This video is one I'm sure many of seen as it is destined to go viral if it already hasn't. I first saw it on twitter and since have watched it at least 7 times showing it to all members of my family who each watch with smiles and joy as they watch a little boy be a little boy who's enamored with play and science and creating an experience for others to enjoy.  I don't want you to miss it. 

Caine's Arcade from Nirvan Mullick on Vimeo.

So many lessons to be learned, so much to appreciate. The lost art of boredom, trial and error, giving to others and let's not forget the filmmaker here who tells a wonderful story and then lavishes a beautiful gift for the boy by bringing him customers and attention which culminates with, 

After the flashmob, at the end of the day as Caine and his dad drove home, Caine turned to his dad and said, “Dad, this was the best day of my whole life.”

​Yes, the best day. Seems to me we should be able to create more "best days" for the people in our lives. 

Creating a composition video is very rewarding for me and my family. While the photos are mine and represent the world as I saw it, it's a great way to see the past year and remember events and moments we shared and experienced together.  Many of the images have a specific story and memory. Others are representative of the beauty I see around me. Certainly the addition of HDR and other image enhancements add even more awe to the world around me.  A quick scan of the various subjects shows the following results:

• Family: 86 photos
• Videos: 44
• Friends: 40
• Dogs: 38 (of particular note, 14 of those featured Rue in some type of weird sleeping position)
• Sky: 32 (likely do do the HDR app but I seemed to be sky watching more than ever)
• Me: 30 (I need to work at getting that number down)
• Golf: 28 (I think that's down from last year. I need to play more courses)

Posting photos online continue to add so much to the experience. People have shared many of these moments with me both in person and virtually. We see the collection of these images to tell rich stories of one another and I'm happy to share some of my family and life with the world. 

Technically this video was pretty easy to create. I used iMovie instead of Final Cut Express. I simply brought in all photos I had tagged with 365/11. I cross referenced them with flickr and discovered a few errors. Unlike in past years, I didn't painstakingly go through each month to insure every day was represented. I'm sure there are a few days missing. Not because I didn't take a photo but because I didn't tag them properly. Big deal. Photos are set to 5 second and fit to frame by default. After adding music I tend to view and trim accordingly. Pictures of little meaning or content tend to get cut down to 3.5 or 4 seconds. Photos that have some story or object of significance seem better suited at times to using the Ken Burns effect. I'm not sure I always get it right but discreet pan and zoom can be effective. That's why I don't want to use it as the default. Choosing which photos need or benefit from that effect is intentional. I hope that comes through. I finish with a couple of songs from my daughter which I did in 2009 as well. I tried to make some smooth transitions between the end of songs and beginnings which required some additional adjustments.  

Anyway, it's meaningful to me. and easy enough to share with you. I'm Maybe you'll recall some of the photos, maybe not. Maybe you make an appearance in some, maybe you don't. Maybe you've got 30 minutes to watch it, maybe you don't.

Having done my share of workshops, I recognize it's challenging to spend a half day or full day with strangers and provide a meaningful learning experience. Most workshops I've attended usually consist of someone giving some type of initial presentation followed by a series of table talks from handouts; read this and respond, think, pair share, and so on. Often embedded in these events are things I call "cutesy activities". Something like, find someone you don't know and interview them about blah, blah, blah. I might not be articulating this well but all I know is that half the people in the room hate it. I'm usually the one that hates it. I'm not invested in the conversation and it always seems contrived. 

Not that I've figured it all out but I've been extremely cognizant of not doing those things at my workshops. If I think I'm close to broaching the "cutesy" zone, I'll make participants fully aware of my concerns and invite them to pass if it seems like that to them. 

I have a pretty simple formula I try to use in my workshops. 

1. Give participants early success. Particularly if it involves technology, which obviously mine are, insure people can leave with a new skill or idea. Even if it's small. 

2. Allow for deep conversation and storytelling. I'm not interested in spending 2 or more hours if all we do is talk tools. There has to be an opportunity for people to tell their own stories and push themselves with new ideas and insights from me and from each other

3. Wrap it all in fun. Set a tone early that laughing and joyful learner is going to be embedded in everything. 

So with that premise, here's a wonderful learning activity that uses all those pieces. I call it the Karaoke Presentation. 

One question I've used that is useful for any educator is to delve deep into the question, "What is Learning?". Based on my recent project with my students, I ask participants to take a recent concept or skill they are learning and to examine various facets of the experience. I'll offer them these questions as prompts:

How do you learn? Use specific examples

• What’s the most difficult thing you learned?
• Are you modeling or sharing your learning in any way?
• Do your students see you learn?
• How is learning a skill different than abstract learning or personal growth
• Was it a lot of reading, was it largely practicing?
• Where am I finding resources?
• What specific things do I find easy, what is more difficult?
• What do I think I might be able to accomplish before my next reflection?
• What or who provides me with the best instruction?
• Does it remind you of a past learning experience?
• Where and when is the best time for me to learn? Describe and consider environment.
• What do I admire about those who have mastered this skill? Who are these people?
• Is there a particular learning style I use more than another?

Depending on the room configuration and participants, this conversation can happen in various ways. The key is that everyone is asked to think deeply about what it means to learn. As educators it's kind of essential we have a better handle on this question. I know that Will Richardson has been asking and collecting responses of folks in his workshops. My efforts here is to have everyone take the conversation to a place they don't often go.  

