Today I shared that I lived in Georgia for ten years and teachers “would learn me.” As in, for example, they would start off their lessons: “I’m gonna learn y’all @ X.” And this was the 80s, not 1935. Depending on the teacher, I would either listen with every pore on my body or I’d go back to writing notes to my best friend or love letters to some dork that didn’t know I was alive.
A witty person responded with that I now “eLearn all y’all.” You see, in the highly respected Southern American accent, “all y’all” means everyone. And I’m not sure if that’s true because I’m kind of struggling with a few things right now. So why not blog about my struggles, I thought? I’ve been on this weird rant train via of the blogosphere, so I need to chill out with something more productive and useful for others. My last couple of posts have been a bit on the odd side. Whatever.
My friend shared with me this weekend that she doesn’t really understand what I do now that I’m not “a professor” and being an “administrator” must really make it really hard on my professional wardrobe. She encouraged me to investigate more of the “hot librarian look” that I sometimes “rock.”
You may be tempted to judge her for being shallow, but when she said this to me, I was wearing dirty old blue jeans, a Bloody Mary stained hoodie, and I had almost just fallen of the porch because of an ill-placed pine cone. Leadership was not what I saw in the mirror that afternoon, so I think she was giving me advice to at least look the part.
This weekend I was in no shape to “eLearn” anyone, but today, people, I’m game. And I’m working on a webinar for IGNIS series with the state board. Woohoo! I’m gonna eLearn all y’all on what not do, sugah. Come on down now and get some learnin’ on what I done wrong for close to ten yee-ahs, bebe. Ain’t I so smaarht now? (So hard to do a good southern accent in writing. How did Flannery O’Connor do it?)
One Duh
And this is a big “Duh” and I’m almost embarassed to admit it, but my co-chair of the Textbook Alternative Committee and I had the same idea at the same time. We were both like, “Duh, listen to your students.” He and I have been struggling with how to make the time we have with our committee meaningful and productive. It’s part support group, but really, this group is already off and running in ways that have surprised me. It’s so impressive how they are so into what they are doing for their classes, and it’s a wonderful thing to help happen.
One of our nutrition teachers is looking to put together “a book of ideas” she’d like to teach her students. I have an incredible amount in common with this teacher due to our sustainability grant days. I focused on how locavore-like-behavior is good for the environment and the local economy, and she taught students about what they ate. So as a teacher, I empathize with how hard it can be to find good objective research, and as she described her struggles with OER adoption, all I could hear was the word “time.”
Time to develop. Time to think. Time to prepare. Time to write. Time to reflect. Time to ask questions. Time.
And co-chair Mike and I looked at eachother and said, “We’ve been doing it all wrong.” Now, instead of structured-like committee meetings, we’re getting laptops, hot drinks, the librarian, the eLearning Director, the Instructional Designer, and all of the faculty in one room to work. We’re going to have coffee-shop time for the OER committee.
Time. Coffee.Tea.Work. Duh.
One Ta-Dah
You know, as in, jazz hands and “this is something cool.” TA-dah, darling!
Today I’m working on My Decade of Mistakes: Four Things I Did Wrong as an OL Teacher. And. Oh. My. Gawdy’all. Where to even begin? Of course, I have some ideas, but I want to explain not only my errors back in the teaching days, I’d also like to propose how I would solve those problems today. I hope to have something outlined soon since they are making me their kick-off presenter.
No pressure, IGNIS kittens , thanks. But I’m game.
You see, I’m going on a train ride to Olympia for the winter eLC meeting! First of all, I love taking the train along the WA coast. It’s so spectacular at times, gritty and urban at other times, and I get shit done on the train (a memoir). I’m not sure what it is, but I’ve taken the train three times in the last year, and I get an incredible amount of work done. I’ve thought about booking myself work train rides so I can be left alone to work.
First rule of sitting next to me: Don’t talk to me. I don’t want to meet you. Haven’t you seen Hitchcock’s Strangers on the Train? Back off with your “Criss Cross” talk. Merry-go-rounds creeped me out for years because of that movie. Bruno, you were so delightfully femme: Nobody can rock a tuxedo like you.
Two Ta-Dah
I’m still processing a reflection about the federated wiki, so I’m kind of all over the place with my thoughts about it right now. I had this beautiful conversation with my friend Jasmine about the fedwiki and its similarities to what she’s trying to do as an art teacher. I mostly just listened to her and I substituted the words “art” for “OER” or “fedwiki” or “writing.” Mr. Caulfield Fedwiki Teacher wrote this wonderful post that I read that morning, and I read aloud this part to her:
I imagine classes where writing a good and useful summary of research is seen as being as “brilliant” as writing an original paper, where cleaning up data is seen as valuable as theorizing about it. Where a well curated and quoted set of material is as valuable as research. Where reuse is valued over reinvention. Where replicating experiments is as revered as creating new experimental designs. Where people who connect others and think about how to connect others get credit for the advances those connections bring.
And she said, “Yes, that’s what I want my art students to understand!” And I said, “Yes, this is what I’m struggling to communicate to faculty who are interested in open learning and OER. This is “the thing,” right?”
And then she said, “I enjoy talking work with you because you remind me it’s an art.”
She’s an artist-with-gallery-openings, people, so this made me smile. High praise. My lovely friend, Jasmine Valandani, is sometimes called The Scotch Tape Artist–lovingly, by the people who know her. I’ve linked my favorite examples of her work, but a website does not do it justice. It’s the size and scale of what she does that I find so beautifully simple. Lovely to look at it. Seductively sweet. Brilliantly basic.
Here’s how she describes her work:
I create mosaics of transparent tape on paper, miniature frames as in a film, capturing imprints of pollen, pigment, seed, spice. Making this work is a way of consciously engaging with the phenomenal world through touch. The nature of the tape is to eventually yellow, dry up, fall away. Inherent in each work is its own decay. The liveliness of the materials contrasts with the knowledge that what is seen will change and fall apart, inviting a lived as well as aesthetic contemplation of transience and the fragile yet sustaining beauty in the everyday.
So I’ll leave you with this beauty, for a Ta-dah or Duh of your own:
Okay, let’s be very clear. If I love something or someone, then I am happy to tell you all about it.
ALL. ABOUT. IT. I’ll tell you more than you want to know.
Want to learn about something I know a little about? I’ll blow up your inbox with everything I’ve got. But I have to draw a line in the digital sand when I hear the words “motivational workshop” or even worse “motivational speaker.”
Do not ask me to go to a motivational workshop where the motivational speaker lives unless you can A] pay me a lot, and I mean, a lot of money for “research purposes,” B] assure me it won’t be anything like a graduate seminar in Education or English involving body wisdom, and/or C] find your own ride home when I leave half-way through it.
Don’t get me wrong, readers, if any workshop helps you get to the other side of some horror in your life, then I encourage you to go. Do it. What do I know?
Just don’t ask me to be snake-oiled by a for-profit motivator–and please stop convincing me it’s worth my “time as a leader.” Don’t tell me it’s going to help me in my profession. Actualize some untapped potential that I have *to pay somebody* else to see. Work through something I didn’t know was bothering me. Reveal something about myself I don’t already know.
The power of positive thinking–all who have created their empires around this idea–is not for me. And shame on all you folks who cash the checks of desperate people who would be better off doing anything else other than spending time with you. And I don’t like people who yell, so why would I pay somebody to yell in my face?
That’s not say, however, I am not a positive person. The glass is half empty or half full, surely, but I get to decide what I see. Depending on the glass. Who’s holding the glass. And what’s inside the glass. Whether I’m thirsty or not. Depending on the day.
I don’t want to hop on the bloggy blog soap box, but if one more person tells me about a certain workshop that has given them ‘momentum’ I might just lose it.
In short, it sounds like a cult–and it’s super-expensive! Pas moi!
If I was going to join a cult, it would be free, somewhere off the grid near a clothing optional hot spring, and wouldn’t be concerned with “my profession.” If I was going to join a cult, it would be something that could foster kindness, hope, and peace to all of humanity. There would be no fee.
And please, let it be known that we need people to mentor leaders; I get that. You are complimenting me, and that’s nice. Perhaps you see that I unabashedly and routinely beg for advice from people I know to be smarter than me. That’s being a leader, right? I repay my advisers in gratitude, chocolate, or alcohol. It’s a wonderful thing, and yet, I’d never ask any of them to come to a workshop with me. Maybe I’m a little too John Wayne, here, but this cowgirl would rather set out on her own horse than join some fad of the week for self-actualization in the workplace. (Did I really just type that sentence? Have I been asked to write a seminar paper?)
And I also know that people have been broken by other people and they may need something like this workshop education…or whatever it is…to help them realize their momentum. Rock on. Go for it.
