Beyond School » digital storytelling

William Burroughs’ “Thanksgiving Prayer”

Clay Burell — Sun, 13 Jun 2010 07:49:26 +0000

Lots of film-making skills to learn from — ironic soundtrack, archival footage editing, lighting and superimposition, on and on — in this staggering video. Oh, and the writing’s not shabby either: William Burroughs’ “A Thanksgiving Prayer”:

.(h/t Hullaballoo)

Education as “Aversion Therapy”: Watchmen Author Alan Moore

Clay Burell — Sun, 13 Jun 2010 07:06:46 +0000

Alan Moore, author of The Watchmen, V for Vendetta, and so many other comic book masterworks, has this to say about education:

All too often education actually acts as a form of aversion therapy, that what we’re really teaching our children is to associate learning with work and to associate work with drudgery so that the remainder of their lives they will possibly never go near a book because they associate books with learning, learning with work and work with drudgery. [A]fter a hard day’s toil, instead of relaxing with a book they’ll be much more likely to sit down in front of an undemanding soap opera because this is obviously teaching them nothing, so it is not learning, so it is not work, it is not drudgery, so it must be pleasure. And I think that that is the kind of circuitry that we tend to have imprinted on us because of the education process.

Bingo. Such a tidy summary of the Business Roundtable vision of education as preparing workers for the workforce.

Moore has more to say about how, for him, the counterculture and independent reading were his education. He was apparently expelled from secondary school for experimenting with mind-altering drugs other than alcohol, television, and consumerism, and never went to college either.

He seems to be doing okay despite that.

(I taught V for Vendetta in a literature class a couple years ago. It was a great counter-piece to Animal Farm, except this time dark regime was on the far right. So many connections to current events in the Bush-Cheney-Rove era, you’d have never guessed it was written in reaction to Thatcher’s England.)

Switching gears, check out this fantastic Moore video. From its YouTube page,

A comic strip film noir featuring hardboiled gangsters, double crosses and dead blondes. Written and animated by Alan Moore and Lloyd Thatcher. Music by The Sinister Ducks. Edited by Vile Balloon on a overcast Saturday as the rain pounded on the ground like a meaty fist into a face.

(Hat-tip to One Good Move for the video.) Reminds me of Tom Waits (the son of two school-teachers, I just learned by clicking on the link. Follow it for both a Wikipedia entry and a whacked video of his song, “God’s Away on Business”. I love Apture plugins!).

Article, without video, cross-posted from Education.Change.org
Photo by acb

“You Suck at Photoshop”: Paragon of Creative Project-Based Learning

Clay Burell — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 22:56:27 +0000

I just discovered the 2008 Webby Award-winning “You Suck at Photoshop” series on YouTube. While it may not succeed at making me a Photoshop ninja, it does succeed at convincing me that this kind of project would make the classroom an awesome place.

Here’s why: the series demonstrates a mastery of content knowledge — in this case, Photoshop technique — while at the same time adding a creative element that makes the content-master stand out from the equally masterful but unimaginative competition. Point blank: in the hands of this guy, something as dull as “how to use layers” becomes a vehicle that screams, “Hire me to write for ‘30 Rock‘!” He proves he can turn lead into gold, which is a real-world skill not many people have. Alchemists like that deserve the chance to display their creative magic in school.

The Mental Work is Hard….

“You Suck at Photoshop” displays that creative magic in the form of fiction (see the Wikipedia entry on the series for more). The host of the tutorials is a persona named “Donnie,” a loser stuck in a lousy life with a lousy wife. We learn about Donnie’s life through a series of such sometimes-subtle details as his choice of photos for the tutorial — “Say you want to use a photo of the Vanagon your wife meets her high school boyfriend in on Friday nights….wait, I’ve got one right here” (scroll past other photos of — gulp — handguns, and one of the high school boyfriend labeled — gulp — “douche-b.png”) — and such sometimes-over-the-top details as the wife barging in to kvetch at him in the middle of his tutorial, or his loser friend Skyping in with a loser-emergency while Donnie is making his screencast.

The creator of this project not only demonstrates his literary creativity by creating the fictional “Donnie” persona and populating his Photoshop folders with props like the pictures mentioned above; he takes it further with his dramatic creativity as he acts out the role of that persona with his voice-over. The vocal acting covers a broad emotional terrain, from dude in his basement chillaxing with his laptop to powder-keg psychopath struggling to keep the flame from his fuse. The acting is just awesome.

….The Tech is Dead Easy

The beauty of the project technology-wise is that it requires nothing more than a screencasting program like the free Jing or Screencast-o-matic, plus a webcam and microphone — your standard kit in most computers today. So the technical hurdles for students to do such a project are basically nil.

That leaves the whole of their energies to devote to the other two aspects of the project: mastery and critical understanding of the content, and creative concept development to deliver that understanding.

Too Beautiful for School?