At some point, usually before hand we discuss the power of using visuals to tell stories. After the conversation about learning, I'll have participants find an image using compfight that illustrates a attitude or feeling around their personal learning.  We explore the dynamics of searching for images as opposed to a google search. For many, finding images that are not literal is a new experience. Add to that a little introduction to Creative Commons and this itself is a great learning opportunity. 

I've had many participants of late with ipads so I've used software like Fotolr or PhotoPad to bring in images and add text. If they're using their laptop we use Picnik or any software they prefer as long as they can add text. This is also a great opportunity to discuss design.

After they create their images i have the email their work to me. Inside these apps or with Picnik, it's a straightforward process. The simplicity and the ability to create something meaningful and useful accomplishes my first goal of easy success. I open their images on my ipad and simply choose "Save Images". They are automatically placed in my photostream. I have my slideshow settings to last for 20 seconds. As the emails are coming in I tell participants that they we will be building a joint presentation and the each person will be responsible for a 20 second presentation on "What is Learning?"  I've done this with up to 50 people. As long as you have reasonable wireless, this works extremely well. 

Once you have all or most of the submissions, you simply start the slideshow. It's interesting how some people prepare by writing out a word for word script, some write out a few key points, others just do it off the cuff. Either way, it's a great experience. Laughing at the silence, rushing through your 20 seconds or listening in awe of someone's lucid thoughts, it's a powerful way to synthesize the group's thinking as well as give them a tangible experience using visuals and their technology to tell stories. And up until this point, I've watched carefully to insure this doesn't turn into cutesy. If I cross that line, I'll scrap it. 

This is a clip from some administrators I worked with in Edmonton. 

If the video doesn't play in your browser, try this. 

I like design and I like making slides. We know that images can increase recall and understanding. You don't have to agree and this post isn't so much about convincing you of that as it is about the wonderful ways in which collaboration and push back can happen online and actually make things better. 

I've been thinking about the phrase which I have come to dislike, "it's not about the technology" I wanted to capture that idea in an image and began thinking about the way musicians use their instruments. Trying to find a name of someone who would be most recognizable I chose Yo Yo Ma. You don't have to acknowledge if you've never heard of him before because the image I found tells you all you need to know about his love of music and the cello. 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/worldeconomicforum/2297224410

​So I began with this:

After I posted it to flickr, Darren chimed in with this suggestion:

Try using a brown similar to the cello instead of yellow. You can use the colour picker in Keynote to do that.

Love the pic, and the quote.

I tried that and responded:

Tried your advice Darren but the brown was too dark, not enough contrast with the background. I used the cello colour for the outline though. I think it's better this way though. Thanks for the feedback. I'll take more if you have it.

I like this. Looks better. Are you using two different fonts? I think I'd stick with one; there's something about the font used in the smaller text that clashes with the larger font.

Fair enough and wise. I tried again.

Darren continued to work at making it better,

Ooo, liking that better; wonder how it looks without white outline of the brown text. Maybe no outline but keep shadow? No shadow?

I played a little with the kerning and positioning until I had it somewhat better.

 Darren Draper joined our conversation with his own ideas. 

Outlined text helps, but a solid bg on the photo would make it stronger. 

Darren then went off and made this:

None of us are graphic designers and will all admit our amateur approach to design. However we all three understand that it does matter and we also enjoy the process. But also the collaboration, the push back and willingness to go back, edit and revise lead to a better product. We joked later about starting a Fix My Slide meme. I don't know about that but I do think there's some simple ideas here for you and your students to seek feedback and find ways to learn with others without the limitations of geography and time. 

Perhaps my greatest accomplishment this summer is that I did a lot of nothing. My July was unusually quiet, void of the summer gigs at conferences that have kept me in presenter and work mode. Outside of my PLP commitments, I played a lot of golf and took the odd nap, read a little, wrote very little and hung out with family and friends. I needed that. 

In the early part of the month I took part in an unique event called Unplugd. As part of the organizing committee, it was a year long process that finally came to fruition over the long weekend. For me it was a bit odd as I went from doing nothing to being placed with some pretty incredible and passionate folks ready to work, share, think and play. As soon as the event ended, I went right back into vacation mode and had little time to really reflect. I'm not even sure I'm ready yet. There was and is much to process. Many have already written some great personal reflections. 

As I prepare to begin a new year I'm also going to be presenting at the ABEL Summer Institute. I playing with some old ideas and exploring a few new ones too. That's pretty much the mindset I'll have entering the new year at both Prairie South, my day job and teaching pre-service teachers at the University of Regina, my night job. I'm slowly getting back into my RSS reader and really beginning to think deeply again. Tonight two posts have me thinking. Bud writes a wonderful little pep talk to teachers as they begin the new year. My favorite part:

Be an expert when you need to be. Be a learner always. You are probably the most experienced learner in your classroom. But don’t assume you’re the most knowledgeable person or object. If you’ve a computer handy, then you’re not. Embrace that. Relationships and mentoring cannot be outsourced or Googled. They take time and genuine concern.

That's gold. Read it again and tell me that's not gold. 