I’m hesitant to link this workshop to my blog for fear that “a graduate” will try to explain how I have it all wrong. How I’m not open to my potential. How I just need somebody else help me with my goals. And maybe, just maybe, I’m hearing a lot about this because I live near Seattle. I bet this was oh-so-five-years ago in Boulder, CO or New York. And I’m going to wager that this company has little momentum in Detroit, Cleveland, or Baltimore.
I have been, however, enjoying listing some questions I’d have to ask “my coach” should I somehow end up working for a fascist who would make me attend something like this. Yay, questions!
1. So the power of positive thinking will help me pay my school loans next month? If I *think* hard enough, soul crushing debt goes away, right? Shouldn’t we let other people know about this? This is rad! Poor people don’t *think* hard enough about being rich. I totally get it now.
2. So let me get this straight, if I want to help somebody very close to me find full-time work, I just need to *think* about him “working full-time” and a job will “eventually find him.” Do I imagine him working? Or the job finding him? Do I imagine the paycheck? Or the workplace? Can I buy a GPS unit to help the job find him?
3. If you do this coaching to “help humanity” then why do I need to write you a check? Did you *think* positive thoughts about me paying you before I walked into the door? If this about yourself and your own happiness, then why do you need to recruit me?
4. Ever advised your clients to just crank Metallica “For Whom The Bells Tolls” when they’re feeling a wee bit of rage? What about having a good cry to a Patsy Cline song or a song by The Smiths? Bet they didn’t come back to your next workshop, huh?
5. Do you sound this positive about your coaching work after three gin and tonics? First round’s on me; let’s test my hypothesis.
You see, I’m so very open to the hippiest of dippy if it makes you happy. I’m so very open to the churchiest of churchy-ness if it makes you happy. Just keep it to yourself.
Want me to tell you Namaste after we do yoga? I’ll look you into the eye and say it right back. Want to point out how the stars and planets influence your moods? I’ll crane my neck to learn those constellations. Want to teach me how planting garlic helps you keep track of passing time? I’ll weed, help you dig holes, and harvest. Want to walk into the woods for days? I’ll follow. Want to collect rocks for your familial shrine? I’ve already put two stones in my pocket for you. Want to solve the problems of education? Here, have a seat and I’ll cook you dinner. I bet after three gin and tonics, we’ll have it all figured out, you and I.
Just don’t ask me to attend a workshop to help me be the best me. On a Monday of all days.
I’ve had many conversations this week about young girls, the digital space, and the complications of love. And I have to tell you, if I had a daughter who was a teenager right now, I would have a very frank discussion with her.
This is easy for me to write about because I don’t have children, and I do not profess to understand what it’s like to have children. Having children has not been a high priority for me in life, and I’ll be the first to admit that I can’t wait to host international exchange students or help kids who have aged out of the foster system. Or even broke college kids renting my basement—when/if I can afford to do so.
You see, I come from a long line of people who have struggled financially, and I just can’t stand the idea of bringing somebody else into the world on this side of the tracks.
I’ve been amazingly lucky. My parents sacrificed for me in ways I’ll never be able to repay them. They put me first, and I love them very much. My crazy branch of this family tree stems from a union of love, friendship, and humor. My parents started dating 45 years ago, and it’s the stuff of fiction that they are still together. In short, my parents are wonderful people who may or may not have questioned whether they gave birth to an alien.
When my mother says, “You’re just like your father,” I’m not sure it’s a compliment. When my dad says, “You sound just like your mother,” I’m not sure that’s a compliment.
Recently, I sent my parents a link to something I’m a part of, and wrote “Spot the impostor.” And my dad texted back, “Proud Daddy.” Unlike a lot of my friends, my dad was always there for me. Really. It sounds Hallmark-like. It embarrasses the hell out of me when I meet strangers who know him; they know my entire life. What I can say about my dad is every time somebody complimented my looks, he would say something like “Yeah, and she’s a teacher.” Or “she just did a 90 mile backpack.” Or whatever recent accomplishment, and I don’t think he was conscious of how very-feminist-like that was of him, but in hindsight, it was very cool. People tend to compliment little girls on their looks, and well, that never really changes. And although my dad never told me as much, he did make me listen to James Brown tell it:
My dad has good taste in music. You see, he taught me the beauty of all things soul, R&B, and MoTown. And the importance of having a sense of humor.
And if he thought helped produce an alien, the men I’ve loved have been even more confusing, I’m sure. My parents always, always, always loved my friends. Even if their intuition told them otherwise, they gave everyone a chance that I brought home. To this day, many people I knew in high school cite my parents and the parties that I threw at their house (while they were out of town) a highlight of those years.
Here’s how amazingly smart my mother is—when I finally “admitted” to how I threw parties while they went camping she told me they knew all along. She said, “That Sunday night I’d come home to the cleanest house ever. I told your dad we should let you think you’re getting away with it because I knew all of your friends were helping to clean the house! It was great. I didn’t have to dust or clean the floor for three years.” Here I was thinking I was SO slick, and she was right. I made everyone who stayed over help me clean so I wouldn’t get caught. She also told me that she’d rather us be drunk and stupid at their house than someplace where we were driving. Smart cookie, that mum of mine.
So here’s three things I would tell your daughter: Never drink from a drink you haven’t seen poured. Never trust anyone’s digital personae if you haven’t meet him or her in person. Birth control is a mutual discussion, but a solo decision; you’re the one who has to live with the consequences.
The discussions I’ve been having lately with my friends who have teenagers, all three of these points are related. And yet, how do you not kill the mysteries of young love? the wonderfulness of first love? the fun of making mistakes? I don’t know, but what I do know is–sick people who I’ll call Dirtbag Romeo– have ways to manipulate young girls–your daughters–in ways that are deeply disturbing.
Some sick jerk put something in my drink on election night in 2008. I remember nothing–I mean nothing–of the night. On the night that our country elected our first African American president, I remember little after Barry told his daughters they could get a dog.
We were at The People’s Pub in Ballard–a district of Seattle–a drinking house of liberals and lefties–mind you. Dirtbag Romeo can be anywhere on the political spectrum.
My husband was talking Richard Nixon era politics with some dude, and I wandered to make new friends. When somebody wants to talk Cold War politics, it makes my husband’s heart rate rise. He gets giddy! I vaguely remember some dirtbag looking at me, but then again, I don’t really remember. I was wearing an engagement ring, and wow, I guess that didn’t matter to Dirtbag Romeo. Here’s my mistake, I left my drink on the bar while I went to the restroom. Two hours later, there is nothing in my memory but blackness. I’ve never left my drink again unless I trust people, and neither should you. Are you aware of this nail polish that will detect if a drink has been spiked? This is the world your daughter lives in, folks.
And it really got me thinking about the mistakes that I made, and how I would have been completely vulnerable–on any form of social media–to a skilled writer who was an older man when I was age 14. Case in point: I worked at very large retail chain in high school, and one day this gorgeous “man” walked into the store, and started talking to me. He was 20. Later in life, six years is not that big of an age gap, but at that time, it was massive. And he came into the store to talk just to me. It all started because he was wearing a Depeche Mode shirt and Converse All-Stars. #Dreamy
I’d see him once or twice a week, and I was full on mad for this guy. He thought I was smart! Funny! Cute! He had read Atlas Shrugged and knew how to say Ayn Rand’s name correctly (Note how dumb I was, remember I was 14. Note that three years later, reading Rand outside of a class assignment would have been a total deal breaker.)
Well, it turns out, he was distracting me so that three of his friends could rob the store blind! These three dudes were stealing hundreds of dollars of jeans while Dirtbag Romeo was wooing me with the poetry he had written about me. When the police came—and these were downtown Atlanta, GA cops, not mall cops—I was beyond freaked out.
As I watched Dirtbag Romeo being handcuffed (they had the whole thing on video tape that he was an accomplice), he just shrugged and had this look of “Oh well.” Right then, I knew he wasn’t going to be crafting poetry about me while he was in a holding cell. My little girl heart broke and the thick skin of womanhood started to grow. And the hours I spent defending myself to the police and my managers, turned my crush turn to hatred. The managers defended me; I was crying myself sick. And luckily I was not implicated in the Dirtbag Dude shoplifting ring. No doubt Dirtbag Romeo has helped birth another Dirtbag Romeo. The line continues, I’m sure.
Back then, he couldn’t Google me. And I didn’t dare give him my landline phone number. My dad liked to scare the hell of guys who called me, so I knew the deep voiced 20 year old would get me grounded until I turned 18. My dad was Prom King in 1969, so he had a bit luck with the ladies, I imagine. Having a daughter gave him a new lens on life, I’m sure.
So the only place that Dirtbag Romeo could contact me was at work, and it was the best lesson. I developed a strong scent for Dirtbag Romeo—I didn’t always follow my best judgments, but I developed a question that help me filter out the potential dirtbags to “The Ones with Potential.” And this, I would teach your daughters.
Research Question (RQ): Name three men you looked up to when you were a kid.
Example Answers & Responses
Dude 1: Well, my dad, Ronald Reagan…
Recommended Response (RR): Check please! (Dad, good. The Gipper, very bad).
