Frustrated with the weather and having a hankering to try winter geocaching, I decided to spend time in the forests, and on the trails, of Duck Mountain Provincial Park with my brother.  Searching for caches in the winter certainly proved difficult and I had a few key learnings from the experience that I need to share.  I hadn’t adequately prepared the information from www.geocaching.com. I did write down the coordinates correctly and the name of the cache but in most instances I neglected to write down the clues or specific details. Next time I will put more time into this front end of this process.  I was naive to think we wouldn’t need the Google Map printout, which would have been handy at times.  Having only previously cached in non-wooded areas I was unable to foresee the affects the trees would have on the GPS reading; had I been thinking, I would have packed a compass to back up my conscious and negate the fear that we may be walking in circles.  Had I better prepared the trip we would of had a much higher success rate than 1 out of 4 caches. With all this being said, it was certainly fun to skidoo the trails, high step through thick snow, tramp across frozen marshes and enjoy the sounds of the forest.

I made a short clip of our experiences that day.

Give it a watch.

This video also highlights a few more things folks should consider about geocaching.  Both safety and ‘leave no trace’ principles are a concern at different intervals of the experience. At one point I slip and fall, and other point shows us nearly mow over a young sampling.  Reflecting on the experience brings these issues to light. These two principles must be at the forefront of planning such an outdoor excursion.

Some of the ideas floating around

• Online identity & presence is just an extension of one’s self. Each of us will use networking tools to do many things. There is not just one way to use a tool, each individual uses tools as they are useful or offer benefit to their unique situation.
• New emerging environments encourage new connections and fascinating behaviors.
• Learning is no longer confined to classrooms.  We can open the door to people from around the world or just folks in our own province, city, even our own class. Online spaces allow for us to connect & collaborate.
• Fewer constraints than real life spaces. Time & Place are no longer issue. Many of us can learn & work anytime, anywhere.
• Online spaces have the ability to bring people together synchronously for online events, instant communication. or asynchronously, allowing learners independence in their learning while connecting with other folks that share interests, at any time, all over the world.

I will highlight examples of online spaces

• much untapped/unrealized potential for directed personalized learning & support.
• Mainly seen as a place for entertainment – celebrity gossip, sports, fantasy leagues, gambling, downloading, socializing with friends.
• I plan to show snippets of blogs, Ning, Second Life, Ustream, EdtechTalk & maybe even Facebook.

Finally, I want to touch on how educators and learners use these online environments. You can help with this. I hope to piece together educators from around the world speaking about how they use online spaces (very short, just a couple sentences). This could be done a number of ways, perhaps a response to my youtube video, or maybe just a quick Skype call that I could screen capture, or you could email me a short blurb.  The purpose for this experiment is to drive home the fact that people exist in online spaces all over the world and have the intention to promote learning.

I have created this short recording as a plea for help and example of how I use online spaces. Not all these videos have to look the same. Maybe you’ll be outside, maybe you will just hold a piece of paper, maybe the more talented would sing or something. Ok, I am getting silly, but you get the point.

Disclaimer: I am open to suggestions from readers on all of this. What am I missing?

| View | Upload your own

*note: uploading to slideshare changed the layout and design of the slides

Creation of Bear’s Birthday

The origin of this project lies in my interest in digital storytelling and my lack of having created many examples of quality or substance. A spark hit the paper when Karen, the instructor of my ‘Teaching of Writing’ course, introduced a story writing project for class. I had recently visited Dean Miezienko’s class with Dean Shareski, where Dean S. introduced the class to digital storytelling, naturally I came home with a few ideas for format. Unfortunately, I struggled with character development and the the topic of my piece. At this point, the project was moved to the back burner for a couple weeks.

My eyes are always open for teaching resources and at a Apple MacBook Training session, the rep John Maschuk*, shared a file of teddy bear pictures. He welcomed us to use the resource and the spark from my writing course took. I am a visual individual when it comes to these type of creations and I had worked with storyboards before. I was instantly inspired. I worked the slides into an outline of a story and then pulled the pieces together. As I built the sequence I naturally played with the story, character development and word choice. The visuals of this project were created in Powerpoint and I saved many files containing changes to the original drafts.

At the beginning stages of my revision process I shared early drafts with Sean White, a new friend from class. Between Shawn and my wife, Joleen, the story was enhanced by their trusted insight and suggestion. From their feedback I made some key edits to create a more patterned sequence, modified the sentence structure and played with general appeal of the slide design. At this point, I saved the slides as .jpg files, and I imported them into iMovie for narration, transition and sound. As I narrated the story I found more glitches in how the story was written. It is really interesting to reread something out loud and record it to get a different perspective of the voice of the writing. From this experience I had another revision stage and needed to make necessary changes to the slides in Powerpoint and then go through the importing process again.

I had a fun time recording and re-recording the narration as I tried to be vibrant and fluffy as required for such a piece. A point of suggestion is to make short sound bites, I read 2 or 3 slides at a time and then pieced the audio together. In this practice I avoided having to re-read the entire story when I accidentally mis-spoke.

While I was designing the slides I was thinking of adding Batmanesque onomatopoeia through visual sound bubbles and bursts of text. I decided against this because I wanted to keep the visual simple and uncluttered. Ultimately this idea still worked through the recording process as I ‘wrote in’ sound effects and music to enhance the story.

Version 1.0 of “Bear’s Birthday” is born on to the web

At this point I felt the story was ready to publish, but I decided to sleep on it. The next morning I reviewed the story and found another spelling error and changed the text color in a couple places. The story was then ready for publishing. I exported “Bear’s Birthday” as a .mov file and uploaded it to Youtube and disperse to an audience. I shared the story through numerous email, facebook, WebCT and Twitter. I may of been guilty of spam, or maybe it was my marketing background shining through. I told my audience that this was version 1.0 and asked them to participate in a networked revision. The audience grew and I recieved numerous comments through a variety of streams including email, Private messages, Youtube and blog comments. Karen Janowski, even took a few minutes out of her day to call me up on skype to share her interest, encourage me and other suggestions from a special education perspective. All of this feedback demonstrates the power of social media in creating quality web content and I really appreciate the attention folks gave to this piece. From the feedback, I made major edits, including a spelling error, a couple changes to the story and some slide redesign. Can you catch the edits?

After this batch of story edits to the visuals, I had an opportunity to visit Mrs. Lichtenwald’s Grade 1 class to share this story and get their opinions. They were into it and wanted to watch it a couple times. After the second viewing I asked them what could be changed or improved. I received some fantastic critique and feedback, one child even suggested that I add a character named “Mr.Noodle”. I chuckled, thanked him and told him I would think about it A few others liked the sound effects and suggested that should have more. I agreed and invited a few them for their best sound effect to add to the story. We all laughed and had fun.

After publishing the first version of Bear’s Birthday, this story saw a more indepth analysis and polishing. My participatory audience included related professionals from a variety of backgrounds including graphic design, teaching, music recording, ESL teachers, experienced digital storytellers and best of all, the children. This collaborative exercise has many potential applications in my future classroom. The relationship with audience gave me a sense of ownership and mastery with the writing and creative process. I wanted to created the best possible piece and my network of friends, family and acquaintances help make this a reality.

With out further ado, I present “Bear’s Birthday Version 2.0″

I am still welcoming feedback on this story and welcome suggestions for improvement. Enjoy.

Note: I would like confirm John Maschuk’s identity, thank him and link to any web presence he may have. So if you are out there John, leave me a note.