The second thing I read tonight was Hugh MacLeod's post about quitting Twitter and Facebook to focus on blogging. What I think is important for me is both the emphasis on doing something that's hard and owning it. You see, writing this post is much more difficult for me than cranking out 20 tweets. I'm not so quick to discount twitter as distracting and useless. I've advocated the opposite many times. But I do think the balance needs to be watch carefully and for me the balance needs to shift here. This is where I do my most meaningful work. The comments you leave me both agreeing and at times disagreeing are gold for me. This is my space to tell stories, and "stories is all we are" I think it's a much richer space to tell stories and besides I own these stories and this space. I pay for it and it's worth it. Bud's post that I shared with you is 3 years old. He owns it. He wrote and first posted it to his blog. Not twitter, not Facebook but HIS BLOG. That's kind of a big deal. You need a place for your stuff. Twitter is like a neighbourhood bar. You might want to visit but it's kind of an icky and awkward place to live.  I'd love to come hang out where you have stuff and tell stories. You'd be surprised how many others would too. 

​So my summer of nothing is winding down. It's been a great summer. I hope you take some time to read both the posts I mentioned. I also hope, if you haven't a place to tell your stories that you find one. And don't tell me you don't have any to tell because that's all we are….stories. 

​Photo by: charbeck 10 http://www.flickr.com/photos/23046603@N00/6023520691/

I've been a big fan of both podcasting and audio books for several years. In particular This American Life is among my favorite. Wonderful storytelling combined with well designed audio make it a highly compelling format. Audio design is one area, I personally need to explore more. In the same way that it may be easy to record and upload 5 minutes of video that is of little value, the same can be done with audio. 

Sound is a wonderful thing. 

I never knew what a foley artist was. 

So for DS 106, we were invited to play with audio. Here are my efforts.

First I captured my Uncle Bill telling me how he ended up in veterinarian college. I don't get to see him very often but happened to spend a day with him earlier this week before ITSC. I turned on my italk app and was glad I did. Bill, if you're listening, hope you're okay with me posting it. For the rest of you, does this story resonate as compelling or is it simply that way for me because he's my uncle?

The second audio is simply a version of 5 card story or my own 5X5 video formats. Alan has much better sound and more interesting sound but I like this idea and am going to have to play some more. 

1. CNN during breakfast

2. Standing outside my Dad's condo
3. In the car, driving to the golf course
4. My Dad hitting the ball and complaining
5. Me wandering in the woods, looking for mine.

That become the intro to this video I put together along with the help of about 75 others.

The Big Picture Learning Stuff

While at first glance it may be seen as simply fun, silly and maybe a wee bit cool but I think there's something more here. Lots of lessons perhaps around being connected may be extracted but I'm thinking about Shirky's notion of Cognitive Surplus.

These 75 people contributed about 5-60 seconds of video. While I know that it may have been a little more time the idea that cumulative of all this content could be pieced together for something of value and meaning is non-trivial.

I wonder if the more difficult the question the greater the strength and/or structure of the organizing principle required to make the results intelligible/useful? Meredith Stewart

in this case, Alec is a compelling personality that has made huge contributions to many. I could have easily found another 75 people and likely could have made 10 videos given his network. But we can certainly come up with compelling ideas that would benefit greatly from the contributions of others. This is why having and building a network, while not easy and magic, offers new possibilities for learning and change.

The Little Picture Technical Stuff

A few people have asked about how I put this all together so here goes:

1. Jon Becker sends out a tweet suggesting I do something for Alec

2. I create this google form.

3. I waited until I had about 70 entries. I'm not sure why I choose that number because as it turned out I had to do some fancy stickhandling to make everyone;s part fit.

4. I send out this email:

5. I was careful not to ask people to submit in a specific format since it may be another barrier for some. As entries came in I used MPEG StreamClip to convert any weird files (Windows type files) I used dropittomedropittome.com for people to send their video clips. This is linked to my dropbox account and was a very efficient way to gather the clips. They ranged in size from 989k to 70MB. Dropittome has a limit of 75 MB which was sufficient even for HD submissions of only a few seconds.

6. I began inserting video as it came in except for the parts with multiple video.

7. By Saturday night I had most of the videos and went at creating the final product in Final Cut Express.

8. I again used MPEG Streamclip to take the full Quicktime video to a more youtube friendly mp4 format.

That's it. I'd really like some more thoughts on the big picture part but am happy to answer questions or discuss the little picture part too.

I grabbed a few songs and created this playlist.

Oh! The Places You’ll Go!
by Dr. Seuss

Congratulations!
Today is your day.
You’re off to Great Places!
You’re off and away!

A few months ago my boss asked me to find a way to capture the many successes and initiatives that we've been involved with in our school district since 2006. We have an internal sense of the stuff we've done but haven't told the story in a way that is easy to tell and easy to update. In January I joined the ds106 course on digital storytelling. Time to double dip. 

I've been using Alan's 50 Ways in more than 50 ways in my work both at Prairie South and in teaching undergrads at the University of Regina. Upon turning people lose on these 50+ways they often showcase these tools in ways I hadn't considered. One of my students used a site called Dipity to showcase her learning journey in the class. That idea stuck with me and when I was asked to showcase the work of our IT department, I thought it would a great way to do so. As far as DS106, I've used a fair number of these tools in the past. I generally tell folks you'll find a few favourites and utilize them in multiple ways. That sometimes can be a problem as people take the hammer approach and use one tool to do too many things. In this case the timeline tool makes wonderful sense. There's still more to add but you get the idea. 