RQ: Name three men you looked up to when you were a kid.
Dude 2: Well, I didn’t look up to anyone. I’m my own man…
RR: Check please! (Macho BS alert, unless his dad was a dirtbag and left his mother. Give him a chance, but be careful).
I asked this question many times. And here’s was my best response, and this was the one I married. He said, without even thinking for more than 3 three seconds:
Evil Kneivel, John Lennon, and Luke Skywalker.
Me: Not Han Solo? He was way more handsome, and he had Chewbacca.
The One: Are you kidding? Chewy was cool, but Luke had The Force and the light sabor, and he got to hang out with Yoda. That’s all I thought about when I was a kid. That, and my BMX bike.
The rest, folks, is history. But warn your daughters, friends, about Dirtbag Romeo. If it’s too hard to tell her, give Aunt Alyson a call, she’d be happy to talk to her.
On Friday, I hosted a “task force” meeting on my campus, and it was a spectacular bright spot to an otherwise kind of bleak week. Let’s just say I’m watching one amazing project die because a small vocal few dislike what I represent, one fantastic project limp along because of bureaucracy, and one project struggle because I lack substantial “power” and my “influence” only goes so far. I also wrote a grant that I lost, and I’m going to rewrite it and hope for a better audience someday. Try not to be bitter. Try not to envision the schadenfreude of watching the projects that did win fail.
Cool things this week: people bought me chocolate, smart people gave me good advice, a female journalist is rocking my life, my boss gave me a pair of shoes that didn’t fit her, my friends sent me reminders of our knit retreat that’s six days away.
And I let The Clash throw me concert in my car all week with Kingston Advice, so thanks Joe Strummer. I really miss you. That “Straight To Hell” (see 52:11) is my favorite version of a favorite song. Of all time. Forever.
Okay, real quick: If I could go back to 1982 at my current age for one concert I’d go to Jamaica.
If I could go back in time a second time, I’d go to 1977 when The Sex Pistols played to the kids of striking firefighters for Christmas in Huddersfield. I would’ve helped make that cake, for sure.
One more: I’d see Otis Redding Live at Monterey in 1967. The I’ve Been Loving You Too Long version at 7:02 kills me. Oh, Otis, you are so badass. I love you with all my heart, too. Be sure to watch him dance in the song that follows. No musician has felt more joy in a bitchin’ blue suit. And Otis, every time I wear a mini-skirt; it’s for you.
So back to Negative Ed. Tech. Nelly—I visited my friend Joleen last night who smacked me down off my sad horse by saying the following:
You win a lot, dude, what the hell is your problem? Remember how you were sitting on this very porch crying your eyes out just four years ago? Everything’s so much better now. You’re a totally different woman compared to that sad sack, so shut up about losing, and let’s have another beer. I also want you to read this book I love so I have somebody to talk about it with, so enough with the losing, loser.
Amazingly lucky I am to have such a friend.
Some backstory: Joleen single-handedly talked me into staying in grad school for my M. Ed. It took me five years to complete that second masters degree—I’m now counting the extra year of studying for the GRE, applying for the state tuition waiver, and researching for the PhD programs to which I will now not apply to as planned.
Back then, I had four classes left to go to graduate—including one on ed. tech that looked like a complete waste of my time, so I had decided to quit. Everyone I talked to advised me to stick with what would make me happy—which was quitting—and everyone agreed, walk away. That is, everyone but Joleen. Everyone accentuated the positive, but Joleen told me off with a palpable anger and white-hot disappointment. If we were the hitting yelling type, she may have punched me. Instead she got in my face with her words, used her pointer finger to emphasize flaws in my logic, and admitted that she’d never forgive me if I walked away. Had she not completely bitched me out that night; I would have quit.
I owe it to her to at least see her once a week; I was a terrible friend last year. 2015 is going to be different. I need to remember to thank her for that night.
Our conversation turned last night to how she advises our single friends who are dating. Ten years ago, she’d advise that them to “have fun, but keep your pants on.” Now we’re adding a tip for the digital age: “have fun, keep your pants, and don’t give up your password to anything on the Internet.”
Our two best memoir titles from last night (she’s six years older than me):
Great Idea Twenty Years Ago, Now, Not-So-Much: A Memoir
Edicts For Now: A Memoir
Speaking of the memoir titles, I am delighted to report that Jen Whetham has embraced my memoir title writing joke! I wish I could point to the moment where I started to do this writing in my mind, but I can’t. It may be back when I introduced authors on book tour while working at the bookstore. The memoir writers always spoke “A Memoir” so earnestly breathy. So sad—almost embarrassed-like. So much so, that after hearing the fifth author do it, I had to make fun of it. I just wanted to tell the authors, quit being so damn serious, creative writer; you’re getting on my nerves. Quit pretending; nobody cares.
For years, I was good at limiting the memoir writing to my internal dialogue, but I got stuck on saying it aloud in the backcountry, and now I can’t seem to stop. Things are way funnier in the backcountry, trust me. I’ve also started using the memoir title writing with my little eLearning team to ease the tension of the everyday workaday blues. Here’s one that made us laugh to tears:
I Cringe When I See Your Name in My Inbox: A Memoir
At the end of our task force meeting yesterday, Jen invited us to write our memoir title as a summary of the week as a way to conclude our magical meeting. Here are the highlights. Nerd-tastic here, wrote them down.
It’s Too Much pressure: A Memoir
Thought Week 1 Was Hard, Week 2 Was Worse: A Memoir
What’s My Job Again? A Memoir
Ask Me in Month: A Memoir
This Would All Be Easier If I Loved Myself More: A Memoir
This Will Help Me Get Me Tenure, Right? A Memoir
Loving What Is & Everything Is As It Should Be: A Memoir of My (Im)perfections
As you can tell, this meeting was wonderfully digressive and very productive. Being asked by the state board folks to host a “task force” meeting is up there with riding my bike, and I wish I could end every week that way. We talked about big picture stuff and small changes that we can make to the Assessment, Teaching, and Learning Conference. I was there as a member of the eLC, and again, it’s these bigger projects—connecting the smaller ideas with a big picture–with anything in higher ed. that has real momentum feds my brain. My soul.
As we spiraled away from the agenda, I bought up the fedwiki—three of the five task forcers are or were English teachers. Everyone is an educator in the room—just with different titles. And for the second time this week, I found the limits of my vocabulary. The limits of explaining something that has changed my life. Without sounding ridiculous. Without sounding stalkery and weird. Without sounding completely knackered about my current situtation (as the Brits say).
The Fedwiki Happening has been a bit like Joleen telling me off for walking away from grad school. Only this time it’s not me, the student, it’s me, the wanna-be-writer. Are You There Free-Time, It’s Me, Alyson.
The combination of the way the fedwiki works and the people who are a part of it–has been like the finger in my face pointing out what I’ve been trying to ignore. To accept. To live with. To reconcile.
The Fedwiki reminded me that writing is my first love. And like Otis said, “With you my life has been so wonderful/I can’t stop now.” And I simply have to make time for it. Just for me. I’m not happy without that practice.
I used to get paid to teach people about writing, and I miss some parts of that life. And the Smallest Federated Wiki Happening helped me rediscover that little part of my soul that got lost in The Recession, got damaged from publication rejections, and got worn out from the constant tirade of feelings of inadequacy while learning to do my job.
Mind you, this all happened, as I just signed a book contract to publish a chapter in an anthology. And it’s about educational technology. I’m very curious to see what my work will look like in the package of an anthology of voices.
The fedwiki is so unlike that writerly experience—I was given (or rather I stalked the editor to have ) the same topic as a small group of people, and I have no idea what they did. I’ve had no access to their ideas let alone anything that looks like cooperation. We collaborated on deadlines, and that’s it. I can’t help but wonder what an anthology would look like created in the fedwiki. We’d have to call it something else surely. If you try to talk, say, to a traditional academic, about participating in an attribution-free anthology, or how this could revolutionize the dissertation process from gatekeeper horseshit to something actually useful to scholarly inquiry and knowledge production; they look at you like you’ve lost your fucking mind.
But I need a way to explain this, and I know others are working on the same thing. So here goes:
Alan Levine’s notecard explanation is a superb way to get started on how to understand the fedwiki from the writer-side, and it’s beautifully written. I’ve loved everything Alan Levine touches ever since the CogDog walked into my life. His mind is like a small fire that you can’t walk away from. But. I hated notecards as a student and when I taught research writing, I let students choose not to do notecards. Every time a teacher forced me to do and turn in notecards, and I had plenty as an English major, I read and read, wrote notes everywhere. Mostly–for better or for worse I still do–I wrote/write in my head. I don’t think about what I will write–I put the words together and I see them in my head. Maybe you do this too.
