seems the new new new new No. 2 is missing. Talky Tina jumped in and set some things up. From comments of many members – heading into August is a busy time and their time may be shortening as well. Radio week has some effort – not sure the constellations are totally in line – but ds106 surprises so it may fall into place or morph into something else.

This week in review:

Daily Creates: Getting back in the groove of doing the daily creates. They are a great activity and really do keep you sharp and thinking. I have slacked on them with doing more intense projects – so it is good to get back to them

Cowerful Dreams tdc1297

Cowlerful Dreams

Chicken tdc1295

Why did the Chicken cross the road?

and then views through a cutout….. tdc1298

Garden Cut Out

Butterfly Cutout

A challenge from RonaldL and John Johnston on creating a BCingU Gif..

I created a GIF while in my bungalow and waiting for a weekly message from No. 2.

Chicken GIF

Burgeron106 is looking at Native American fairytale and focusing on Animated GIFs – so reading and creating.

Heron and Hummingbird GIFs

Video week in Prisoner106 was a time sucker – I easily forgot how long things take – but I was determined to come up with a result even though I still can’t get totally onboard with the nuances of the story. Iron Maiden saved this week for me. I even have the music on my playlist for exercise time. 🙂 Here is my result of the creation process.

I Resigned and Can’t find a bed that fits….

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village-jim-grooms_John
(this gif by John Johnston will be used to identify my Prisoner106 posts. Look for the Puffin Fairy icon – designed by Rochelle Lockridge for Bugeron106 posts)

Prisoner106 Committee Report Week 1:

During this week I resigned to the village. However I am not a number – I am the Interior Designer/Painter in the Village. I still have tasks and work as part of the Bovine County Fairy Tale Festival PR Team and spending time with Bernie Burgeron LaSusa as she meets and becomes acquainted with her birth family. Cousin Ron and others are assisting in helping find where on the family tree Bernie we belong. We do know Bob is our Uncle. Other Burgerons are welcoming, but having trouble trying to figure out how to refer to us, and we are no

Assimilation week was spent getting to know the lay of the land in the village and to start to meet the other residents. I created my information card successfully after some tries and it was accepted by Number 2 and the committee.KOartVillage_InfoCard

Talk Tina has blown away all the residents of the village with her introduction pieces. I will need some of the time ahead to work on reaching that bar. I did however create some introductions.

Flickr: Here is a shot of me in my Village workroom. This is where I upcycle and create things for bungalows and other parts of the Village to keep everyone functioning as well as having aesthetically pleasing surroundings. Happy residents, are residents who can create, so their environment must make them comfortable and feel at home.

Village Intro Picture

Another part of assimilation week was getting my blog in order. Adding the Prisoner106 badge was not looking good in the last theme and it was time to resign it as well as myself. A new theme was put in place and a few tweaks. The theme was cleaner looking – but still lacked some personal touch and identity.

I decided to make a banner to represent the summer retreats. I am able to communicate outside of the Village- but it seems not with everyone – only Bovine County and those involved with the Fairy Tale Festival. I am thankful I have that bit of flexibility and will guard it well. To identify that fact so other residents and family know that the twists of assignments are intended I created a dual banner. As this is a 106 iteration – it had to have GIF features. This also gave me a chance to work on getting deeper into GIFs. The result is at the top of this page.

Andrew Forgrave –  another resident created an assignment to build a repository of Prisoner106 GIFs. Another opportunity to do a different style of GIFfing.

Fuzzy #6

#6 Thinking

Have You Resigned yet?

You Will….

In order to earn my keep and stay in my bungalow at the Village, my work time with Bovine PR had me working on supplying some audio for one of the Artists in Residence and do some first research into sound effects for a retelling of The Goldilocks and the 3 bears.

I also supported the festival and artists in residence by completing a Bovine Badge for identification as some Village residents are also Artists in Residence.

I am using different icons on my own posts to help friends sort out the complexity – well at least a bit – I can’t even keep it straight on most days and I am in the Village and the Trailer! I was reading Holland fairy tales in the Village Library to keep up with the festival timeline and as a result created the Badge, and worked on some web structures for the newsletter sharing. It was a fail for helping the newsletter, but solved some other issues for the future in posting work myself.