All the video and photos were taken using my iphone4 and the cartoon downloaded from Youtube using pwnyoutube. I didn't write out a script, which is fairly obvious. I did have to retake the narration about 4 times until it was somewhat coherent. Looking forward to see what others create. 

Last year I challenged myself to name all my photos of the day with a one word title and not repeating a word in the process. That was somewhat difficult but kept things interesting. The use of the daily shoot has been very useful for some, but I only use it sparingly since my priority is capturing our lives. For whatever reason, I decided that for 2010, I would attach a song to every photo of the day. That was not only challenging but time consuming and maybe even bordering on stupid. The stupid part comes from the fact that I know that at the end of the year, I take my photos and compile them into a video. (see 2008 and 2009) The video is something as a family we treasure more than any year end newsletter or summary could ever provide. The mix of significant, trivial and eventful photos truly give a sense of a year. The storytelling is indeed personal and leads to more stories that exist behind many images. In the past I've simply brought the images into imovie and added a soundtrack. Still it was a fair bit of work but nothing like I went through this year. I knew this as I began in January and intended to create a monthly video which I did for the first three months. Then I fizzled out and relinquished using a good part of my Christmas vacation to work on the project. 

So after approximately 24 hours of work, it's complete. 

A couple of footnotes:

• There are not exactly 365 photos. I cross check my flickr photos and iphoto library and invariably miss a day or so a month, and some months have an extra photo. As you can see it's not as precise as one would assume. I think I have about 359 photos. The past 2 years I spent time making sure I hadn't missed. 
• I unintentionally used the same song twice on 2 occasions. 
• Many of the songs won't make sense. Some of the songs are inside jokes/stories or just lame efforts as I ran out of creative juices. 
• I use Audacity to cut the songs, imovie to create the monthly videos and Final Cut Express to compile it. I did use FCE to edit February and so you may see a few different motion paths. 
• I used my iphone more than ever this year. Particularly after I upgraded to the iphone 4, it does an excellent job. When I discovered HDR, i went a little nuts for a while. Thus the higher number of sky/landscape images this year. 
• Continuing my association with others doing the same project is essential. i love seeing their photos from both a technical standpoint as well as a personal one. I even created a twitter account to feed all their photos there. I never post to it, only subscribe and have my contacts feed into it. 

I don't expect anyone to take 45 minutes and essentially watch a home movie but perhaps there's some inspiration, creativity you can use in the future even if you just watch parts of it. It's quite a visual and auditory onslaught I must admit. Not sure it's very artful but certainly unique. 

 I'm never likely to do this again but it did provide some creative juice for me throughout the year. I'm still thinking about a theme for 2011. Guaranteed it won't be this taxing. 

 Following some of the advice from Jabiz, I used a similar approach but avoided the Photoshop step. Instead, here's my version:

1. Find a clip on Youtube

2. Using QuickTime Pro, trim the portion you want to use. (I used about 2 seconds)

3. Export as: Image Sequence

4. Found this site to upload about 8 images. I had to do it twice. The first time it was too slow. It still is a bit slow.

The others I've seen so far look way better than this. I hope they share their process. 

This could be fun.  You can play too. 

I remember back in the 1990's learning to create webpages using Dreamweaver, when we wanted to insure that a particular font was consistent across browsers and individual machines, we had to convert text to images. The first time I did this or was made aware of this it took a bit to wrap my head around the idea that the text was not really text but was actually a graphic.

In reality this isn't a totally new phenomenon. Poets have been using the shape of text as an integral part of their poems for centuries. E. E. Cummings for example used typography to "paint a picture" with many of his works. Today we view typography very differently thanks to our personal computers. The simple fact that we quickly recognize most fonts and have very strong feelings about some, suggest that text is no longer simply symbols that combine to form words but in a digital format can have added emotion and meaning.

My own work within my district often focuses on shifting notions of literacy that need to include a variety of media. Digital Storytelling becomes a major emphasis for helping teachers move beyond text and provide students with a balanced notion of what it means to be literate. 

This summer I was fortunate to share some of my beliefs, experiences and exploration into this at a number of conferences and shared a section I called "More than Words" where I demonstrate some examples of using typography as digital stories. Here are a couple of those examples:

Typography in Motion

I call this typography in motion but perhaps there's a more common/official term for this and feel free to clarify in the comments. The words definitely come to life and the art, design and placement of text in motion provide an entirely new layer of humor to this classic exchange. Searching youtube you'll find a plethora of these examples and generally they are created using software like Adobe After Effects which is not only expensive but pretty complicated. I was pretty pleased to see that the latest version of PowerPoint offers some features which may be able to allow you to create similar work but in a much more familiar, easy to use tool.

Search Stories

The 2010 SuperBowl featured this commercial for Google.

Youtube now allows anyone to create similar stories. It's not difficult to see the value in having students create these types of stories. The traditional instruction of sequencing takes on an entirely new twist as we use the common task of searching as a storytelling tool. 

In my presentation I go on to discuss wordle and things like text position in slides and graphics as other examples where text  can have a distinct visual characteristic. 

What I'm discovering is that understanding these new ways to use words and text can assist teachers that feel both resistant and fearful in shifting away from entirely text driven curriculum. It certainly doesn't mean that text is no longer valuable simply as written communication but it does help to open up the conversation around shifting notions of literacy. 