When I wrote research papers, I copied my essaying ideas on to notecards to satisfy the assignment. When it came time to turn in an outline, I entered roman numerals next to the sentences in my essay. Deleted and created BS. Teachers raved over my “organization” and “coherence” from start to finish with the research process. I never told anyone I cheated that way until I became a teacher, and I told my students how I worked around the note-card obsessed teachers. (Sorry, if you are one. If it works for you, that’s fabulous).
When I became a writing teacher, I struggled with how to teach students because my method was—and remains—complete madness. Too many choices are terrible for first-year college students; they’re still recovering from The K-12 Standardization Testing System Industrial Complex. You have to ease students into seeing the gray area because everything they’ve been taught up is so very black or so very white. Never both. The gray doesn’t exist. There’s only one answer on the scan-tron. One dot to fill-in. One right answer. You know, just like life.
So I gave students two or three options for note-taking, but I made them do my entirely made-up process curated from the work of my smarter-than-me colleagues. I taught with the promise they could then choose what works for them in the future. Just do it once, and then you find out what works for you, I’d say.
Everyone gave me notes in all different forms–digital and on paper. Notecards, I noticed, mostly came from grade obsessed students going into STEM—the nursing students gave me three-inch stacks of notecards. A favorite submission was on bar napkin with a note, “I know this looks unprofessional but I got my best idea while drinking with my friends. Here it is.”
“Well, well, me too! Looks like brown booze. Hope it was whiskey. Thrilled you’re talking about my class at a bar,” I wrote. (Underlined “thrilled” three times. Made sure that comment was not in the portfolio that the English department reviewed for accreditation purposes, btw). #MissedOpportunityAlert
So I keep writing in my head about the fedwiki and I’ve been thinking a lot about the fedwiki as a bike share system. I haven’t quite put the pieces together yet on how to use this metaphor (or is it better as analogy? a symbol? motif? theme?) so I’m just going to write and think about it all day today. I’m going to start with this blog and then I’m heading into the fedwiki.
Rain is predicted to fall in inches, so it’s me, the dog, the fire, and word-nerd heaven today. I start with the fedwiki mentality by jotting down the things I list/write in my head constantly.
I’m sure they gave electric shock therapy to people like me once. It looks like this on paper. On the screen. Whatever.
OER and the Fedwiki: The Similarities
1. Started grass-roots, has the potential to grow beyond our wildest dreams
2. Fosters community in ways previously unimagined
3. Changes the definition of connected learning–discovered the fedwiki through the very same people that helped me understand OER and connected learning
4. Encourages healthy behavior—one for the mind, one for the body
5. Downplays ownership and provides a short-cut to get to The Thing (the “thing” may be work, writing, cooperation, teaching, creativity—mostly I’ve journaling on projects there instead of in Google Docs. And I like “the thing” that I’m creating there better. Wish I didn’t have to spend so much time on the bullocks: A Memoir).
6. Allows you to see things you don’t normally see–the designation is the journey (as opposed to being in a car or on the internet). Avoid the bumper sticker platitudes, rewrite that.
7. Pivots the notion of PLNs–this is something very personal connected to a network in ways I haven’t been able to describe (yet). All notions of audience kind of go out the window, because you don’t know who (if anyone) will stumble on it. As a writer, you don’t see stats, likes, notifications, or anything but what you want to see. It’s entirely ego-less while completely narcissistic. Research narcissism more, connect Bike Lust smell to this idea.
8. Cycling, like writing, is incredibly hard solo work that brings together joy, passion, and release—the harder the climb, the better the downhill. The flats are just to pedal or think easy.
9. It’s very hard to explain to people who have never heard of the federated wiki.
10. I realized how wonderful the fedwiki has all been during lunch this week with a very dear friend, Lolly Smith. To say she a friend is so wrong. She’s the sister to my inner-teacher, and I’m endlessly thankful for the time she has spent with me. On me. Mentoring me.
Before I forget, Lolly, if you’re reading this, I regret not bringing up three things during lunch:
1. What do you think about Daryl’s transition on The Walking Dead? He’s the methy-skinny-outlaw-turned-Robinhood, right? Any Shakespeare connections?
2. Have you seen that Jon Snow cut his hair in real life? You really know nothing now, Jon Snow.
3. What are you reading?
But here’s what got me thinking. She said I taught her brevity. How to take something long and make it shorter. Smaller. Brevity? Me? Seriously.
Now, if you have made to this point in this blog post, please note this memoir title.
I Embody & Embrace Contradictions: A Memoir
She was talked about how she used to live for long papers, long books, long projects and I taught her brevity with my presentation about Pinterest. I used to focus on professional development in small bits thanks to a class I took, I suppose I still do that but now it’s about OER. For those of you who do not know Lolly, she’s one of the 2012 Anna Sue McNeil winner. When I use the phrase, “teacher’s teacher” I see her face. When I think of future awards for OL teachers in Washington State, I think “The Lolly Smith OL Teacher Award.”
She either hired or had a hand in hiring everyone I think is cool at EvCC. She connected me to my first
job in higher education/grant/recognition/diversity course/literature course/CC job recommendation/online and hybrid class/teacher award/instructional designer job/my current position
Sometimes the luck one gets in life is because you impress the right people. Do the right dance to the song of the moment. Make something that somebody benefits from selling. With Lolly, it’s all of that and none of that. She’s just plain Good People. She’s left this giant legacy in teaching that I’m not sure she is aware of. She’s too humble to own it. And I understand why she retired when she did, and I share her same concerns about the future of education. In my best moments, I want to make sure I’m somebody’s Lolly.
I told her that I would create a backwards design “assignment” for her to read so she can ask me questions about the fedwiki the next time I see her. We giggled about how very instructional designer that is! As a Shakespearean who taught writing, she started glowing when I described the fedwiki to her. And originally, that’s what I wanted this blog post to be, a lesson for Lolly, but now I’m going to ask her to join us instead. As one of the pioneers of online teaching in Washington state, she has a lot to offer us.
This morning, I woke up thinking I’d read the paper and my stack of books. But I got a ping about the fedwiki, so I peeked at the iPad. And saw this post:
I could write something brainy about this title, but all I can say is, this is like seeing it’s 2AM, and the bartender yells, we’re staying open! Free rounds for everyone! Fuck yes!
So I’ll struggle some more with the OER/fedwiki/bike-share idea today, and I’ll stop with my cultish devotion-speak and conclude with an invitation to carve out those seven hours, dear readers. If you can follow my blogging style, then you can struggle with the fedwiki. Learn it, don’t give up, don’t be intimidated by anyone, be silly, have fun, entertain yourself, and be delighted when you connect with somebody. Be prepared to read other people thinking your thoughts in a way you’ve never seen. It’s digital learning magic.
The fedwiki is up there with my “favorite things in life” like the first bike I bought in pieces which somebody hand-built the wheels and put everything together to create a bike for me. From the wheels, to the parts, to the bar tape, I picked out all of the parts to make the whole.
When I first saw how the parts became the bike, I just stared in awe. I asked, “how does it ride?”
To which the highly-skilled mechanic said, “I didn’t build it for me; it’s you I thought of. Throw a leg over it and check it out yourself. What are you waiting for?” Those two clicks of my shoes going into the pedals changed everything. Click. Click. Pedal. Pedal. Yes. Yes.
Yesterday we had the once a quarter All Instruction meeting, and I’ll be honest, I never attended these meetings before I had this job. So I get why people aren’t there, and adjuncts, I forgive you more. As I looked around the room, I saw the usual suspects. The tiny core of coolness that makes a place a pleasant daily experience. Commiserated with a poet who was smart enough to bring a notebook to “take notes–something I’ve learned from my students,” he laughs. Made a sarcastic comment or ten to a new dean. Got to hear the lovely smart ideas of my little team. Tried to be more serious and thoughtful in my responses to sincere questions from the VP. Tried not to run over and hug the teacher who asked the same question I was going to ask the student panel.
This question, coming from me, sounds self-serving, selfish, and well, kind of accusatory. But from a teacher, it was beautiful.
How can we create a community in online classes?
The students were asked to talk about what helps them be successful, and the like. One student mentioned one of our philosophy teachers, whom I adore, as helping to create community online by creating podcasts. He felt like he really got to know the teacher by listening to him speak his ideas as part of the assignments. This teacher does not use our LMS, and I’m not particularly interested in standardizing what “teachers should do”–I support in good faith academic freedom.
I do, however, have opinions about ways we can make sure students know what to do and when, so that’s where I focus my energies. That podcast comment made my day, and helped fortify me as I listened to many, many justifiable compliments about technology. As the only technology support person there, I have to work on not taking those comments personally. My dean noticed my very chicken-like behavior of bolting out of the door at the end of the meeting. Rather than schooling me about administrative bravado, she took me into her office and we had a lovely session of Speaking the eLearning Truth.
