openonline — Camp Magic MacGuffin

Archive for the ‘openonline’ Category

Thursday, May 31st, 2012

I kept wanting to exclaim, “Round is a shape” but in the context of stories, round is not a shape.

Phew – Finally a video that is not more than 15 minutes

Vonnegut’s lecture here suggests that formulas exist in stories. Formulas that help you consider and build your story, formulas that help your audience identify with the story, and formulas that can help you analyze a story or story form.

Thanks to Maya Eilam

Don’t believe me? Think Law & Order franchise or This American Life. It is a simple formula that grips audiences every week and keeps us coming back for more.

So what? Well, as we begin to think about creating stories it can take the route of deciding what type of story to tell. I also think we can start with a story and retrofit the story to a shape.

It got me thinking about the shapes application to longer stories, epic novels, or the emerging narrative genre. What of Ulysses? What of Gone with the Wind? What of the Corasanti Trial in my home town of Buffalo, NY that is unfolding as of the date of this post.

Do Vonnegut’s shapes continue down an infinite x-axis cycling like a sin wave? Perhaps that is more than a story.

I began to think about the stories in my life; not my life as a story mind you (who would play me in the movie?) but the smaller stories in my life. I applied Vonnegut’s shapes to some important stories in my life.

Happily Married - Boy Meets Girl

Thyroid Cancer Survival - Man in a Hole

My Dissertation Journey - Which Way is Up? (though I’m hoping for Man in a Hole)

Those are some serious stories but what about the stories I like to tell to my daughter?

Dad Fishes with Papa - Man in a Hole

Dad Runs a Marathon - Boy Meets Girl (usually around Mile 11 comes the “Oh God damn it”)

Dad Camps for the First Time – Man in a Whole

Dad Gardens - Which Way is Up?

I’d have to give the other shapes and stories more thought. One thing thing about seeing the shape of stories si that I can’t seem to turn it off. Like when you first recognize the formula in This American Life you can’t not see it (Thanks Jamie Bono for that one) or when you hear a newscaster say ‘uh’ or ‘um’.

Posted in bunk2, Magic MacGuffin, magicmacguffin, openonline, VonnegutStory | Comments Off on What Shape is your Story?

Camp MacGuffin – Counselor G Log 1

Thursday, May 31st, 2012

For those of you who haven’t met me at Camp MacGuffin yet, my camper name is Doodle Bug because I’m a hobbiest entomologist and I like to draw stuff.

The first week of Camp MacGuffin has been really exciting. First I moved all my stuff into Bunkhouse 1 but realized I read the Bunk assignments incorrectly and had to move to Bunkhouse 2.

cc licensed ( BY NC SD ) flickr photo shared by giulia.forsythe

@Tripper106 is my co-counselor and he’s been rocking the PA system every day on DS106Radio which makes me super happy and productive. You should have seen all the macaroni necklaces I made during his epic setlist. Pics to come, I promise!

Other Bunkhouses have already settled on names, thinking about logos and we’re still in the brainstorming phase. I’m not even sure if we got all the brains to the table yet. But I do know we have a really great group of campers. John Johnston already created a twitter list and an RSS aggregate for us. Yippee!~

A lot of our Bunkhouse2 campers have hit the ground running. Creating assignments & doing them, completing the Daily Creates with fervour but I’m kind of worried about a couple of the campers. The woods and the swamp can sometimes take you through a time vortex and suddenly you come back to the bunkhouse and 3 weeks have passed by without doing a Daily Create, an assignment or even setting up your blog! The swamp, especially, has this swamp monster who is dreadfully boring but to be polite campers will sit down and have a cup of tea and the next thing you know four daily creates have passed!

We also have to remember to take time to comment on the other blogs in our Bunkhouse. I say this but right now I’ve got to run, I was hoping to find time to tie-dye some t-shirts and make some animated GIFs this afternoon but that swamp monster is coming my way!