So I’m wrestling, as usual, with the ways this wonderfully simple approach to creative learning will be complicated by the forces of schooliness:

Do I have to make a rubric for it, and if so, does that kill the creativity with its prescriptive check-box drudgery, or limit the infinite creative possibilities by dictating “it must be this and not that, and that and not this”?
Is it sustainable in terms of watching and grading and giving feedback to 100 students doing such an assignment?
How do I define satisfactory content mastery and creativity for this assignment?
How do I encourage experimentation and the healthy embrace of possible failure when I have to slap a low grade on it if it does indeed “fail”?
Should I make it optional, in following with my increasingly elitist impulse to definitely not “push” the unwilling to attempt genius, and not even “pull” them, but only to “attract” the three percent of “roses” in any student population who might blossom in the attempt?

I don’t know.

Nor do I know how to adapt this for a history classroom. Can “You Suck at Photoshop” become “You Suck at History”? How? How can this be used for Europe from the French Revolution to the present, or the complete history of China?

My recent brainstorm on giving a conceptual purpose to learning Chinese history by “interpreting it for historically-ignorant Westerners” seems to have some openings. God knows, there are ample websites of Chinese and Western art, literature, philosophy, religion, politics, and more that students could tab through on their screencasts as they provide their commentary like “Donnie” does to his open Photoshop on his desktop. But the maker of “Donnie” has the luxury of revealing that persona through the image “props” in his folders, while history students wouldn’t have as easy a task of revealing persona if they were forced instead to work with history websites in their screencasts.

One solution I’m considering is making it a summative, end-of-semester project, in which students have most of the semester to let their creative juices stew and come up with their own ideas over the first few months. Then give a couple of weeks of class time to a workshop in which they design and execute those ideas.

Otherwise, I’m mostly adrift. Maybe you can help.

But if you watch the three-minute first episode below, you should see why I’m bewitched by the idea:

Do yourself a favor and watch the whole playlist. Then help me figure out how I can make this work?

6 Comments

At January 4, 2010, monika hardy wrote:
What a find... I love it.
(Just like I'm loving tumblr now thanks to your conversation with Roberto. I was needing an easier/cleaner way to post how-to videos.)

Some current thoughts on your questions....

# Do I have to make a rubric for it, and if so, does that kill the creativity with its prescriptive check-box drudgery, or limit the infinite creative possibilities by dictating “it must be this and not that, and that and not this”

Yeah - I wouldn't make a rubric. I would make the assessment process as raw and real as the project. I'd have the feedback come from the peers needing it - ie: those who suck at photoshop... Post it at school - see how many hits it gets. See how others in the class improve. Assess the project on how well everyone else does with it. I'd also have a couple professionals/parents look at it and give some feedback... some people the kids are going to want to impress. [I guess depending on the topic - that type of career/professional might use a rubric. Whatever - it needs to be authentic.]

# Is it sustainable in terms of watching and grading and giving feedback to 100 students doing such an assignment?

I think - done like above - yes - if it's a more authentic feedback process. Certainly not the way we have been doing it - where we all sit in a room and watch each other present, etc, not in real context.

# How do I define satisfactory content mastery and creativity for this assignment?

I think - for me anyway - I use *something like this video series as a model (*maybe you could make a cleaner school version for us all to use Clay...?) My kids are so good and motivated for these projects, but rarely do they hit both content and creativity. I think that's my favorite take away from this series - that it models that balance perfectly. Not too stuffy with content so as not to be entertaining and not so entertaining that it has no meat. So I guess I'm saying - set high standards for balance - with a good model beforehand. I think focusing on the balance rather than the topic/form a rubric usually focuses on - will allow for more freedom and creativity.

# How do I encourage experimentation and the healthy embrace of possible failure when I have to slap a low grade on it if it does indeed “fail”?

Maybe don't make it an end of the year assignment. Assign it from the get go...with several due dates throughout the year. I think we have really messed with what true assessment and feedback are. Kids and parents believe assessment is a marker - if you're good or bad. When it should be an ongoing iterative process... continually pinpointing areas that need tweaking. It should be freeing to the kids... rather than - I failed - I understand nothing.. they have maybe 2-3 specifics to work on. I love that we're living in a publish then edit period. I hope that lingers forever. And I love that we now have the means... via skype and blogs, etc to have experts help give that feedback.

# Should I make it optional, in following with my increasingly elitist impulse to definitely not “push” the unwilling to attempt genius, and not even “pull” them, but only to “attract” the three percent of “roses” in any student

I think you make the choice of topic/platform/mode/medium optional. The goal being... they need to make something that will live on and help others learn. If a kid can't do that successfully by the end of a course... (with ongoing feedback from adults and peers) then I guess we all fail...