Truth be told: I love making her laugh–she’s whip smart and it feels like such an accomplishment to make her laugh. She’s invested a ton of time in me, my ideas, and my flaws. Plus, we always talk about books. #lucky
On the agenda, there was supposed to be a question about textbook affordability. That discussion did not happen–to which I’m grateful–also chicken-like, I’ll admit. My co-chair is on sabbatical and I don’t like representing our work in front of the faculty without him. Without him, our OER project would not be happening. I am fiercely dedicated to this idea that OER has to be “faculty-driven” and he’s faculty; I’m not. But I get why he wasn’t there. He’s wigging out about writing a textbook for developmental math students, so I wish him well in his little writing shed near the Chuckanut Mountains. Parsing through OER math problem sets sounds like the outer-circle of hell to me, so I’m glad people like him exist.
I took notes on my phone about the words the students kept returning to:
Flexibility. Approachability. Positivity. Clarity of expectations. Enthusiasm. Bonding. Being open. Mixing it up for learning styles. Teacher presence. Connections. Time.
When the faculty were asked what they needed to do the work of supporting students (the student panel had left, I wanted them to stay), they used words and phrases like:
Rigor, relevance, respect, support, time, more full-timers, paying adjuncts, equity in committee work– and my favorite–the tyranny of administrative tasks. Time.
And again, I listened to many of the common issues on both sides being about The Adjunct Question. I do not mean to belittle the use of The Woman Question by appropriating it (please note I have a vagina)–every opportunity I have right now is the result of people with vaginas asking questions.
People With Vaginas Asking Questions: A Memoir
There are questions we need to be asking. Here’s what I wanted to show everyone yesterday. The slide below is a mainstay in all of my presentations about adjuncts. It makes people laugh, but I’m trying to send a serious message. I’ve always wanted to be a teacher, and it’s a thought I had when I was around the age of the students in the photo.
I had no idea that these words and phrases existed then: Contingent teachers. Part-time full-time teachers. Adjuncts. Contract teachers. Associate faculty. Junior faculty.
In short, people with no hope of getting full-time work in higher education.
As discussions proliferate about growing free two-year college offerings, competency-based education, and manufacturing professional-technical programs; I worry for the adjunct. Teaching labor. The quality of online learning. I worry that everyone is talking around The Adjunct Question.
One student said, “You can just tell teachers doesn’t care because they aren’t around. It’s hard to reach them. They don’t seem to care to connect to you. They don’t take the time to talk with you.”
Yes. Some just plain suck. I had those teachers too for every degree I’ve earned. Community college (on my dime) to R1 school (on the state tuition waiver, thankfully)–I have had classes with teachers who just plain suck.
But there are so many who are so good. They could be so much better. They want to be better.
But most teachers are managing course loads and unrealistic work demands just to make a living. The students don’t know that. And nobody really likes talking about it. Why would they?
“Somehow it seems to fill my head with ideas—only I don’t know exactly what they are!” ~Alice from Through The Looking Glass and What Alice Found There
So, I usually keep my twittering in check, but this morning, I lost it. After spending two hours researching on my adjunct question, I needed a break. The plan was to curl up next to the laptop and watch Cyclocross Nationals in Austin, Texas. Yeah, bike racing in America! Woohoo, Katie Compton, you know, the most decorate PERSON–male or female–in bike racing who most Americans have never heard of, but that’s fine. CX is a silly niche sport within cycling. I love it.
When most of the PNW is consumed with Seahawks mania, I’m happy to hike on trails while they are 12th Manning or whatever. And I know a woman competing at this level, and she’s amazing. Every time I think, “man, it’s way too cold/windy/miserable to ride,” I see Courtenay McFadden on her bike (Best quote on her website: I know, I pedal like a girl. Try to keep up). I know her sister-in-law pretty well, so I feel a bit invested in this race. She’s a hometown girl done good. Her husband’s a local firefighter who also races, if you want to get all patriotic. Well, get this, they postponed the race because of the weather. Seriously. Cyclocross was invented to help cyclists stay fit in the off-season when the weather is bad. If you don’t know anything about the sport, then here’s some advice I got at my first bike clinic.
I asked the teacher, how do you know when to get off your bike and run with it?
He just looked at me very serious-like and said, “Alyson, if you can’t ride something. Get off your bike, pick it up, and run as fast as you can. If you’re resting, you’re losing.”
So, okay, Austin, TX, here’s the story, your organizers blew it. And USA Cycling (USAC), you suck too. The rain was unfortunate, but your planners should have known all about this sport and what it does to the terrain. That mud is part of the fun. That grass grows back. That delicate trees should not be near the course. A bit of education could have saved a lot of people money—in particular junior racers and female privateers. By the percentage, more women are privateers, meaning they have little or no team support. Even the teams who sponsor male cyclists give very little funding. And they give women even less.
USAC, you should have known better, but then again, I’ve had little love for you as female recreational cyclist. You don’t care to encourage women or junior racers into the sport, but you’re happy to cash our checks to “join” your organization. Thanks for the free sticker! It seems like you’re more interested in trying to prove something globally that nobody really cares about—the rest of the world thinks very little of US cycling—they hated Lance Armstrong before America did. And now we cancelled our own CX nationals because of mud. MUD?! That’s like not having beer at Oktoberfest! Had you scheduled this race in New England or the PNW, this may not have happened. (That’s where most of the women racers are from, but who hell cares about that?). Even still, I’m never ever doing any races where I need one of your licenses. Boo, hiss. The pro-men will likely be there en force, but some of the ladies and the juniors had to go home. So, in short, you suck.
Here’s something I need to recognize. I’m angry about the CXNats postponement because I wanted something to cheer me up after doing my adjunct question research (I’ll talk about this topic another time). The postponement means I won’t get to watch the race live, because I’ll be at work like most of the female privateer racers, and well, I stayed kind of cranky until my husband cheered me up by making fun of American football, by imagining how an old Belgian is trying to understand American CX, and reminding me that Downton Abbey is on tonight. Okay, readers, I feel better now, thanks for listening.
What I Found There: Reflective Blogging
Then I saw an invitation to the #ETMOOC two year anniversary Twitter chat. Two years! Bob Dylan’s right: Time is a jet plane.
So I decided to look back to see what I was thinking 2 years ago on my very first blog, which was a result of the ETMOOC and my educational technology class. Here’s the question I was asked to answer post-ETMOOC
How have you changed as a digital educator and citizen? How do you see yourself (your identity) now?
This is the exact question I am dealing with right now. I’m applying for two instructional design positions, and I’m (re)creating who I am as educator. I am still, and always will be, a writing teacher. This is my ninth year teaching writing, and reviewing my CV has been a reflective, slow, painful process. For instance, there is a huge gap in my CV from 2005-2008 when I worked constantly. (To clarify: Twenty-two comp courses a year=constantly). I have very little to show in the way of professional development. Those were not especially happy years for me personally, and it was all due to the amount I was working. I was not chosen for a position that I really wanted, and it took me awhile to figure out what’s next. In 2009, I made some radical changes in my personal life, and my professional life has been slowly evolving. Everyday, it gets a little better. As I mentioned before, most of my online persona has been within the learning management systems. When I saw a listing for a job that mentioned “an online presence,” I laughed. I didn’t have one! My mid-pack bike racing results weren’t going to help me!
So. Here I am. I don’t know exactly how to sum up my learning, ETMOOC, you are the first step toward something different. Something I’ve been looking for, and for that, I thank you.
Alec Couros tweeted the link to one of my blog posts, and I went from three readers to over 300 in four hours. What a swell dude. That was when I pretty shy on the Twitter machine–in fact I planned on canceling my account after the MOOC. Silly, ol’ Alyson. What a rube!
The next thing I found is my short reflection of the Annual Teaching and Learning Retreat where I was asked to present. Now two years later, I am on the planning team, and I pitched the idea of fear or I jumped on the idea when one of my colleagues said it. Whatever. We’re talking fear for two days. I think we have a solid program.
Here’s what presenter-Alyson said two years ago (she had no idea how much work goes into planning something like this. Ignorance is bliss, truly).
I hope that the audience got something out of what I said, and here are a few of the Big Ideas I took away from the other speakers:
An astronomy teacher reminded us of how little we know about the universe.
An IT worker made a video so he could be with us and his pregnant wife.
A history teacher made me see her passion for her subject.
A poet reminded me that students, like writers, work in isolation.
A nurse showed us the amazing technology our future nurses are using.
A welder explained how his program had to become viable or it was going away.
An early childhood educator showed us how children have a need and a right to question.
A cosmetology teacher showed how her students chart their success over time.
An art teacher made me work as a graphic designer, and I laughed really hard with my group.
This summary is one of the many reasons I love teaching at a community college.
Wow, and now I know all of those people so much better. It’s my job to represent their interests. They are now friends.
My blog post from Friday mentioned the Rabbit Hole, and I was reminded of my M.Ed portfolio. I decided to take a peek at that as well to see what I was up to a year ago. Silly ol’ Alyson was really, really thinking she’d jump into a doctoral program upon graduating. What a rube!