Photos

I use iphoto to organize and edit photos. For the photo a day project, I use the 365/10 tag and create a Smart Album to find them easier. I also upload to Flickr and the tags are retained. I don't worry too much about adding them to the set in flickr but I do that manually inside flickr. I wonder if I could eliminate a step there. Fortunately when I access the photos in iMovie, they are in chronological order so I can grab them all at once and drag them in. Currently I cross check the number of photos in my flickr set and inside iphoto to insure I haven't missed a day or forgot to tag them properly. Usually about once a month I do this and so far I'm bang on. As far as editing, I realize Aperture is much more powerful but I've been satisfied with basic touchups using iPhoto.

Audio

To find a song title for each photo is not really a big deal. I typically have one come to mind right away. Once in a while I leave it for a day until one comes to mind or I've farmed out the task to my twitter followers and they usually find something really good. Once I come up with the song I check youtube for it. Youtube is a great place to find music. I'll add the hyperlink to my flickr description. If I don't already have the song, I'll use this site to download the song. I don't keep the song but take it to Audacity and find 6-10 seconds of the song to use in my year end montage. I'm not sure of copyright infringement but I may well be violating it. Clipping the songs takes a fair bit of time since I don't do that everyday. Thus far I'll I've done it about 4-5 times where I'll clip a batch of songs in the evenings.

The real time consuming part comes from creating the soundtrack. At first I tried using iMovie to edit the audio song by song. This wasn't very good as I needed to crossfade the songs and iMovie isn't very good with multiple audio tracks. I switched to Final Cut but the challenge comes with the photos as it's more time consuming to add any type of pan and zoom to images. I decided to use Audacity to create a soundtrack. Bringing in each song clip and lining them up allowed me a high level of control. 

The soundtrack is indeed the most important element of this project and adjusting image duration would be much easier than trying to tweak the music. I exported it out as a mixed down mp3 file. I'm going to try and create 12 files, one for each month. Having 30 tracks in Audacity is a bit taxing on my computer so I think it's best to create a monthly video and bring them together.

Video

As I mentioned, I wavered back and both between imovie and Final Cut. While I'm getting more comfortable with FC, iMovie handles images really well. I first changed the project preferences to have each image 8 seconds in duration which is about the average length of each. The longest I have in my March video was 13 seconds and the shortest about 5. I also turned off the Ken Burns effect and simply used it for a few photos rather than every one. 

That's a quick overview of the workflow. It took a bit of trial and error to get it right. The audio was definitely the most time consuming. To create that March soundtrack took me 3-4 hours alone. I'm going to try and do a bit more before the end of the year to avoid an overwhelming amount of work. I'm pretty pleased with the results. Any tips you have to improve this are welcome.

Knowing that the end of the year I'll put together a montage, I started thinking about this immediately and testing out two possible methods. The first method didn't work at all for me. Thanks to some great feedback I think I found the best way to share the photos.

Either way, I didn't want to leave this to the end of the year as I've done in the past. So I figured I needed to establish a work flow that will take some of the sting and time out of production. Anyway, here's a continuation of where I left of in February and includes all of March's photos.

I'll write another post outlining my workflow.

“In this world in which we are so centered on metrics, those things that are not measured get left off the agenda,” he said. “You need a metric to fight a metric.”Technology brings ever more metrics. The strange thing is that nothing in them prevents us from using other lenses, too. But something in the culture now makes us bow before data and suspend disbelief. Sometimes metrics blind us to what we might with fewer metrics have seen.

I’ve been fortunate to work in an environment where metrics and hard data have only been a small portion of determining value in education. I’ve operated in work places where trust was the core value which gave me and others the ability to make decisions and target efforts that while guided by some structure, curriculum or shared goals recognized our own instincts and judgements. This is changing and while it’s not all bad, in the absence of trust, data becomes the most important part of the decision making. Lack of trust = just show me the numbers.

Chris Lehmann has often said, “Good assessment isn’t cheap”. Triangulation of evidence, combined with story represents better attempts at quality assessment. We’re still pretty bad at triangulation so we opt for single sources of evidence and try to distill judgement inside a narrow rating scale.

Telling Stories to Administrators

Stories can complicate the process. What may have been a clear cut decision to cut staffing purely on numbers, can be seen very differently because a well told story suggests that the numbers might not be enough. Stories focus on emotion and emotion matters. If you’re a parent you know exactly what I mean. Your kids can be described with metrics in any kind of a meaningful way.

What is becoming clear to me is that our jobs as educators and parents must include the ability to tell a story. We need to have a variety of ways of telling that story for different audience and in different context but we simply can’t sit back and allow metrics to take over our decision making.

… something in the culture now makes us bow before data and suspend disbelief. Sometimes metrics blind us to what we might with fewer metrics have seen.

I’m not denying the need for accountability, data and all that jazz. It has its place. But those who can tell stories in powerful, meaningful, succinct ways are going to fair far better than those who will simply allow metrics to tell their story for them. Garr Reynolds on Dan Pink:

“What begins to matter more [than mere data] is the ability to place these facts in context and to deliver them with emotional impact.” Cognitive scientist Mark Turner calls storytelling “Narrative imagining,” something that is a key instrument of thought. We are wired to tell and to receive stories. “Most of our experiences, our knowledge and our thinking is organized as stories,” Turner says.