Once again... grazie.. for cranking my brain.
.-= monika hardy´s last blog ..the ideas project =-.
At January 5, 2010, Adrienne wrote:
Clay - a rubric does not have to be a checklist, and it doesn't have to kill the creativity and risk-taking factors. Why can't you build these two areas into the rubric? (i.e., those projects which demonstrate more creativity and risk-taking get better grades) This can easily be done by working in some kind of thoughtful journal / video / other constructed response as a reflection justifying choices and process.
It will no doubt take you much longer to mark than a "regular" project, but IMO, well worth it.
.-= Adrienne´s last blog ..… and, that’s a wrap! =-.
At January 5, 2010, Clay Burell wrote:
Maybe I should start a blog called "I Suck at Assessment." I'm taking a grad course in it next month, so let's hope it helps.
Extra credit if you bang out a mock-up of the kind of thing you're talking about.
Happy New Year!
At January 5, 2010, Clay Burell wrote:
Monika, read and marked as "return to" after I finish my four days in Thailand visiting an old college friend. Thanks for the input. Gotta pack now!
At January 6, 2010, Zoe wrote:
I love the way you've approached this. I've only got a few minutes spare, or I'd fill your comment page up!
My immediate thought was to suggest that you co-construct your project WITH the students. Work with them to define and agree the success criteria, the assessment methodology and to peer & self assess the project from planning through to end product. In this way, students not only get to design the assessment process and agree the project outcomes but also reflect on the learning process itself.
Just a thought...great idea and I love the way you're grappling with assessment of mastery & creativity. Look forward to hearing about what happens next!
Happy new year!
@fullonlearning
zoe
Zoe
At February 2, 2010, Adrienne wrote:
Clay - I haven't forgotten about this reply. In fact, I've been thinking of it ever since. I've just been swamped with studies the last couple of weeks. Apologies. I *am* going to get a mock-up to you, come hell or high water, as this kind of stuff is so important (assessing for creativity but not making the assessment dry). I'll post to your email when I do!
But in the meantime- did you know that the "You Suck at Photoshop" series has morphed (evolved?) into an entire project? Visit http://www.bigfatuniversity.org for some real genuine learning and laughs. My favorite is the series on Music and Garageband. A must see, I think.
.-= Adrienne´s last blog ..… and, that’s a wrap! =-.

How Radio News-Writing and -Announcing Make for Ideal, Literacy-Focused Performance Assessment

Clay Burell — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 07:09:32 +0000

"Old dogs" my mange-ridden tail. (I'm the guy with the receding hairline, inset lower left.)

I’ve been meaning to scratch this itch of a digitized reading/writing/speaking unit for any school with basic podcasting gear for a while, but have been too busy.

Busy with a new job, here in Seoul, writing and announcing radio news. I applied for it a good two months ago, and after a glacial hiring process, got the nod in mid-November. (Some of my fellow tweets know this.)

And while it’s obvious that I enjoyed the advantage of being a foreigner when it came to breaking into radio at my age, I want to add that it didn’t hurt to have a background teaching reading, writing, and speaking skills for eight years. The old joke I loved as a new Humanities graduate – “I have a Liberal Arts degree: Will that be for here or to go?” – seems less funny now, because less true. The basic skills – reading, writing, speaking, listening, which really just mean communicating, in the end – have more value to them than we often credit.

That teaching unit I mentioned? I think about it most days as I drive home from work. In a nutshell, it’s this: invite your students to turn your content, whatever your subject matter, into five-minute “top of the hour” newscasts, applying the craft of writing for radio (great resource here), and then speaking for radio. Then have them follow up, at certain points, with “talk radio” in which they discuss and debate their “content news.” In addition to that work-flow’s simple progression from fact-mastery (identify the main ideas of each section of a chapter and distill them into a short, well-crafted précis) to higher-order thinking (analyze, synthesize, evaluate those main ideas in a natural discussion), there are two more bonuses: first, the technology slice is so simple it’s invisible (in live studio news broadcasts, you only get one chance to announce the news, so for students that means hit record, read for five minutes, then wrap by hitting “stop” and call it a day), and technology should ideally be as invisible as pen and paper; and second, the activity develops all the real-world skills that come with real journalism and broadcasting (or, as Wes Fryer puts it in regards to podcasting, “narrowcasting”).

Glancing back at my last post about Linda Darling-Hammond on performance-based assessment, this type of learning-while-doing workshop measures performance across a wide range of literacy skills: reading for main ideas, writing them with economy and accuracy (and no passive voice, mostly action verbs, citation of sources, distinctions between “alleging” and “charging,” and more), and best of all, speaking with proper pace, volume, inflection, emphasis, pitch variety, and all the other qualities radio announcers have to master to avoid losing their listeners to the next station on the dial.

It’s “real-world project-based learning” that uses the same skills as outlining, note-taking, and giving those schooly little front-of-the-classroom speeches.

The only glitch I can see is this: if you have 20 students that you put into pairs, they can’t all record at the same time in class, so they’ll have to do the actual recording outside of class. They can still have the class period as the workshop to read and write their news scripts, and practice announcing them to each other. They can also discuss and outline the questions and topics for the higher-order “talk show” piece.

Here’s the process we follow at my station. I really think it could be duplicated in an 80-minute block. At work, I do it as part of a team of two. Here it is:

7:30 to 8:30 a.m.: Read newswires (in class, this could be, say, a chapter from a history textbook), select ten articles (sections from the textbook) for the 5-minute 9:00 hourly, divide the labor, then condense those news articles – which read aloud would take two or three minutes each – into crisp little 20-to-30 second summaries of main ideas.