Check out this title and excerpt from a paper on educational leadership:
Title. What I Found There: Self-Assessment As Educational Leader
Btw, if I was asked to do one more self-assessment in that program I was going to lose my mind.
Excerpt:
In this course, aside from learning that I do not have the chops to be an administrator, I learned a great deal about the organization of institutional structures in higher education. What solidifies my lack of confidence in attaining a leadership position? Good question. In the excerpt below from the second assignment, I did a short case study on a manager of a nonprofit organization.
Question 4. What are the most critical skills needed to be a successful manager in your line of work?
Since we are a nonprofit, the management of our budget is crucial. I think that the most critical skill as a manager is being able to hire the right workers for the right job. It took me several experiences with firing people to learn how to hire better. At first, I was hiring people based on how much I liked them, and if their skill set didn’t quite match, I felt like I could train them. That was a mistake. I was just creating more work for myself. It’s also unfair to the employee who gets hired thinking he or she is suited for the position.
I’ve included this portion of the assignment as a way to document a reminder of why I should not take a management position. I believe, still to this day, that I want no truck with being in administration. In addition to completing a requirement of the assignment, this project gave me insight to how conflicted I am at times about leadership and management, but should I consider these positions in the future, I should remind myself of what is written here. This is a rabbit hole I should avoid.
Well, well, what a rube! It so great to reread all of this about my former self. Silly, silly, Alyson.
I bolded all of the phrases that really scared me then (and now). When I worked on that assignment, I had just reread Alice In Wonderland, and many of the references were fresh in my mind, so I found a few quotes to include in the essay.
I identified mostly with Alice who never quite knows what’s going on around her yet she’s always in the thick of major events.
Funny how very little yet everything has changed on this jet plane of time.
If you don’t bring beer over to my house and drink it with me; you’re dead to me.
No name. Unidentified number. I thought to myself, Joleen must have finally gotten a cell phone. Yes, that’s right. I have friend who hasn’t had a cell phone in over a decade. I text back, “I’ll be there at 8. Please do not cast me out of your court, my queen.”
Joleen and I bonded instantly when we met 15 years ago at Village Books in Bellingham. Booksellers spend a lot of time getting to know one another when business is slow, and she was somebody I wanted to have a beer with—there are things you can’t talk about when customers are around. And thankfully she felt the same about me.
Late into the night, I felt the urge to sing to her:
“Joleen, Joleen, Joleen. Jooooleeeheeen. Please don’t take him, just because you can. You can have your choice of men, but I could not love again. He’s the only man for me, Joleen.”
I shared with her that I loved Dolly Parton’s version best because she gets all whispery and it’s so sad. Having always associated the name Joleen with Appalachia, I was surprised to meet a Joleen in the Pacific Northwest. And get this, she grew up on a commune and her mother “discovered” her last name by using a Ouija board. You can’t make this stuff up, people.
After I finished singing the song, she rolled her eyes, and said:
“Do you know how many men have sang that to me over the years? They all thought they were so original. As if I never had that line before!”
I returned with “Alllllllyyyyyyyyyyssoooooooon. You know this world is killing me. Oooohhhh, Allllllysooon. My aim is true.” I shared with her tales of bartending when an entire bar full of men–republican lawyers at that–sang that song to me. I had to suffer through it because it was last call, and they owed me a very large tip. I told her of another instance where a man who sang that song to me within minutes of our first dinner together.
She asked me, “Well, did you take off your party dress that night or what?”
We laughed so hard my cheeks hurt the next day. Instant best friend, that one.
We then turned to analyzing the lyrics of both songs which painted our namesakes as kinda slutty manipulators. Joleen could “have her choice of men” but Dolly’s narrator “could never love again” if she stole her man. Alyson (spelled Alison) “took off her party dress” and she was basically an airhead that Elvis wanted “stop [her] from talking” and save her from “the silly things” she says. Why couldn’t my mother have named me, Prudence?
Oh man, we went down the rabbit hole that night with discussions about sexism. This, my friends, was a woman I had to befriend because yes, “this world is killing me.”
So tonight I will go to her house because she’s reminded me she hasn’t seen me since August. She asked, “Where were you during the holiday break?”
“Well. Home. I was working on this project. It’s hard to explain. I’ll tell you in person.”
The last time I tried to explain the FedWiki Happening, I was walking into the backcountry with my friend who is a librarian. She wanted to hear all about it, so I talked non-stop for four miles. This may sound like an epic feat of listening on her part, but I was about to listen to hear talk about the same two men for two days straight. Being single in the digital age is so confusing. So, yes, she could listen to my FedWiki ramblings for four miles.
Here’s the rough outline of how things happened. As I explained them to her then, of course. I’ll get to a proper reflection, but here’s the outline I’ve been working all week. Sentences will be fragmented. Thoughts will be scattered; you’ve been warned.
I met Mike Caulfield at NW eLearn. I voted for him in all caps in the chat window when Maria Erb mentioned he could be our keynote. I’m on the planning committee. Had to stop myself from shouting Amen several times during his keynote. Decided to live tweet instead. That night, I hung out with him and several others whom I adore. We drank and talked. That conference was a highlight of an otherwise very difficult autumn.
At the end of the night, I got all saleswoman-like and gave Mike my business card on behalf of my faculty member to get in on the federated wiki. She loved it so much during his session presentation, and I enjoyed to talking with him. It was a business gig after all.
Months later, he DMs me on Twitter about the Federated Wiki Happening. I know for sure my faculty is burned out because I bequeathed her very difficult yet pleasantly lucrative Instructional Design project. And she teaches four classes. Has three kids. Shoot! I’m going to jump in on this myself and check it out, I think, all eLearning Director-like. I’m a professional.
I say yes, give him my title. I fly into a panic when I start to see the names on the Google Doc. People have fancy titles. Degrees. Publications. And there’s little ol’ me from a tiny community college. Well, I think, I can always change my name and dye my hair if I totally blow it. I’m sure I can still get a job back at the bookstore.
I begin to fret. I pace like a trapped feral cat. I am a total impostor but nobody has figured that out, it seems. I go buy two growlers and commit to watching several bad movies. Mike sends his Daily Tips tiny letter. I read all of them with great interest. I watch hashtags and tweets.
First log-in. I have no idea what I’m doing. I’m at Tami the librarian’s house. We’ve shared many Jubelales. I burned my hand stoking the fire. I try to type something, and it’s totally weird. I can’t figure out what I’ve done. I can’t delete. I can’t find what I’ve done. I have this lovely butterfly graphic that I dig. I clap my laptop shut, and think, I’ll work on this tomorrow at work.
During my lunch break, I bust out a very bloggy blog blog post. It’s a little story that’s haunted my soul every time I see discussions about women in ed tech. About women in leadership. Every time somebody calls me a leader. Everytime somebody mentions my future in leadership.
I notice other people seem to have different pages. Smarter. Cooler looking. They clearly know what’s up. I check out Twitter and this woman Maha is asking 10 questions a minute. I try to calculate her time zone. I read her blog. I really start to panic. Then I have this realization that this is how the people I work with feel when I say “Click here. Or Click this.” It’s been a very long time since I’ve let technology intimidate me. I think, okay, this is good. I need to remember this feeling. This panic is a good reminder of why I like teaching adults about technology. I like calming people down yet I’m terrible at doing that for myself.
Maha DMs me. We have a short chat. Ten tweets later, she’s my friend. I know that’s really strange for people to believe, but there is enough of a digital record via her blog or her tweets, that I can say, yes, this person is a friend. It’s the same feeling I had about Joleen as I described above, yet I don’t know of any songs with Maha in the title.
Mike spends a ridiculous amount of time via Google Hangout to teach me about the fedwiki. My office technology makes everything harder. It’s the one day that I left my personal computer at home. Sigh.
Then I kind of get it. Watching him use it really helped me understand it better. I really start to enjoy writing in the federated wiki. I’ve lost all connection to being an eLearning Director. I’m no longer in this for my faculty member or as research for my job. I am writing. Creating. Having so much fun. I write something serious. I write something silly. It’s relaxing, stimulating, and really unlike anything I’ve done.
The next day, Kate Bowles picks up on the silly post and tells me she loves Jens Voigt.
I fall down the rabbit hole of reading their blogs. I’m inspired more than ever to bloggy blog blog. (I follow all of them, you can see upper right).
Mike tweets a compliment about my thinking, Maha agrees, and I float. I had impromptu dance party in the kitchen with my dog. He chases me around and I do a kind of a two-step.
I really start paying closer attention to some of the videos that Mike had posted about the federated wiki. I take notes about my feelings of inadequacy about technology. I make some talking points to empathize with my future teacher-students. I daydream about some of the ways I want to help my professional technical teachers.
I start writing fedwiki articles. I spend time editing other people’s. I feel like I’m getting it. Even though I really can’t explain the “it” that I am claiming to get. I start bailing on plans with friends like Joleen. I go full-on hermit. I don’t want to go anywhere. I just want to write and read. I looked in the mirror at 1:30 and realize I’ve had Nutella on my chin for hours. I was also still in my pajamas.