QUICK UPDATE: happy welcome to @mgershovich who has decided to take the ds106 plunge (he knows it’s #4LIFE)

cc licensed ( BY SD ) flickr photo shared by giulia.forsythe

Posted in assessment, bunk2, counselor, ds106, Lifelong Learning, MacGuffin, magicmacguffin, openlearning, openonline, social media, twitter, University, Wordpress | Comments Off on Camp MacGuffin – Counselor G Log 1

Identity At Camp Magic MacGuffin

Thursday, May 31st, 2012

Getting in the spirit of camp has not been hard. I’ve loved watching my fellow campers get into the Daily Creates and other various assignments.

One problem I have run into is that of identity. I have so many blogs, social media sites, and spaces that are mine that it is hard to find a way to make them more cohesive. Most of my accounts are “shauser” or go by the nickname of “Shannon” (I hope you can figure out that one) but, on umwblogs (where my main site for ds106 is hosted) I adopted the moniker “Neo-Rev”.

Here is the quick backstory on that. Back around 2008 our beloved Reverend, Jim Groom, temporarily left us on a missions retreat. In his absence I took up a bit of the identity of “Reverend” but put my own new spin on it, hence the “Neo”. Under those circumstances Neo-Rev was born.

So, I’ve got numerous names going on in comments and on posts. At the moment I’ve adopted a style that I saw Alan Levine do where he puts his name then @cogdog in parentheses.

I think this is where we see Gravatar coming in handy. It can be a central point for various e-mails and blogs by unifying them all under one account and having a picture for that account. If you haven’t signed up for one I’d recommend it. It is a good way for people who don’t like feeling they have multiple personalities find a way to unify them all.

I’m still debating about the name I’m going to stick to for camp but, for now you’ll have to put up with my indecisiveness. Also, recommendations or ideas are encouraged

Posted in bunk1, ds106, gravatar, Identity, magicmacguffin, openonline | Comments Off on Identity At Camp Magic MacGuffin

Sun Peeking Through: An Image Daily Create

Thursday, May 31st, 2012

Today’s Daily Create 143: Look up today and make a photo that favors what’s going on in the sky.

Taken outside the clinic where I work. Mostly cloudy and overcast day but, the sun was trying to shine through.

Posted in bunk1, Daily Create Assignment, ds106, magicmacguffin, openonline | Comments Off on Sun Peeking Through: An Image Daily Create

TDC 143 – Sky

Thursday, May 31st, 2012

I know I was driving when I took this picture, which is not the safest way to do The Daily Create. I thought of The Daily Create and I decided to take the photograph it while I was thinking about it.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jessrigelhaupt/7305628628/

Posted in bunk5, ds106, magicmacguffin, openonline | Comments Off on TDC 143 – Sky

How to hangout at camp without hanging out. #DS106

Wednesday, May 30th, 2012

Today’s Camp Macguffin campfire hangout was very entertaining and informative. I joined the camp fire hangout this morning from work. The problem is that my workplace is not really conducive to sending audio and video, so while I could see and hear everything going on I could only participate via the text chat. So when I discovered that I could watch and listen to the hangout from Google Plus, I gave up my seat so someone else could join in and I watched from the bushes where I discovered olHatchetJack was stalking watching the proceedings.
Here’s what it looked like in my browser.

cc licensed ( BY NC SD ) flickr photo shared by wwnorm
This seems like a good way to get more participants especially if we use Twitter instead of the built in chat in the hangout. Late arrivals would still be able to experience the live event, kind of from the back row, and if anyone leaves early, someone else could grab the vacated spot. It just means someone in the hangout needs to watch the Twitter back channel to relay any comments or questions. I think Alan and Bryan Alexander were on Twitter for some of the time as I saw them Tweeting during the campfire.

I don’t know all the details but when the hangout started, I found our host, Alan on G+ with a notice which told me he was in a hangout. Clicking on the notice, I could suddenly see and hear the hangout even though I hadn’t joined it. I think it has to be a public, broadcast hangout to work this way. Anyway I thought it was pretty cool. The only thing I couldn’t see was the hangout chat. I think there’s a way to watch from YouTube, too.