That means cutting about 90% of the length, without cutting the important ideas. (In other words, that means: critical reading for main ideas.)

8:30 to 8:50 a.m.: Practice reading the scripts, making last-minute adjustments where necessary. Focus on the oral skills here: breath control, pace and pause, acceleration and deceleration, words and phrases to emphasize (just consciously watch or listen to any TV or radio newscaster, and notice how different their speaking is from normal off-air speech).

8:50 to 9:00: Go upstairs to the studio, make sure your pages are in order.

9 to 9:05: Announce the news. No second chances.

Again, the reading, writing, and practicing take 80 minutes – a standard block period. The actual recording would have to be done outside of class (Skype, anyone?).

Now for the testimonial: When training for this gig, my first few attempts at speaking were disasters. Adrenaline would make me read too fast. I couldn’t control my breath, so you’d hear huge whooshing sounds as I came up for air after long sentences. My voice and hands shook. I couldn’t meet the 5-minute final out deadline. I couldn’t turn pages skillfully – you’d hear rattling paper or, worse, page one seque to page three because I’d lifted two pages instead of one, resulting in an economy article ending with a surreal sports score followed by a brain-frozen omigod pause. My vocal style would start strong, but during the underwater feeling of the third and fourth minute, I’d drop into a monotone without realizing it. And more.

But my partner’s constructive feedback and encouragement, and self-critique by listening to the performance, and imitation of newscasters online and on air, soon – within a week – led to massive improvement in both writing and speaking, by all accounts. I still have the job, so that must be the general consensus. My point here is that, done regularly, giving students time to stumble and fail, then try again until they succeed and become finally comfortable with all this literacy, will, I’m convinced, make them much stronger readers, writers, and speakers than ye olde schooly lecture-outline-take notes-summarize-give a speech drill.

It was the same with the reading and writing. My partner and I took forever, the first few days, to be able to hone in on the main ideas in all the articles we re-wrote, leading to no practice-time before going live and worse. But now, our speed has at least doubled. We’ve developed the skills, in other words, of skimming, evaluating, separating central from supporting information, and re-writing those quickly and clearly.

So, when I re-enter the classroom next year (yes, you heard that right), this performance-based workflow will be one I introduce early in the year, and sustain throughout it.

I know it’s not original, by the way, and I’m sure many teachers are doing this type of thing. I’m just struck by it because I’ve experienced it from the other (and real-world) end, as a learner.

23 Comments

At December 7, 2008, Jenny Luca wrote:
Good luck with it all Clay. I hope it works out for you.
Jenny Lucas last blog post..The Alexandrine Dilemma - Mark Pesce’s message for Librarians.
At December 7, 2008, Bonnie wrote:
Enjoyed reading about your "top of the hour" newscast teaching unit. It dovetails nicely with the reasoning behind my blogging with 5th graders this year. I like to imagine that I'm laying a foundation for them to go on to higher grades and participate in classrooms with this kind of relevant project based learning.

Simplified even further for younger kids, my goal in a nutshell is to get ten-year-olds thinking about what they're learning and synthesizing it into a coherent paragraph to share with their families online. Being able to share this information is so powerful for many reasons. Yes, we're reinforcing communication skills, and maybe we're even educating some of the parents in the process. At the very least we're adding another layer to the home/school bond that research tells us is so important.
Bonnies last blog post..Reform school II
At December 8, 2008, Morgante Pell wrote:
Great post! This is certainly the sort of assessment I would like to be doing as a student. (Though I definitely enjoy debates too.) I actually recently wrote about a free way to record podcasts from any phone, which might be useful to some people.
At December 8, 2008, Diane Quirk wrote:
We're slowly gearing up to do some podcasting with some of our elementary students soon. I love this comparison between a real life skill and a practical application to the classroom. This also gives me some thinking about what we'll need to pay attention to when getting kids ready to do some good work. Glad to hear you'll be back in the classroom again - looking forward to your writing about that.
At December 8, 2008, Charlie A. Roy wrote:
Sounds like a very doable activity especially in our social science classes. I'll be passing the idea around to our social studies teachers and they are planning their professional growth plans for next year tied to student engagement.
Charlie A. Roys last blog post..Employee Benefits and Staff Retention
At December 8, 2008, Paul C wrote:
I have always sensed that there is an intellectual wanderlust in you which would inevitably move you from teaching into another interesting calling. I am sure you will be richer for the experience and it will help you to process the dynamics of learning relevance for all. Best wishes.
Paul Cs last blog post..Blogger Discovery
At December 8, 2008, Claire Adams wrote:
Wow! What a great idea Clay.
I'll definitely consider using this next year (apparently I'm teaching English and S&E argh!)
I totally agree with Morgante Pell, this is the sort of assessment piece that i would feel interested in.
Assessing it might be tricky, but it's definitely worth a shot. I always hated novel and poetry studies anyway.
Claire Adamss last blog post..Start with the idea and apply the tool
At December 9, 2008, Clay Burell wrote:
Jen, thanks. It always has worked out so far, though not always the way I'd have chosen. (Do you know that Taoist parable with the "Good luck? Bad luck? Who knows?" refrain? It's my gospel.)
At December 9, 2008, Clay Burell wrote:
Bonnie, that's a great angle for young learners. You're right, the approach is similar to what I sketch out, insofar as both require the content to somehow be used for a purpose, manipulated, "done to".