Then I step in on a post titled “Clickin Chicken” and I really start get it. I stop caring if I’m right. I’m not sure if the fedwiki is software. If it’s like a browser. Or even if it’s been buggy. Everything wrong I assume was user-loser-error (me). But. It’s working with my brain. In cycling, when you’re really feeling good on the bike, it feels like your brain, body, and the bike are one machine. That sounds all cyborg and weird, but it’s really magical. I’ve never had that feeling with writing. Suddenly, I recognize a similarity between the bike-as-one feeling and writing on the fedwiki (I’ll expand on this idea later, but I need to get this list out of my head.)
I spend hours reading, writing, forking some, reading more, and it’s all by the fire with my dog. It’s the most time I’ve spent with him in months I realize. Leaving my adjunct/contract schedule has been hard on him. He’s not a fan of the M-F, 8-5 capitalistic grind, he tells me.
One night, I hop on a Google Hangout with Maha and Mike already in session. Ward jumps in. It’s so much fun that I have a hard time sleeping for hours. I regret something silly that I said to Ward. So I read and write some more.
I then realize that I want to go to a coffee shop. No more shut-in. I write a little pun about the wiki-world. I’m working endlessly on bloggy blog blogs in my head.
I edit one of Maha’s posts. I struggle a bit with what I do. She loves it. I fall more in love with the federated wiki with a devotion that now feels borderline obsessive.
I continue to do the writing. The forking. Then jobby-job-work begins again for two days. I come back to my sweet little office with a renewed sense about my writing. I fret that I won’t have access to the fedwiki once it’s over. Mike sends out a daily tiny letter summing up that he doesn’t want The Happening to end. The general spirit of the people in my neighborhood feels positive.
I bust out this crazy all over the place email to Mike. It’s the last thing I write before going into the backcountry. I begin to think that if I die in an avalanche, that crazy email will be the last thing I write. So I write one more article that’s kind of more like a list.
At the trailhead, I’m feeling kinda sad that I’m going to be taking a hiatus from writing. Then the resort worker who is hauling all of our stuff into the backcountry via snoe machine lifts up our case of Pabst Blue Ribbon and says in a perfect imitation of Dennis Hopper, “Pabst Blue Ribbon! Alyson and Tami, I’m glad this isn’t Heinkein!” To which I reply, “F—that shit!” Within minutes, I’m bonding with a stranger about Blue Velvet. It’s going to be great adventure. And it was.
Twenty minutes later, I said all of 1-24 above to Tami, and she asked, so where does that leave you? What’s next?
I’m not really sure, but I’m going to keep after it. Whatever the it—the federated wiki—and my writing becomes. I’ll be honest, I’m not interested in its flaws. All I can see is potential.
Dear Prudence, won’t you come out to play? Open up your eyes.
I “supervise” two people who are talented, bright, and really, they need no oversight at all. They are usually on board with my crazy ideas, and I feel so lucky that I don’t have to convince them of anything–they seem to want to ride my crazy train. (They allow me to save my energy for the haters).
When I became the director last year, I decided to create some some sort of clever title for professional development one hour brown-bag sessions. We had transitioned to our current LMS, Canvas, and thought I long and hard to figure out a title that we could use for Canvas–as well as something that would last until, well, whatever will eventually come next. For those of you in eLearning, you know it’s only a matter of time until the next transition.
I came up with eCULT (eLearning Canvas Users Learning Together) or it could be eLearning Connecting Users Learning Together (should we no longer use Canvas). Steal it, if you love this acronym! And wow, how fun to have the word “CULT” appear in the email subject line for those who dismiss my learnings arts. I giggle every time we send eCULT reminders. “Stop by for eCULT: We’re waiting for you!”
Haters are gonna hate, as they say, but the faculty who get it, really appreciate the humor. And I affectionately call you “my peeps.” Gansta slang is such a gift to humanity!
Here’s a bit of text from my inbox. An average day at the office, if you will. Currently my team is working on ways to get more faculty involved with our Instructional Designer. We’re creating a post-card for our professional technical teachers. The team sent the draft to me to “approve it.” Here’s what I wrote:
Love the flowchart–looks great. I did see one typo in the box to the right. Looks like a lowercase C and not an E. It’s here:
cCULT (eLearning Canvas Users Learning Together)
Fix that, and once Jeff decides on a color, be like Jean-Luc Picard and make it so.
Rocking my world–Alyson
I’m not sure if that’s leadership. I’m not sure if that’s appropriate boss behavior. Whatever. I just don’t want them to feel bad about the typo, and really, they are doing the hard work. And I dig it.
After I sent that email, one of the photography teachers, Ellen Felsenthal, shows up to do some winter quarter prep. We listen to her talk about her trip to Costa Rica. About her lost cat. About how she hasn’t brushed her hair. And I bask in the Ellen-ness. I’ve missed her, and she’s always herself no matter what the situation. We’ve bonded over Nick Cave (she has one of his sweaters!), dogs, bad men, good men, Viggo Mortensen, stupid stuff on the Internet, music, movies, and whatever else pops into our brains. She’s somebody I never get to spend enough time with–she runs a goat rescue farm (I love goats!) and she teaches full-time (I love teachers!). She rides horses, I ride bikes. But we always connect. Instant friend, that Ellen.
But I really want to tell you about her work. She does these wonderful photos of animals and landscapes. Check out the back of this horse in the foreground. Note the background hills. Pay attention to the layers in the hills and clouds.
My little photo does not do her work justice, but I bring it to you, for two reasons. One, I think she’s a very talented artist who has such a unique eye for nature and animals. If you look closely at her work, it’s hard to tell where the animal ends and the landscape begins.
Two, her work makes me think of the FedWiki Happening or what will now be called, The FedWiki Occasional.
For better or for worse, I’ve thrown out a lot of ideas today in meetings, and I’m reminded how I easily I lose focus; I spend too much time on the foreground. I’d rather that my thoughts be in those hills in Ellen’s photo, but I am usually down in the fur. Sometimes there is a certain beauty to that furry focus–the day to day. Sometimes there is a certain beauty in seeing what’s in the distance. Sometimes I like to shift focus between the foreground and the background. I’m working on a much more eloquent–I hope–post on what I’ve learned through this experiment. In the meantime, here’s what I sent Mike today.
Sorry, for the scattered thoughts, but really, that’s why the fedwiki works for me. It’s like software that understands my brain and all of its shortcomings and flaws. I’ve been a part of some amazing things this past year that I helped happen, and this experience has been all for me. All wonderful. All encouraging and lovely. I haven’t fully reflected on it yet but it’s changed everything for me as a writer. It’s been selfish, selfless, and quite spectacular–life-changing. Oh, and I mean that so sincerely.
Does the “life-changing” point sound eCultish? Sound insincere? Hippy-dippy? Well, I told you I was working on a better post. And an email to Maha. And the email I sent Mike is kind of borderline crazy train.
But for tonight: I want to carve out some time for the FedWiki Happening while my friend packs her gear for our trip. It takes a tremendous amount of gear for a snowshoe trip in the backcountry when it’s going to be in the 20s! Oh. Snow Joy! And right now I need to say goodbye for a few days to my fedwiki neighbors who have been reading my blog.
If I had to choose a song to sum up how this all feels to people who haven’t been a part of it, I can’t help but think of Third Bardo’s “I’m Five Years Ahead of My Time”
It’s not about little ol’ me being ahead of anyone, it’s not about me being in a new dimension, it’s not about me being the first ever Happening.
It’s about federated wiki and the guys who have helped pull this off. They have stepped inside my mind and created something I love. Note these lyrics:
Don’t waste any time girl, step inside my mind/I’m 5 years ahead of my time/Look into my mind, look ahead, don’t look behind/I’m 5 years ahead of my time
I was trying to get philosophical and then I got this tweet:
And Catherine Cronin says it best: Thank you for the #creativemadness!
Fare thee well for now, neighbors, and I hope to still be in your neighborhood in 2015 and beyond! Happy New Year, readers:)
Well, friends, holiday time is over at least for two days. Here’s what I listened to this morning until I hit the Stillaguamish River where my car magically hooks up with KEXP.
That’s Hazel Dickens on the left, btw, master of the high-lonesome. She’s the singer at a funeral in the John Sayles’ film Matewan. Hazel and Alice do an amazing “Long Black Veil” as well, and they were pioneers of blue grass storytelling. If you don’t know them, and you like songs from Appalachia, then consider this my Monday gift to you. (blog title* credit for when Hazel and Alice tell speak the truth.)
Here’s a quote from my “SFwiki-Happening-teacher” and pay close attention, folks, who keep telling me I should go back to graduate school to earn a doctorate. True, I know you mean well. True, I should take it as a compliment. True, I’d rather watch ice form.