What I enjoy most is traveling through the Village and the County to view the work of others. So many things to see and view. I am meeting new residents and family as well as seeing their unique talents. I have more columns in my Twitter Feed to follow and find that as my primary link to what others are doing. I need to get back into the habit of favoriting the tweets to embed them along with some shout outs in the coming weeks. I have come across the Village Philatelist – Geoffrey Cain, and learned about creating stamps as well as some real help in understanding the show. Bill Smith – Retired Eminence, created a Flickr group for residents to add photos to – super for trying to keep all this organized! Thanks Bill.

The most frustrating piece is not being able to do all that I would like in a week.
The part I have the most difficulty with is getting to view the episodes of the Prisoner and tracking the story. It is like reading – I can watch it (call the words) without any difficulty, but when asked what does it mean – eh? not so on top of it. I am learning more from reading the reflections and analysis of others, and the questions and conversations going on about the story then from independently reviewing. I think I have always been like that – I need a village to learn and the back and forth thinking out loud.

Daily Create:

Famous Art Embedded in Daily Life

http://ds106ra.dio/listenUsually in addition or instead of a daily create, I schedule some Sunday afternoon time (2pmCST and 8pm across the big pond) to listen to DS106Radio. #106goodspell and @dkernohan and @VivienRolfe as I work on creations. The shows always seem to pump up some creativity – so I do consider them my own daily create. Kind of follows the topic of the bullet point in #ds106goodspell today on all the ways out there being used by groups to create daily in some way. And not to miss him….I usually find @cogdog spinning vinyl later in the evening to help me through the late night posting catch up!

I am working on some Bovine County visuals and may or may not get to more Village work so posting early on Sunday. 🙂  My #Burgeron106 Summary  – and I may end up combining them in future weeks -so watch for the icons within the post to help guide you through my thoughts. Plenty of time to relax in the Village again on Monday. See you around.

http://ds106ra.dio/listen

Fail of Webbing Fairy Tale News

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puffintransblogWeb Assignments – Week 1 Summer 2015

Nanalou has a newsletter…….and she wanted it embedded into the family story blog. She used an email service that gave her a good choice of templates and ease, but still very basic. NanaLou went through a lot of hoops to present her information to the rest of the family at the level she is known for – but way too much work on detail things when she could be spending the time on sharing her other talents.

This prompted me to identify this as my web assignment. While it is not telling a story of Holland Fairy Tales – it is a #ds106 tangent of which to pursue. More on the Holland fairy tales later – I did dive into them and enjoyed the tales!

Vertical Response – great free tool, but limited in features – doesn’t print to PDF, doesn’t archive. The work around is to use the View Online link and post it as a text link where ever you want others to access it. Not a bad solution -but I also found that NanaLou did that and the page that comes up is a registration page. This might explain the 50% open rate (which in marketing circles is pretty darn good – usually success is marked at 30%). Vertical Response support tickets had a similar request in its logs and this was the answer:

Jaime (VerticalResponse) 

Hi there Laura,

While we do not generate a link so that you can archive older newsletters on your website, we do have a workaround. In order to generate the link,  you will have to insert the “View Online” link into your email. It is normally added by default. If it is not there, you can add it to a text box by using the “Insert” drop down menu on the right hand side and selecting “Hosted Version Link”. Once you’ve launched the email to your recipients, click on the View Online link and copy the URL in your browser’s address bar. This is the link that you can put onto your website. Please ensure that you are only doing this with launched emails as it will not work with test emails. Feel free to let me know if there is anything else I can do for you!

Regards,

Jaime W.

Verticalresponse Support

The first thing I did was try and find a URL that would go back to the newsletter without having to login. I found one, but also wanted to make sure it did work and just was not accessing because of cache or other things on my machine. I found it was working by using another computer in the house and someone elses profile. I then created a shorter url for the link because it was way too long!! I am not sure if Vertical response stays consistent with its URLs – we will see. Nanalou – I did update the links in your post so that others did not hit dead ends.