The point of all this is that campers can participates even if they get the “hangout full” message when trying to join. I’ll probably have to use this approach for most of the remaining hangouts unless I’m away from work. I think the hangouts will be a great way to get some group interaction, so I encourage everyone to check it out. Hey, we could even have hangouts for our bunk groups too.

That’s all. Now I’ve got to go take some pictures of the sky for TDC, see ya.

That’s my story. Any Questions?

Posted in bunk5, ds106, magicmacguffin, openonline | Comments Off on How to hangout at camp without hanging out. #DS106

Hatchet Jack Tries an Animated Gif

Wednesday, May 30th, 2012

Ol Hatchet Jack here flexing my digital Gif muscles with a little of one of my very favorite scenes in One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest. The scene has Randle attempting to lift a massive water fixture from the floor and toss it out the window of the hospital so he might wander on outta there. The patients know he can’t do it. Maybe Randle knows that too but he sure as heck is gonna try. And we find some wisdom in his words,

But I tried, didn’t I? Goddamn it, at least I did that.

Maybe I have some name connection to Jack Nickolson here. We are both Jacks after all. But more than that I think this scene in the move had some fine acting, similar to his presence in A Few Good Men when he is on the witness stand. Pretty amazing stuff. The lines in the book resonate with me as I learn myself to push my envelope a bit and try things I may not think I can actually do. I learned about that riding mountain bikes with teenagers too. I had to go first. I had to try lest they make fun of me or try it first and get hurt…

Jack did this gif using Photoshop and five screen captures from YouTube. Not the easiest, but it works save the grainy look. I added some “tweening” between the frames to smooth it out just a bit. The clip itself jumped real quick from his head looking down a little and then looking up. It was pretty fast in this scene.

So campers, let’s go give it a try and see what we find today!

Posted in bunk4, counselor, Hatchet Jack Stuff, magicmacguffin, openonline | Comments Off on Hatchet Jack Tries an Animated Gif

Blue Gray Glass Day

Wednesday, May 30th, 2012

This is the view from The Alsea Room in The Cliff House in Waldport where we love to stay. The dark things on the point are Harbor Seals.

Over Memorial Day weekend, Peter and I stayed at the wonderful Cliff House B n B in Waldport, overlooking the mouth of the Alsea River where it goes into the ocean. Peter wrote a sonnet while looking out the window, so I thought it would be a cool digital story to film out the window while he read his poem–and I still think it is!

Peter scopes the seals and eagles out the window of The Alsea Room.

Harbor Seals sleeping the day away at the mouth of the Alsea River. Courtesy of Greg The Busker

I also wrote a review of The Cliff House for TripAdvisor.com.

Posted in Alsea, CliffHouse, digital storytelling, ds106, magicmacguffin, openonline, PeterJensen, poetry, seals, Waldport | Comments Off on Blue Gray Glass Day

Camp Magic MacGuffin : First Impressions

Wednesday, May 30th, 2012

Today, after missing the bus and a week late, I finally made it to Camp Magic MacGuffin. Hurray for me! Once here I was welcomed by my Camp Counselor Hatchet Jack. My immediate thought was “In five days we’ll all either be working in an underground gold mine for him… or be dead by his hand”. When your bio on the Camp Counselor page in the orientation pamphlet is written as a manifesto, you know you are working with someone with a sound mind. Anyhow, he seems stable enough to be a counselor and he wields an impressive handmade hatchet that he most likely made himself. Well I am off to unpack and meet everyone in Bunk 5.

Posted in bunk5, Creative Writing, ds106, magicmacguffin, openonline | Comments Off on Camp Magic MacGuffin : First Impressions

River, Path, Memory

Wednesday, May 30th, 2012

A Larkspur Path by Alsea River

On Memorial Day Weekend 2012, Peter and I headed for a weekend at Waldport. We drove up to Philomath, then drove down the Alsea River. We made a pit stop at Clemens Park and stayed a while as the larkspur was in bloom, and the river brought back memories to Peter.

I put this together like a journal entry, trying to capture the rhythm of a mind, a set of eyes, and an interaction with another person’s memory. Audio turned out rougher than I would have liked, but maybe next time I’ll get it right!