And I love the home/school bonding. Good stuff.
At December 9, 2008, Clay Burell wrote:
Morgante,

Hm. Radio does call-in interviews. Tweaking along those lines would be fun.

As for debating, that's the "talk show" format idea, in a sense, though nobody's saying nothing can be front-and-center live.
At December 9, 2008, Clay Burell wrote:
Hi Diane,

Yes, it's the "podcasting WHY?" and "podcasting HOW?" that's important, isn't it?

And doing it in a way that has clear hooks to real-world analogs (what elementary school kid has never heard news radio?) seems a way to inculcate real-world, transferable skills while at the same time using the content of whatever class as the material. That content will be incidentally learned as the ideas are re-processed in writing and speaking.

In the real-world, nobody says, "I'm going to podcast" without knowing why, or wanting to. Classrooms have to operate on this same basis. (I know this isn't news to you. It's just interesting to flesh out.)

I really like Bonnie's elementary idea above. Did you see it?
At December 9, 2008, Clay Burell wrote:
Charlie, I agree social science classes seem the easiest fit for this.

There's a podcast by, I want to say, the History News Network, that's real-world. Google histor* and podcast and you should find it. Might be a good model. Though of course the imagination's the limit as to format and approach, really.

A couple years ago, I had students do "live" reports from the Age of Exploration, and didn't like the result. The "pretend" element made it schooly - still fun, but schooly. Today, I'd make it more straight.

I also made the groups too large, and the lengths too long. Pairs with short time limits are the corrective next time.

Nice as always, Charlie.
At December 9, 2008, Clay Burell wrote:
Thanks Paul. That wanderlust will be the end of me yet. But you did see that I'm preparing to return to the classroom, yes?

Timing and wind conditions for sailing into the great freelance unknown are not favorable with the currently brewing perfect storm. Asian markets will fall hard next year, domino-wise. Unemployment will rise and budgets shrink. So the security is most important for the wife and me.

Maybe another time. As jobs go, teaching is still a good one, kvetching aside.
At December 9, 2008, Clay Burell wrote:
Hi Claire,

First, what's "S&E"?

Honestly, I think English is the hardest subject to teach well. History is easier by far for me. So I hear you when you say you hate novel and poetry studies.

So how could this work in any authentic radio way for novels and poems?

Hm. NPR/This American Life type feature stories about the characters and plots of novels, treated as real, might be something. Or advice call-in shows with people talking about their "friend who has this problem"?

It's a challenge, for sure.

And as I said to Charlie above re: real History podcasts, there are also real book-talk radio shows, culture shows where people just talk books. Maybe something as simple (almost) as that could be the way to go.

Thanks for the input. It helped me just now. :)
At December 9, 2008, Morgante Pell wrote:
Yes, basing it on call-in intervirws would definitely help to improve it.

One would hope that the format would be less like "talk radio" (where it really isn't a debate, more like a monologue with interjections) and more like a real debate, where actual opposite points are taken and both sides are given some leverage.

For examples of fake debates, see Fox News.
At December 9, 2008, Clay Burell wrote:
Morgante,

LOL. Fox 1: "Obama is not a terrorist. He's a socialist!"

Fox 2: "I disagree. He's a terrorist!"

Fox 3: "He's actually a fasco-socio-terrorist with a gay Muslim agenda to bring down fair and balanced reporting."

Okay. Enough.
At December 10, 2008, Ben wrote:
I like it! I've been brainstorming ideas for non-traditional assessments of science content and this idea seems like it'll work quite well with the next content area we're covering in class.

It's quick, authentic, and engaging. I'll have to sit down to flesh out details, but thanks for sending me down this road.
Bens last blog post..Artifacts #2- Chemical reaction primer
At December 10, 2008, Claire Adams wrote:
Clay, you may have hit on something there. Students could do a radio version of a 'book report', doesn't sound as risky or creative but it would be better than just another piece of writing.