I’m wondering if you’re telling these stories, how you’re telling them and where you’re telling them. I’m not suggesting it’s a singular answer to making great decisions but certainly something that needs more emphasis. As classroom teachers, administrators and leaders, find a place where you can share you stories regularly. Practice telling them in different ways, using different mediums.  I think it’s critical.

This one’s mostly for me. Yet, it’s been interesting to learn about other’s experiences growing up. Lots of similarities largely due to a very different attitude toward safety and community. (By the way, I recall a blog post/website a few months back where someone detailed the changes in how far kids are allowed to roam from home, if anyone knows it please leave a link)

Besides the content, the use of Google Maps/Streetview as storytelling tools is largely underused as Alan Levine has said a number of times. Watching Jim Groom’s video, was like literally like going for a walk with him.

I created this with about 3 Jing movies stitched together and then uploaded to blip and youtube. One take. No rehearsal or editing, other than adding a title and one image I had handy. It lacks polish but most of our stories aren’t rehearsed, they’re spontaneous accounts of memory. I’m not advocating for us not to edit and craft our stories but we need to have room for many kinds of stories, some polished and edited to death and some a little rough around the edges. Bottom line is we need more stories about significant experiences. Google maps and street view is powerful tool for that. I for one would be happy to take a walk with people sharing significant stories about places that have meaning.

Here’s mine.

What’sWhere’s your story?

I thought I'd try doing the month of January as a test. I'll be honest, I don't think it works. It seems sloppy, lacking any elegance.
Watch.

So while I plan to continue finding a song for each image I post, I'm not sure this will be the way to package it. I like the concept but not sure I can pull it off. I considered titling each image but thought that would simply add to the cognitive load. Maybe there is a way but I'm not seeing it. I could use your help. Can this be improved? Be honest. I can take it.

This video is of a local women who has terminal cancer. It’s challenging and a little nerve racking to be working with such a sensitive subject. The intent is obviously to tell her story in a clear and concise way and at the same time evoke the emotion that will get people to open up their wallets.

I Have Cancer from shareski on Vimeo.

I thought I’d take some time to reveal some of the reasoning and thought behind my production/design choices. I’ve always believed and have been taught that nothing should be random so hopefully I can address those choices.

Trimming

The raw interview was about 12 minutes. I had a goal of getting the interview under 5 minutes. Determing what to cut was difficult. This is where you need an unbias eye to see if you’ve captured a coherent story. I had my wife watch the first cut to see if the story was clear. This is crucial since it’s often hard to remove yourself from the knowledge you have of the entire footage.

Camera Positions

When doing interviews I prefer to have the camera slightly off centre. The interviewer in this case is sitting slightly to the left of the camera. It’s actually farther off centered that I prefer but without moving too much furniture around, it’s the best I could do. I shot the main footage with a Sony HD camera. The second camera is simply my Canon SD 780 still camera that shoots in HD. The use of a second camera is always a plus and in this case I think it helps the viewer see the setting of the interview and get a sense of being present. The split screen view makes that clear.

Transitions

The transitions between shots using the flowers and backyard footage has two purposes. First you see the subject and interviewer in a casual setting which provides context and background information to the interview. I rarely show the interviewer since they aren’t really part of the story. In this case I wanted to reveal a sense of friendship. Although you never see the interviewer ask a question, I’m hoping the transition video makes that clear. I switch to using the flowers in transitions to represent the beauty of life. The whole idea of a transition between scences is done to allow the viewer time to feel the impact and emotion of the story. It seems that for me the greater the emotion, the longer the transitions. In this case I would have lengthened the transitions even more in some cases but wanted the entire project to be under 5 minutes so I had to trim some of them.

Audio

I can’t stress enough the importance of a microphone for interviews. I have a bluetooth, wireless mic that works wonders in all sorts of environments. The air conditioner was humming in the background but the quality of this mic eliminated external sounds. This also allows me to easily add background audio withouth having to a lot of tweaking. The music, which I found on Jamendo (my new favourite Creative Commons source) is used to provide a delicate, soft backdrop to the story. I sampled dozens of instrumental music but was thinking piano as the core instrument. Music can certainly be overdone and I sampled until I found the one that best fit the piece.

Special Effects

5 minutes of "talking head’ can be a bit much. I’ve rarely seen it done effectively. If I’d had more time or had more ownership of the project, I would have liked more "b-roll" footage. In order to provide interest I used the dual camera and split screens. Again, these are done with purpose. The viewer gets a sense of place and hopefully adds to the intimacy. I used a bit of slow motion on the pan of the family photos. This was done as much to cover up the use of a handheld pan. There are a number of interesting filters in Final Cut Express which may have been interesting but time and the fact they have to be rendered each time to view them made that less desirable. I will need to explore them more to understand how they might enhance future projects.

The story is still the key. However these other elements represent the design and as I’ve mentioned many times, cannot be separated from the final product. I hope these insights are useful and certainly am open to critique of my choices. I just wanted to be transparent and explicit with how and why I did what I did.

Schools are text snobs. Most people reading this are text snobs. Our institutions are built around the written word. That in itself is not bad and we owe much of our culture, knowledge and understanding to the written word. It’s not our fault, we’ve been living in a world that up until a few years ago, only offered us to easily produce content via the written word. But like the revolution of the printing press, we are in the midst of a revolution of a digital nature that’s allowing us to easily create and consume context in many different forms, specifically audio, video and imagery.

