This letter is late because I enjoyed my Memorial Day weekend free of distraction and thinking. This was a boon to my sense of normalcy but disruptive to my dissertating and ongoing learning. So, let’s recap Week One at Camp Magic MacGuffin.
Daily Creates
Jumping into the work I completed a few Daily Creates. I love this quick project list, a lot, it allows me to get in and get out quickly and with more energy. The Google Hangout Campfire this week held to take aways for me about the Daily Create:
- Limit yourself to 15 minutes of work on these project.
- Check in the morning and let it incubate all day
Mike Wesch
I watched the Mike Wesch video and it wasn’t anything terribly surprising. What we’re finding is that social media and instructional technology in general can foster a lean forward/collaborative learning experience for students and teachers. Too many saddle instructional tech and social media with a disconnection between faculty and students. These videos, however, showed that when used correctly, wrapped with the right instructional design, and focused on socially constructing knowledge instructional technologies can propel learning and connection forward.
Throughout the videos I reminisced about a similar point made by Ze Frank at a recent TED conference.
Not as learning-focused but it shows how meaningful connections can be made. In a learning environment, these projects and connections become powerful engines for learning.
Lurking
Like a lot of new experiences, I spend some time lurking and getting to know the experience through observation. I’ve read and responded to comments from others, read blogs, viewed projects, etc. No more lurking.
Death by Zombie
I got into Minecraft this week and bumped around. I felt it wasn’t appropriate (nor was it available) to use my real name. It was pre-
Hector story and so if you see
Gorlington (a WOW holdover) bumping around there say hello. I took a wild roller coaster ride into the swimming hole (there’s some coal down there) and tooled around an NPC village. I managed to get killed a few times by zombies.
I’m eager to find the bunk houses and explore the Magic MacGuffin Minecraft world this week.
The Outside World
I’ve been parts of many conversations about distance learning in the last several weeks as we begin to investigate closely the quality, academic freedom, liberal education values, etc. One element that continues to come up is the idea of creating community. Wesch’s video, Frank’s video above, and my experience all tell me that creating a community is more possible now than ever before. It is a matter, though, of finding the voice of the community and making it sing loudly to the world.
I’ll leave you with one of my favorite parts of Frank’s video which comes at the very end. This week being particularly busy both at camp and outside camp, there will be times when we need to chillout. Perhaps there is no more fitting example of how technology and media can form community than the story from the video above. Here’s the full song to help you chill this week.
Hey, you’re okay; you’ll be fine. Just breathe.
Click here to see this photo on Flickr. 