S&E stands for Society and the Environment, similar to Geography and History all mashed up together with a bunch of Social Studies thrown in for good measure. My first topic for year 10 S&E next year is WWII so some radio broadcasts may well be useful assessment pieces.
Claire Adamss last blog post..Start with the idea and apply the tool
At December 11, 2008, Clay Burell wrote:
Claire, that's interesting. Again, what I'm learning in radio production is that even "feature" shows are often not ad lib, but scripted. So the "book report" idea may change the writing for students in positive ways, since it will have to sound good and clear - and engaging - when read.
If you do find yourself playing with this approach in your classes, drop us a line and let us know.
At December 11, 2008, Clay Burell wrote:
Ben, be sure you drop a comment with links if anything comes of that. I think there's a lot to be said for science coursework that "announces" science stuff in a way that teaches listeners. God knows I could benefit by listening to explanations of all the science I never really learned in high school. :)
At January 1, 2009, Beyond School: Happy Birthday - and Rest in Peace? | Beyond School wrote:
[...] applied, interviewed, interviewed again. Glacial, painful waiting (and contemporaneous with the radio job I’d also been interviewing [...]
At January 10, 2009, Marissa wrote:
Hi this is Marissa from Mr. Bogush's social studies. We decided to try out your idea. If you would like to see how it turns out check out the link below 9:00 to 10:00 EST on Tuesday.

http://collaborationnation.wikispaces.com/Steaming+Video+of+Todays+Class
At February 17, 2009, Unsucky English, Lecture 6: Gilgamesh and the Birth of Something New | Beyond School wrote:
[...] Gilgamesh. [↩]I got sucked into the presidential campaign first, then into interviewing for a radio job and a writing job over six weeks or so after that (I got them both, thank goodness), and then into [...]

A Great Idea for Drama Class: Performing Wasilla Town Meetings

Clay Burell — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 03:25:29 +0000

This is just hilarious, and a brilliant idea at the same time: taking the Wasilla Town Meeting minutes (Sarah Palin presiding), and turning them into a one-man drama performance. Do yourself a favor and laugh as you learn about the extent of this woman’s experience, and worse yet, her leadership style.

Sarah Palin in “Head of Skate” – Fun Little Spoof Trailer

Clay Burell — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 05:00:17 +0000

A little ice-breaker after my fear-frozen last post: CollegeHumor.com also found noteworthy Matt Damon’s comments about Palin leading the US government and military. But they had fun with it, bless ‘em. Enjoy (and h/t to Crooks and Liars).

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

(And on an educational note, if any of you have student films that so creatively comment on history or current affairs, feel free to drop a link to them in the comment thread. I’d love to see students given the freedom to make this kind of commentary in the classroom.)

Beyond Brain-Storming to Brain-Flooding: Google Maps for Personal Narrative

Clay Burell — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 03:19:11 +0000

John Larkin in Oz nudged me to consider playing with the idea he so creatively played with on his own site: “How Far I Roamed as a Child.”

John’s post gives the full background of the idea, and a nicely visual guided tour of his own childhood using personal photos and satellite imagery from Google Maps. But this excerpt from John’s post brings out the historical and educational thrust of the idea:

[An] article in the Mail online, ‘How children lost the right to roam in four generations‘, is particularly telling. It sets out quite clearly how from one generation to the next children are not roaming as far as their parents and grandparents.

Firing up Google Maps and revisiting my elementary and junior high years’ stomping grounds in Tennessee was a blast – and as John seemed to understand by inviting me to play with his idea, it has all sorts of engaging applications for the writing classroom. One example is all I have time for at the moment, and it’s this: By typing in my childhood home address on Google Maps, then clicking “street view” and zooming and panning around a bit, I found, of all unremarkable things, the street-drainage ditch in front of my house, with its tunnel under the street to the other side, which I crawled through as a child surely hundreds of times – and up the hill from that, in what was once my yard, the grandest hickory tree you could ever imagine, whose autumn leaves I and my brother and sisters and parents and dogs raked into piles (okay, the dogs didn’t rake), dove into, splashed around in like leafy surf, on and on. Here’s a screenshot:

The Ditch, the Hickory, the Memory Flood

Wouldn’t This Work in the Writing Classroom?

The photo above may not do anything for you, and it shouldn’t. But me? I can hear the flung rocks echoing from the tunnel, smell the algae in its puddles, remember the sense of mystery of the world opening out at tunnel’s end. For autobiography and personal narrative, again, this beats the utter hell out of brainstorming with pencil and paper about my childhood. Never in a hundred years would I have even remembered that ditch and tunnel. But now that I do, the related memories wax exponential. That ditch, for example: after a heavy rain, it was a child’s river, and so, with my best friend Gary (who drowned with his father a few summers later), we named that “river,” in a bit of blood-brother name-combining, the “Clary.” Again, just an example of how this goes beyond brain-storming to brain-flooding.

How Far I Roamed

Anyway, like John, man did I roam as a child. I must have walked four or five miles a day on average. Here’s Google Maps, with my first attempt to use Adobe Illustrator for labels and arrows, to show the details (click image for larger view, and note the key in the lower left corner):

How Far I Roamed: Chattanooga, Tennessee, 1960s and '70s

(And for the students out there who read this, let me know: do you roam as far these days? Or have you “lost the right to roam”? And Dad: you can comment too, you know. How far did you roam as a child, on a daily basis?)

If you decide to play with this meme, by the way, please link it to John’s original post. It’s his baby, and it’s a good one.

