An Idea That Just Keeps Growing

I woke up this morning and one of the first messages on Twitter was this from @thecleversheep.  Now, Rodd is usually good for a thought provoking thought or two so I checked it out.

I was quite surprised that the original post was one of mine.  http://bit.ly/abtvdh As he noted, it led to this http://bit.ly/ci60ga and then http://bit.ly/2N9MLD. This all dates back to a posting that I had made about using images from Google Street View as a launch to a story telling activity.  These weren’t the first responses that I had from the post – Stephen Downes shared images and thoughts from his own childhood earlier.  I still think that his image of the Anglican Church in Metcalfe is pretty spectacular.  I found the responses to his post very interesting.  Not all invoke the happiest of memories; it was a sobering reminder to me that my trip Clinton this time wasn’t under the best of circumstances.

I also was quite interested in a parallel conversation roughly on the same topic by @peterskillen.  His post had received some responses from others who liked the concept.

When you dig deeper into Peter’s message, it is very supportive of the content in @mrspal ‘s posting, Stephen’s post, and mine.  The concept is relatively simple.  So simple, in fact, that it’s the stuff that could be classified as low hanging fruit if all you’re doing is scrapbooking images.  The power, it seems to me is in the story telling.  Stephen and I had used the power of the blog as our platform for our stories.  However, Megan had moved to YouTube for hers

and also to a Google document.  ARgh.  Which won’t centre or embed …

Therein lies the rub.  All of us had done it ourselves first before going anywhere near students with it.  Learning and teaching at times needs to be selfish so that you totally understand the concepts before going any further.  We needn’t apologize; we want the best of learning experiences for all.  What better way to understand than to do it yourself in preparation for going live.

And, if you have a good idea, why not share it so that others can grow on your experiences.  Megan has created this document which is student ready.  Why not use it?

In her blog post, she also detailed a number of publishing platforms.  I’d like to add a couple of others.  How about Comic Life?  I recently did a workshop about storytelling with a very talented colleague.  She made reference to the power of the gutter when you’re writing or reading.  Sure, pictures and captions are important but there’s so much that happens between the pictures to support inference and prediction.

or a Prezi?  There’s lots of gutter there if you spread the images apart.

So, who can do this?  It just takes a quick trip to Google Maps and to drag the little person onto the map.  If it turns blue, it means that there is Street View available.  So, if I head back to Clinton, I get this.

But, that’s thinking pretty small.  (Sorry, Clinton)  How about this?

Why not take a good idea globally?  If you’re in the blue, you can do it.  Or better yet, take the original premise and make it so much better.

Last week, I shared this concept twice during presentations in Bow Island.  I hope that it turns out to be great story telling fodder for students there as well as Philadelphia or wherever Peter’s mother lives.

If we all look around or up, way up, who knows what story might be around the next click?

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