The Burgeron site is also using WordPress.org and not a self hosted version so plugins are at the mercy of WP. This made finding solutions more difficult as the subscription is set up to help maintain security and is not as open to plugins.

Tried iFrames – but WP.org scrubs those out and makes it irrelevant. I searched the available widgets and no luck – nothing that would allow embedding another site or html. Suggestions were to create a new page. I tried that and came up with nothing usable.

PDF conversion didn’t work either and is not supported by VerticalResponse.

I have been working around with my Google account for this site so thought I would try for the Burgerons. Using Google Drive and docs is coming along nicely and was worth a shot.

Trying to get the newsletter as formatted with active links proved difficult. I could import and put things in a Google Doc but Copy and paste loses formatting from the template for the newsletter. It also smashed columns together. If it was a little different that would have beennewsembed2en okay – but it was more like a cut and paste that was like spaghetti on a barn – some stuck and some didn’t. It didn’t meet quality criteria.

Even though it didn’t look quite right – I wanted to find out if it would embed and actually work if it was a GDoc. I titled it and then went to File>Publish to Web and chose embed. I copied the code and pasted it into WP – it worked! Great scroll bar and you can also resize the window of the embed in the code for different purposes. Filing that one for sure!

 

It still did not solve Nanalou’s issue. I tried Google slides, and draw – neither accepted the template features where they looked good enough to consider a solution.

I also tried taking the source code from the newsletter and pasting it in as text to see if it would replicate. It added a whole load of text and the newsletter. Might work – but to putzy for a solution.

newsembed  Copying and pasting the newsletter itself added extra lines and table features that would be a bear to go through and delete.

So at this point – I have spent a good amount of screen time and futzing. I have come up with a better handle on using Google for embed into WP and if info is created in Google first to look good, that will be a solution.

Also did come up with the ability to use the links for accessing the Vertical Response newsletter. Creating a standard Newsletter header or graphic to hold the newest link and another going back to an archive of links might be a good solution and still add some visual.

 

Nanalou created a Pinterest page to give a visual for the newsletter. On that path I found this in the support logs. I don’t think it would have saved anytime or hoops – but it is what is available by the tool support.

Hi there Mel.

To better assist you, may I ask what format your poster is in? i.e JPG, GIF, PNG. If you do not know, you can right click on the image and select properties. A window should pop up displaying the file type. As long as it is in one of the image formats I listed above, you should be able to use our Social tool to create a social post. Here are step by step instructions, along with a video tutorial, to walk you through the process: http://helpcenter.verticalresponse.com/articles/VR2/Create-a-Social-Post/

I don’t have a product that came out of this web assignment, but it was time to spend on solution finding and trying new things out within tools and systems so that I can apply.

Holland Week:

Thanks to NanaLou, Cousin Ron, and Sappho with work on Holland fairy tale history and creating. I am at this point on the consumable end of fairy tales over creating them. The resource links of stories has been great to use. I find I read and enjoy them and then remember I was supposed to be looking at how they are constructed, the style and flow etc. Instead – I have been purely enjoying them as a good story.

Reading the stories and seeing what others are creating is also helping in my support work on the Bovine PR Department team. Sappho had mentioned in a post that if Prisoner106 had a badge shouldn’t the Burgeron’s and the Fairy Tale Festival. This took me on the path of creating an animated GIF badge and with the support of the family a usable outcome came out of the efforts. It is great to have others give that gentle push to reach a little farther. Thanks Family!

And while not directly a Holland fairy tale – I did work on walking out of my comfort zone and recording audio for Mama Boo and Christina Hendricks for a remix of the 3 Bears and Goldilocks. It was actually fun and may make the next audio of self be a little easier to add in a product. I also spent some time looking for first sound effects for consideration by the group.

A few daily creates thrown in for some exercising some creative muscles.
TDC1271

One week into the festival summer and it seems everyone is giving one and gaining many. Totally cool!

 

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