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You can see my ‘daily creates’ for the digital storytelling event ‘isd106′ on Flickr.
It’s run like a summer camp, so I’ll be blogging a weekly letter home on my blog, too.
Part of the weekly recaps of ds06 we are asking our participants to do is a letter home from camp…
Dear Mom and Dad,
Wow, what a first week from Camp Magic Macguffin, it is a lucky thing I packed me favorite, stylish pants. It was one thing to go away to Camp Glyndon in the 1970s… I do remember that the first day I went I was miserable, it was rainy, and I just wanted to go home, but by day 3 I was locked in, and went back for the next 8 years.
In fact, I stopped by what was camp just last summer, and those first bunkhouses are still standing
cc licensed ( BY ) flickr photo shared by cogdogblog
But this is now. It was a ton of work that Martha and I did in our role as camp counselors, and we had fun sharing camp in our first series of videos. Martha has more experience with summer ds106 than me, and her wizardness with setting up the web site was amazing. I think she is suspicious that I seem to have more communication with the new camp owners, which is even made a tad worse since they insisted I fly to Canada for an orientation to the company the week that camp started. The CVI people are nice, but they did send me out in the woods as some sort of test. Weird.
Okay the really exciting stuff is we have 12 UMW campers, and with the grand help of Tim the Hippiest Hoster, and the new Domain of One’s own project, they all have their own domains and are on their way to being blogging away this week.
But the really killer stuff is having the active participating of our open online participants, we have a good group of newbies and returning ds106ers, especially our elite cadre of counselors, especially ol talk about myself in the third person Hatchet Jack and that Sassy Zazzy who already started her own mashup audio project before camp opened. That’s cool, but I am worried she does not trust me. And we even have people coming to camp from Ghana, how wild is that?
So in week 2, we will be working hard to get our campers blogs going, more daily creates, and some introductory activities to storytelling.
They are all eager or are already playing in Minecraft, a place I am so novice, that I have some homework to catch up to.
cc licensed ( BY ) flickr photo shared by cogdogblog
And thanks again for sending my footlocker (and remembering to put the extra lock on it) and using the CVI shipping services (sorry for the scare the black van must have given you). I know it was heavy to ship, but I need those devices inside.
Talk to you next week,
love,
Alan
This was the first week at camp, one like you could never have known. You couldn’t have, you were far too young to know what I don’t know now. You were a kid on Long Island’s South Shore. You might have gone to Montauk or Cape Cod, but this week for you was probably the beaches of Pt Lookout with Aunt Carolyn (dead over a decade now) eating Entenmann’s Cookies and experiencing life with the anxiety at the margins. Beach, sun, evening visits from the ice cream truck, Italian Ices, pizza—these were all at center of the universe. You might remember some textures like the sand in your toes or the flourescent burn from the first few days out.
No, the pictures I can share with you 33 years later are in the woods—not an ocean for hours—with three whose life runs through you now and probably ran through you then, somewhere, in some unreleased packet. They are you now.
I think we are all getting excited about the beginning of Summer and the prospect of exploring some possibilities at camp (Miles in Minecraft?). I am trying to make sure these three have some sense of who you are, what your world is like, and how those you knew that they never could in the same way are narrated. I want to use the time at camp with them to help them understand the stories we shared, the people we knew, and the places we saw.
I guess I am writing to you because I feel like a see you all the time now, it’s fun seeing you again, even if remotely through my blog. I have no pictures of you at that time, I really don’t know exactly what you look like, but I know the people you know. I have found a lot of their traces in old photo albums. They need to be part of this story we make for you over the coming weeks.
Hello campers.
This summer the DS106 summer session is organized around a summer camp theme. Camp Magic Macguffin opened up last Monday for a ten week run and who knows what is in store. This this is my “camp letter” for the first week.
Well like a good camper, I spent most of the week outdoors. Although that took me away from my digital world for a while, its the first time this year that my schedule, my health and the weather have cooperated favorably to let me get out and take care of some much neglected yard work. Thanks to Cris’ Daily Create post recently, I was able to take this on as a creative challenge rather than as a dreaded chore. And after several days of work, when it finally hit 90 this afternoon, I was able to take a break in the shade and look around at what I had accomplished with some sense of satisfaction, rather than just seeing all the work that remains to be done.