12 Comments

At August 19, 2008, davidcosand wrote:
I grew up in a very rural setting; my parents still own about 80 acres of Oregon farmland. Some of my favorite memories involve the nighttime "maneuvers" my friends and I would go on. We'd don our stealth clothes and play intricate games of hide and seek in the surrounding fields. My mom always called the neighbors – especially Mr. Arbuckle, who had a quick trigger finger – to let them know that any strange noises were probably the result of boys sneaking around.

Now, as the father of two boys and two girls, I have a hard time imagining giving them the same freedom to be out at all hours of the night without adult supervision. Sure, the world has changed…but I have no doubt that my children are missing out on a rich tapestry of memories.

Reading your post, along with Larkin’s original, I’m inspired with new angles of approach to our class focus on personal and regional histories and the authentic writing tie-ins possible. I’m interested to discover the roaming ranges of my students and what those paths mean to them. I love how real life and the connections of conversation so eloquently inform and deepen learning. Thank you for an exciting new line of instructional possibilities.
At August 19, 2008, Michael Doyle wrote:
Once again, an intriguing post, and one that has both my neocortex and amygdala firing away. I may need two cups of coffee before I'm through.

First, the neocortex:

What's not to love? Brain-flooding based on new technology tied to instructional strategies keeps the schools humming.

Progress! Writing! Google! Budgets justified, curricula met, classes engaged. I'd have to wipe a tear of happiness from my eye as the principal walks in to witness this miracle in the classroom, having interrupted his day when he learned of the miracle in the science wing.

(Despite my crankiness, I have to admit I'll likely try this in the classroom before the year is out--it's a great tool.)

So why is my amygdala doing its own brain-flooding, clouding my brain with emotional energy, emitting vague noises that my neocortex interprets as obscenities? Here it goes:

1) Clay, those of us who wandered in the 60's and 70's have memories tucked away worth flooding. We're grown-ups. Our memories are not screen memories, not ear bud memories.

We wandered all over, and we did wonderful (and wonderfully stupid) things. We played with living and dead animals, we nearly drowned (and some of us did) or nearly got killed on a bike or a sled (and some of us did). We got lost without phones or GPS or even (gasp) a dime to call home. We ate unwashed fruit off the trees. We had our Suicide Hill. We ate apples and homemade popcorn balls made by strangers on Hallowe'en. We mixed blood as blood brothers.

We lived.

Most of us, anyway.

And each of us will die. We are mortal critters.

The myth, the Great Myth, is that the world is more dangerous now. It is safer, far safer, at least in this part of the world, but it can never be truly safe, and we lose something trying to pretend otherwise.

Growing up, kids in our occasionally died growing up--one kid ran his sled under a parked car (no supervision), another kid got killed by an errant bat (no helmet), another broke his neck diving into a tidal creek at low tide (he died a few years later--a fine reminder for the rest of us to get a grip on tides), a classmate died of leukemia, another on a skateboard.

A morbid list, but not a prelude to return to the Olden Days. The point is this: not one abduction by a stranger, not one death from the razor blade hidden in the apple, not one drug pusher said "Hey, kid, try this..."

Our biggest fear was The Stripper, a man who supposedly lived in the woods and would make you take off your clothes. ("Don't walk alone in the woods," pretty good advice when you're eleven.)

Were there sexual predators? Of course. Are there now? Yep, with even better access to children.

2) I read your post, and as I got deeper into it, I'm nodding and thinking, yes, Clay's going to say something pithy and confirm my world view (why else wile away summer morning hours on a machine?)
(You write so well I bet I would enjoy a tech manual on how to replace a timing chain written by you.)

I thought you were going to suggest that we push the children outside, and let them roam again, so that they have brain-floods of thoughts beyond photon memories, memories framed by whatever size screen their family or district could afford.

What I fear now is that kids will find their homes on the "street view" and somehow feel "more" validated.

And the amygdala fires off another neuron or two.

3) Administrators will have to block your site because you advocate unsafe mixing of bodily fluids.

4) I love Google. I fear Google. Having a whole class of students type in this kind of information from various sites is powerful data.

Google's not getting rich just because of a fancy pants search engine. A good chunk of their "value" comes from big investors who get the data thing.

How confused am I? I want to be a Google certified teacher. I use Google in the classroom, and not just the search engine. I get lost for hours playing with a variety of their tools.

Google knows more about me than my mother did. And only a ragged remnant tucked in my amygdala even cares anymore, and my neocortex cannot remember why anymore.

And in another generation, the first generation raised by the generation that spent most of its conscious hours at work or at school or in front of a monitor, will no longer even ask why we do not roam anymore.

(And now a completely off-topic apology--I am sorry I linked your thoughts with John Taylor Gatto's. I might even fix the reference if I am ever caffeinated enough to sustain goal directed activity for more than 47 seconds.)
Michael Doyles last blog post..A Bloomfield menagerie: praying mantis
At August 19, 2008, Clay Burell wrote:
Sorry both of you to shoot off a brief reply. Busy tonight.

@David, it was nice to roam with you through Oregon past. Nicely written (and so much more evocative than your original Twitter respones ;-) ).