So what are our schools doing to address this? I’d say for the most part very little. I must say I’m please to note that many curricula, are beginning to address this gap. In fact my own Saskatchewan Curriculum identifies these six strands as the cornerstone of the English Language Arts Curriculum: Reading, Writing, Speaking, Listening and Viewing and Representing. All are considered equal but take a wild guess as to which ones receive the bulk of the attention? No doubt that many standardized tests and assessments focus solely on reading and writing and thus perpetuate the lack of attention on the other four. But even those who are building vast digital footprints and experience the power of publishing and connecting are doing so mostly via text. Believe me, I don’t want to discount its importance and value. Writing and the written word will always hold a prominent place in our understanding and experience of life but I’m concerned over the limited use of video, audio and even imagery among teachers and leaders in our schools and in particular those who have created and are developing an online presence.

(This post continues with the following video)

(And now some audio)

In general, schools have placed writing ahead of other forms of expression. Writing is what is measured and what is valued. As we consider the changing of the guard of modern communication.  The recent marketing ploy by the Australian government to find someone to be the caretaker of an island illustrates the shifting of communication skills. Instead of simply asking applicants to write an essay, they were to submit a video to sell themselves. Consider this quote by Stephen Downes.

OK, these are videos for that contest to live on an Australian island (the contest was probably the public relations coup of the year). They are, of course, creative and imaginative and effective. Now for the kicker: ten years ago, not one student in a hundred, nay, one in a thousand, could have produced videos like this. It’s a whole new skill, a vital and important skill, and one utterly necessary not simply from the perspective of creating but also of comprehending video communication today. Some people out there

Marco Torres get a great deal of credit and is seen as an extraordinary educator. Not that he isn’t but part of the reason Torres gets the attention is the fact that very few teachers/schools allow students to create and express themselves with video. I’d love for this to change. We need more Marco Torres’. The challenge is that most teachers who have developed their online presence is largely because of their ability to write. This continues the bias towards text over other mediums. We need kids that can write, tell a story, engage in a coherent, interesting conversation and tell stories with still and moving images. Shouldn’t we be modeling this? Who’s going to teach them?

I sometimes post my slides here and even have gone to the trouble to add the audio, after the fact. I usually invite discussion but more so on the ideas rather than the packaging.

I’ll be the first to admit, the more I learn the more inadequate I feel to speak about visual literacy. I’m not trained in graphic design, but have read about it and practiced it to the point where I hope I have something to offer folks. I definitely push this the importance of visual literacy in our own school division.

Dan asked for people to explicitly solicit critique. I welcome it. When it comes to presentations, I subscribe to much of the ideas of Garr Reynolds, Cliff Atkinson and others. I spend hours and hours on each one. I recognize how it can engage audiences and provide some memorable images that can carry with participants beyond the presentation itself.  That said, I don’t think even the most compelling imagery can make up for incoherent ideas and poor delivery. I’m constantly working at all three.

So here’s a ten minute video where I describe why I make the choices I make. It was one take each so excuse the pauses and droning but maybe it will provide some insight. Leave any comments or suggestions. Don’t feel you have to be an expert to comment. Perhaps I haven’t explained something clearly or didn’t address something you felt was important. We can learn from and with each other.

Here’s the link to my presentation on Disruptions. I presented this Monday at the IT Summit in Saskatoon and again Friday at the Palm Beach Technology Conference. Totally stolen but also assisted by Alan Levine, I was able to create this using the CoolIris viewer. There is a quick publishing tool you can download if you’re only using images. Adding the video becomes tricky. Videos must be .flv. After building it I found out the drop.io might allow you to do the same thing without all the geekiness. That made me sad after the hours I spent tinkering. I’ll get over it.

In addition to this presentation I did 2 others for the Palm Beach Conference. These are revamped presentations I’ve done before with several updates.

Your Kindergarten Teacher Was Right. Why sharing matters more than ever.

Managing Your Identity

It was an honor to be invited and join a headline list of speakers. Lee Kolbert and team did a great job of running an outstanding one day event.

Keynote/Featured Speakers photo by Lee Kolbert

Video is indeed a 21st century skill. Take the recent contest for the Best Job in the World. Applicants were charged with creating a one minute video as their application. The ones highlighted on Presentation Zen are impressive. But Stephen Downes nails it,

They are, of course, creative and imaginative and effective. Now for the kicker: ten years ago, not one student in a hundred, nay, one in a thousand, could have produced videos like this. It’s a whole new skill, a vital and important skill, and one utterly necessary not simply from the perspective of creating but also of comprehending video communication today. Some people out there argue that such skills (a) are old hat, and (b) not worth teaching. The world is passing such critics by, and they should not be heeded.

Our schools need to re-evaluate how much time we spend on print alone and start broadening our focus. Joe Brennan, among others, does a great job connecting the dots between writing and video. Unfortunately, most of our educators have difficulty understanding the value and nuances of creating and viewing effective video. Even more unfortunate are those who think of video as faddish or no different than teaching writing. While there are similarities, there are enough differences that it requires teacher training to make it as required as learning how to teach writing.  I’ve been using video in the classroom and making movies for the past 10 years and I know I’m far from being an expert. 95% of our teachers I’m guessing know less than I do.