I wasn’t really completely disconnected from the digital world though. As I worked, I listened to the Michael Wesch presentation that was assigned this week.
In fact I found a number of interesting talks at the UMW Faculty Academy Vimeo Channel in addition to the Wesch talk, so I loaded them all to my phone. I grabbed a pair of headphones and listened to them all as I worked. Very interesting stuff. Recommended viewing/listening for all. Then the phone and headset seemed a perfect subject for me to use for today’s Daily Create on connections.
So after admiring my yard work and cooling off a bit I again picked up my phone to check on the Camp newsfeed and catch up on the latest news. Campers’ blogging activity is picking up and I read many interesting accounts and camp letters. Although I’m here as just another open online student, the teacher in me couldn’t help but wanting to say a thing or two about some of the posts. But my fingers and my phone keyboard don’t make a good match, so commenting from my phone usually doesn’t work out too well. Anyway, what I was thinking of posting as advice has already been well written up in the post Earn Your Blogging Badge on the Camp Magic Macguffin web site. I think all campers (me too) could probably make our blogs and letters more interesting if we keep some of these tips in mind.
Well another week of camp is about to begin, so this tired camper is going to hit the camp cot and catch some ZZZs.
That’s my story. Any Questions?
Daily Create #141 – create a photograph that illustrates connection. (Taken with Instagram at Salem Fields)
Back in March I wrote about how geeky my family is, after we visited Parson Weems’ house. For teachinghistory.org I thought more about what it means as a teacher to visit historical location such as this one.
The best part of this story is that I sent off the post along with a few pictures I had taken during our visit. The wonderful folks at teachinghistory.org did a bit of searching for better pictures of Parson Weems’ house. They found some fabulous ones on flickr and contacted the photographer. As it turns out, those pictures were taken by my husband. He was quite amused to receive an email explaining who they were and why they wanted the pictures. Fortunately, he gave permission.
Already having my own domain and website, as well as nearly all of the requisite social media accounts, completing Week 1 of DS106 – Camp Magic Macguffin was a pretty easy thing to start. The bulk of the first … Continue reading
The summer of Unicorn Love ds106 Camp Magic Macguffin has started, and our campers seem to be happily making art and stuff. In keeping up with them, here is my weekly run down of Daily Create activity- it is refreshing to see the new surge of activity here, and this is one easy way to participate in ds106 at a regular level.
The only required one for our ds106 students at UMW was the Family legend video, and as before, this has become a really interesting way to get to know people in the course/community.
May 22, 2012: TDC 135 Video telling a story of an old photo
here I talk about a horrible old photo of me that I swore I would never put online
May 23, 2012: TDC 136 Video of a Family Legend
The story of my sister’s busted nose- what a great showing for this video assignment.
May 24, 2012: TDC 137 Make a drawing of a face trace
This was a great new kind of assignment, I followed others and did this on my iPad using Brushes to trace the photo
cc licensed ( BY ) flickr photo shared by cogdogblog
May 25, 2012: TDC 138 Photograph of a front of a building
What would be Vancouver without a visit to the blue house in East Van?
cc licensed ( BY ) flickr photo shared by cogdogblog
May 26, 2012: TDC 139 Take a Photo of (or something that represents) the Moon
There was a lovely crescent spotted at dusk in Coquitlam
cc licensed ( BY ) flickr photo shared by cogdogblog
May 27, 2012: TDC 140 Make a picture that captures motion
Bryan Jackson’s playful pup Vince provided a bit of blur (I did shake the toy to get the motion)
cc licensed ( BY ) flickr photo shared by cogdogblog
Sorry, but camp is over! Head over to ds106
The Campfires have all been put out.
Camp is now over (see the final story. If you are craving an experience like this, head over to ds106 and see how to participate. For more on the Summer of Magic Macguffin, see.....