My GRE scores have expired. And I’m done with that style of learning. And last I checked, I’m still paying for my previous self to attend graduate school so please press play on “The Working Girl’s Blues.”
Here’s a bit of why I don’t have time for graduate school. I would have to miss out on cool questions like this:
SFWiki-Happening-teacher:“…having come back from Ward’s holiday party with maybe one too many London Fogs in my system (I took a taxi, don’t worry), I want to issue a challenge. Read those two links. THEN SHOW ME ANYWHERE ON THE WEB WHERE ANYTHING LIKE THIS IS HAPPENING.
I’m pretty literate in newer applications of social media. I’ve been in cMOOCs, xMOOCs, learning communities, blogging circles, tweetathons, hackathons, writeathons, Tumblr courses, online organizing, hyperlocal communities. I’ve helped teachers teach a two dozen different ways with dozen different technologies.
I have honestly never seen something this fluid and generative. Have you?”
Wiki-Student (c’est moi):
Nope. Nada. Nowhere. I’m not as practiced in the newer applications that you mention, but I know how they work. And I can’t think of one example. In fact, I’ve got a quick analogy. See the tape deck below–yes, you read that right–my tape deck just died in my van.
One the third day of the Happening, I was freaking out about this 20th century technology finally dying in my 1987 VW Vanagon. And it got me thinking, so to speak:
The broken tape deck is the only comparison that I can think of to describe how I mostly collaborate online. If the SFWH is blue tooth streaming, then what I’m back to doing in the office is like this clapped out tape player.
Here’s what happened: We were listening to Lou Reed, and the tape did that skip back. Then it flipped. Then it skipped. Then it flipped. Remember that technology? Remember that moment of panic where you ejected your tape hoping it wasn’t eaten? Ah, the memories! Remember why you don’t have a tape deck in your car these days?
Heading back to work today, I’m right back to the tape deck. After 9 glorious days of holiday and the SFWH, I’m having a really hard time focusing. This blog post is only happening because of my lunch break, and I’ve got a few thoughts to share. I can’t go into the SFWH with so little time.
So here are some quick observations from SFWH:
1. If Maha lived close by, I would have taken another vacation day, and we’d be having tea right now.
2. Mike has clearly revealed the superiority of birds in his video on finding the Original Poster.
Below is what my dog, Elroy, looked like while I did most of SFWH work. He did not have any patience for the original poster, the edits, or any of it. Mike’s bird forked like 10 pages while Elroy snored loudly.
I also spent most of days in front of this fire, and despite loving my colleagues and my place of work, it’s really hard not to miss that fire. That dog. That time. Those books. That time. Oh, that time.
3. If you can show me a graduate professor would make a Cher reference in his lecture, then I might consider studying for the GRE again. (It’s hard to tell who is more fabulous–Cher herself or the legions of drag queens she has influenced).
4. Here’s a quick must-have-attitude for the SFWH from Mike’s latest letter. This pretty much sums up the spirit you have to have AND enjoy while working in the SFWH. (Oh, that time.)
Say it to yourself while looking the mirror:
“I crack myself up sometimes. Long live obscure nonsensical references.”
The screenshot above is from the last composition course that I taught: English 102: Composition II spring quarter 2013. This was an Honors course at my college, so I tried to take my standard curriculum and create self-directed assignments. Our Honors program focuses on creating quality not increased quantity for students–and I miss teaching these courses.
For this assignment, I used a cell phone poll to ask the students which group–or cohort–they would like to join. They could choose from MOOCs (it was 2013), Film Reviewers, Research Techies, Community Reporters, or Wiki Builders. The idea was that they would break into cohorts with different themes about Food Sustainability in America (that was the course theme). Some students would take a MOOC together, and some would research documentary films. The Research Techies would put together a study guide that I would use for the next course and the Community Reporters would investigate what their fellow students knew about food sustainability. And the wiki builders were going to work with all of the groups to create a wiki of all of the above by working with our assigned librarian. At the end of the quarter, we were going to host an “Honors Symposium” where they would report their research to people we invited. The main idea, I told them, was to not only share their research, they would have something to put on their resumes.
If they were dogs, all of their ears would have pointed in my direction.
When I did this cell phone poll, I expected more of a distribution in their responses, and I was shocked that nobody selected the Wiki Builders. I watched the bar chart shift and change as students entered their choices. My first question was:
Why is nobody selecting the Wiki Builders? Do I need to explain the assignment more?
Crickets. Blank stares.
One female student raised her hand timidly: “I’ve always been told not to use wikis, and I don’t want to get in trouble. I really want to transfer to WSU.”
Me: Why would you get in trouble?
Another student: Wikis got that guy in trouble with the CIA.
Another student: Yeah, I want to do something cool, Ms. Indrunas, but this is scary.
Me: Wait. What? What am I asking you to do that’s illegal? What’s so scary? (Was I being punked by my students?)
Another student: You know wikis are going to send that one guy to prison. Can’t remember his name.
Me: What guy? Somebody get your phone and look this up. Can you guys Google this? I have no idea what you guys are…
Student: Julian Assange. That dude.
Me:
I turned off the screen, and give them a little history lesson about how WikiLeaks and Wikis are two very different things. They shared with me how much their high school teachers scared them out of using Wikipedia. They would get zeroes on their assignments.
I ask them–show of hands –how many of you did it anyway? Everyone’s hands shot up.
The “Don’t be afraid to use Wikipedia” lecture was a cornerstone of my Week 2 lesson plan. It was fun to shock them with a story that everyone I know who researches, writes, and for that matter breathes, uses Wikipedia.
I would then advise them to ask all of their new teachers forevermore the following question when they were assigned a research project:
“Professor X, is okay if we start our research by using Wikipedia?”
If they say, “No way! That’s not what scholars do…we walked 20 miles in the snow when I was your age to get to the library….bladdy blahhh blaaa.”
Then nod your head, students, and pretend like you’re listening to them and do it anyway. Advise all of your friends to do the same. Don’t tell anyone you got this advice from me.
If the teacher says, “Why yes, 21st century scholars, I encourage students…I use Wikipedia in my research….I love the Internets…”
Then rejoice and tell all of your friends to take that teacher’s class.
For non-believers who think I’m a bad teacher, well, I corrupted your children for years! Mwhhhaaa hhhaaaa! For the record, most students know how to scroll down to find the source material. They’ve all seen or heard of Stephen Colbert’s Wikiality. Let them use Wikipedia as a starting point. It’s just like Encyclopedia Britannica for their generation, and they understand how it works. They understand its limits.
After I informed everyone they wouldn’t end up going underground for their research assignment, I put the cell phone poll back up, and nobody selected the Wiki Builders again. But this time they all admitted that they liked the other assignments better. I accepted that, and scratched the wiki. My assignment could have been written better, honestly.
What I’ve written above is actually an idea I wrote about by hand in my journal after I read Mike Caulfield’s Wikiality post back in November. I’ve told that “We don’t want to be Julian Assange story” many times as a bit of a joke. But wow, I may have felt differently if I had a daughter in The System.
That high school, btw, should be kicking itself for losing the opportunity to teach his daughter! It’s a bit like telling Evil Knievel’s daughter that motorcycle stunts are a lame waste of time. What a bunch of chump suckers!
Okay, that’s a really silly comparison, but I had to find a way to include that video.
Now that I’m a part of SFWH, I’ve been thinking a lot about how we share ideas. Who owns those ideas. And how we teach students about using those ideas. I am currently a member of the SBCTC eLearning Council, or the eLC, and we collaborate weekly in ways that are counterintuitive to the way our students are being forced to collaborate. At any time, the eLC has to take that Evil Knievel spirit and jump those 19 cars together.
If you have a problem, several people share their solutions.
If you need help, several people come to the rescue.
If you don’t have time to create something, somebody else shares what they did, and you can make it work for your institution.
If you create something that you think is cool, we have a shared repository where anyone at any time can copy, reuse, or remix the information. After spending a decade working in English departments, I can’t tell you how refreshing I find this work. The eLC is one of the best professional experiences I’ve ever had, and my only regret is that I only see them as a group four times a year. My work with the eLC is so unlike anything I’ve ever done as a teacher or a student.
So back to the SFWH: Yesterday when I was working on the SFWH at a coffee shop, my caffeinated husband started singing “As I walk through, this wiki world…” and said, “you need to title one your pages with that.”
Me: It’s “wicked world”–that’s what Elvis is singing about.
Him: I thought you could write whatever you want “cuz, what’s so funny about peace love and understanding…”
Then we looked up the video:
Then we talked about how we choose to see Wilco instead of Elvis Costello at Seattle’s Bumbershoot (a music festival) years back. No regrets on that–then he brought up a story about Seattle that I had forgotten.
And I said, “Okay, I need to focus. I can’t have all those crazy typos again. ”
To which he replied, “Cool, I’ll let you walk through your wiki-world.”
Spoke & Hub 