How long will it be until employers will ask applicants to submit a video? Not just for unique and quirky jobs like an Australian tourism promoter but for teachers, lawyers, managers. Any job that features communication as a primary skill, will ask future employees to present themselves in this way.

Here’s my favourite from the contest. A Canadian of course.

bengrey, stephendownes, garrreynolds, bestjobintheworld, joebrennan

But I’d never seen Alan present and give his perspectives and insights into this impressive piece of work. I invited him to speak to some of our teachers who I’ve been working with on digital storytelling. So from the comforts of his house sitting gig from Iceland, he came in and did his schtick. For 90 minutes, he kept us engaged and fascinated with the potential of web based storytelling tools. What a treat. Too good not to share.

“Teachers will not take up attractive-sounding ideas, albeit based on extensive research, if these are presented as general principles which leave entirely to them the task of translating them into everyday practice … what they need is a variety of living examples of implementation, by teachers with whom they can identify and from whom they can derive conviction and confidence that they can do better and see concrete examples of what doing better means in practice”
Black, P. and William,D. Inside the Black Box: Raising standards through classroom assessment, King’s College, London, England. 1998, 15-16

This quote reminds me to work harder at finding living examples of what best or better practice means. Last week I spent 2 days with teachers looking at Project Based Learning and how to embed it deeply into practice. Much of our discussion focused on a video used by our presenters showing a classroom and teacher in action. Discussions were rich and meaningful.  We’re working really hard to insure that professional development includes and is built around followup. In a month, we’ll be gathering virtually to share our progress and further our understandings. Sharing artifacts of learning is challenging at times. Finding time to write up something or even provide background to student work can be time consuming.

To help support this, I ran out at lunch and picked up Flip videos for all participant teams. The intent is that teachers will be easily be able to capture learning and share it with each other.  I’m hoping to piece together these clips eventually to create something that would clearly represent what Project Based Learning looks like in our district. 

I use this video a lot when I make the case for digital storytelling.

“…they need a variety of living examples of implementation, by teachers with whom they can identify and from whom they can derive conviction and confidence that they can do better and see concrete examples of what doing better means in practice.”

I’ll stop talking now.

projectbasedlearning, galileo, black&william, flipvideo

Show notes:

Dan’s 10 videos
Ze Frank
David SimonThe WireGraphing Stories
Summer Camp Video

*My feed in itunes is not functioning. The feed validates but itunes says it’s wrong. Any help would be appreciated.

Then I grab this little gem from Garr Reynolds about Ken Burns:

When you think about it, often the photo really is more powerful than video at telling the story. The photo captures a moment in time allowing the viewer to slow down and think and wonder and reflect. Photos allow for greater emphasis and may have less distracting elements, giving the presenter or narrator/film maker more freedom to augment the photo (or the other way around). We can learn a lot from documentary film, especially the kind like those created by Burns which rely so heavily on still images. One tip is to avoid the usage of imagery as ornamentation. What you see in Burns’ films is a simple and powerful use of photos and other imagery that support the narrative and illuminate the story on a visceral level, thereby making the experience richer and stickier.

As someone who has been using video for a long time and is considers himself a better videographer than a photographer, I am becoming more appreciative of the still image. As Burns says in the video excerpt below, “video is simply a series of 24 still frames per second”.

You can think of stills as slow motion. As a sports enthusiast, the advent of slow motion has transformed the viewing of sports and allows us to gain an understanding of the intricacies of athletics in ways never before possible. We’ve had this for a long time with stills, it was simply hidden in plain sight at least for me.

Imagery

I’ve written at lengths and perhaps ad nauseum about the value of imagery. But the idea of mindful seeing is certainly something that has become a part of my day. Good storytellers listen intently to others. They find beauty in words. I remember a few years ago reading about Barbara Ganley taking her camera on walks and her efforts to embed photography into her writing classes. The idea of always having a camera with me stuck. My family and friends know it’s always with me and they too are seeing things they never saw and calling on me to capture moments. This is actually one reason I’ve fought moving to a larger SLR and have stuck with my compact camera.

Composition

One of the greatest features of digital photography is the low cost of failure. Taking a photo everyday forces you to be creative. It’s been interesting to develop vocabulary and understanding of composition and at the same time playing without really understanding why I’m doing what I’m doing. I’ve taught several introductory courses on digital photography and can’t emphasis enough the value of taking a gazillion photos.  No doubt it adds to her workload but I’m better at culling prior to downloading. Yet it still takes time. I still use iPhoto as my primary orgainzer/editor. I’m comfortable with its funtionality.  On rare occasions I use Aperture or Fireworks but iPhoto is my mainstay.

Community

This is obviously the key to this project. I subscribe to all the members of this group and have pretty much viewed all their photos. Knowing we are all trying to learn together, and yet have no formal ties, makes this a really interesting community. I’ve definitely learned from many and at times consciously and other times subconciously have copied their styles. Why wouldn’t you?  The community has also done well encouraging one another via comments. Of the 52 members, I’d say almost all have kept up and are active and those who have not, who cares?

I’d like to set up something similar for our schools this year. I’m not sure how I’d structure it but knowing the value I’ve found in this along with my push to include more intentional uses of images in learning makes think I have to figure out how. Any ideas are welcome.