@Doyle, my Apple dictionary says the amygdala is associated with the sense of smell, so I'm sort of lost. But that's okay and not unusual anyway.

The "how far did you roam" frame sort of implies the "get outside and roam" message, or so I hoped.

And Google? A scary beast, yes - but we're all mortal, and to me, I'll add it to the list of fears to ignore in order to enjoy the present. You know, traffic, baseball bats, parked cars, etc.

Funny coincidence: I was reading your latest posts while you were apparently commenting on mine. Such a lovely voice, ~~to unintentionally quote Blake's "Little Lamb."~~. (Update: oops, Blake used "tender," not "lovely." Never mind.)
At August 19, 2008, Clay Burell wrote:
Oh, and Doyle: I'd love to talk with Gatto. Agree with much of what he says, but just wish he'd consider his basic ideological assumptions more critically than it seems to me he has. Overall, I admire the guy, to be clearer.
At August 19, 2008, Clay Burell wrote:
Oh and #2: Doyle, can you tell me where I advocate "unsafe mixing of bodily fluids?" I'm laughing as I type!
At August 19, 2008, Michael Doyle wrote:
#1)More about the amygdala soon, I'm off to meet with a teacher about overhauling our curriculum, but for now, know that it is the part of the primitive brain that has long neural connections to the cortex, and is indeed where smell "sensations" pass through (and back) on the way to our "higher" part of our brain, It also appears to be the seat of fear and rage, as much as anything can be seated in our brain.

If you remove a rat's amygdala, it will not run from a cat. (Which brings memories now of my mother singing "...and up on his haunches he sat, singing in the pale moonlight, bring out the goddamn cat" or something like that.;)

#2) Given our generation, I took the "blood-brother name-combining" naming of your stream literally. And, of course, memories rushed in of the moments just before you prick yourself, to mix your blood with your eternal friend, becoming blood brothers.

Or maybe we were just stupid literal kids with too much time on our hands--I think eventually every boy in the neighborhood had mixed blood with every other one within a grade or two in years.

But if I'm an administrator, I'm playing it safe and removing it anyway--cannot have too much safety in this world.

(Shoot...late...hit submit and run!)
Michael Doyles last blog post..A Bloomfield menagerie: praying mantis
At August 20, 2008, Claire Thompson wrote:
This meme really seems to have grabbed people, myself included. When I was a kid my family moved around a bit (each of my dad's promotions meant a new town) so tonight after reading your post I hopped onto Google maps to check out each of my old neighbourhoods. I thought I'd like to see in which town I had the longest walk to school. To figure out the distances quickly I used Gmaps Pedometer. It's a great web app I started using a while ago to figure out how long my run routes are.

I wasn't surprised at my longest walk; 3.6 km (2.3 mi) when I lived in North Vancouver, BC. But I could have sworn that the walk to my elementary school in Prince George BC was longer than 0.7 km (0.4 mi)! I guess the pretty cold winters (-20C was usual) coupled with high snowbanks and short legs skewed my sense of distance ;-)

Anyway, I just wanted to share the Gmaps Pedometer link with those who are interested in taking on this meme. Thanks for the term 'brain flooding', and for the prod to take some walks down memory lane.
Claire Thompsons last blog post..Combatting Teacher Burnout
At August 20, 2008, John Larkin wrote:
Thanks Clay for taking it up. Your stories of the ditch and the drain bring back memories of Cabbage Tree Creek for me. We sued to ride our bikes down a path and into the creek for a few metres up. Crazy. Riding one's bike down the main target hill of the old rifle range was also a bit hairy too. I think I soiled my BVDs on my first effort. After that you could not stop me.
David: Loved reading your story of stealthy adventures. We used to play Phantom Agents as kids. My brother Peter even made some star knives. http://home.alphalink.com.au/~roglen/phantom.htm
Michael: Great stories. Real stuff. Life. Happiness. Tragedy. We used cardboard or masonite sleds to ride down sand, not snow. If there was a hill we would find a way to slide down it.
Claire: Those walks did always seem so long yet as we grow older those same walks become our old friends.
Cheers, John.
At August 20, 2008, Clay Burell wrote:
Thanks for that, Claire. I just used the pedometer instead of eye-balling the distances and like you, found them shorter than I thought. I guess years and miles grow shorter with age.

There's no way I'm going to fight Adobe Illustrator to correct the text on my map, though ;-)
At August 22, 2008, Jason Green wrote:
Clay,

This was an odd memory stirrer for me, because rather than thinking of my own childhood, I noticed that my first place in Chattanooga (by which point I was married and in my late 20's) was just off your map. BTW, Eastgate is a ghost mall now. Everything has moved northeast around Hamilton Place.
At August 27, 2008, Far From Home « Edumacation Of Moi wrote:
[...] today in a blog I just found, about how far one roamed as a child. The bloggers (John Larkin and Clay Burell)who wrote the original posts are probably in the 30-40 age range, solidly marking them as an older [...]
At August 27, 2008, Your page is now on StumbleUpon! wrote:
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