Week 10: Self Reflection of Learning

I continue to enjoy this class and was happy that we took the time to do the midterm gallery walk though. It really gave me the opportunity to write about other students work in more depth. Like I say every time the self reflection comes up I really feel like the consistent practice of writing is making me a better writer. 

So often we lack the time or incentive to sit down and think and then put those thoughts onto paper of screen in most cases. Writing has evolved in the workplace to email writing which in the UC system doesn’t even have to address the person, the email sometimes just comes up as a bulleted list or starts mid-sentence. It’s very odd that writing has changed into such a informal practice and style has taken a serous backseat to pragmatism. I sometimes look as old civil war era letters or just letters that I got from my grandmother and they were so different. People would take hours to write a letter and think about what they were going to say and then put the pen to paper and think about their penmanship. Today I just shoot off half intelligible text messages to friends that have the poo emoji as often as I use adjectives.

So in a way this class has been therapy for me to get closer to what my writing can be and should be if I just put a little thought into it. So my big take way is that I need to slow down and write but at the same time write in high volumes to get better.

I’m heading back to work next week after a month long paternity leave. I thought this month I would fall behind in my school work but I always found a couple of days a week where I could leave home and head to the UCLA library where I feel I can focus on my writing in a very quiet and aggressively intellectual environment. I wonder how I will be able to keep up with the writing when I have to work 40 hours a week and take care of my newborn. It is a struggle that most parents feel at some point. I mean being stretched thin in time and money is one of the clichés of parenthood I just hope that I don't start resenting my wife and the people around me for circumstances that I 100% signed up for when we decided to have this baby.

Week 10: Visual Assignment Civil War Baby

Hi Class,

Here is my submission of a Civil War era photo. I used photoshop to make this picture aged. The photo turned out pretty good but my main issue is the patterns of the baby's bed. They are just too modern, I should have used a old towel to lay him on but he was too comfortable and i did not want to move him. This assignment made me think about all the old photos and now people seemed so much more serious back then but then I remember the exposure time was like 10 seconds so it would have been really hard to hold a smile and not move for that long. it also got me thinking about all the photos that I have of my son, they will never degrade like the civil war photos, they are made of pixels on a digital format they will never age they way civil war photos do. I wonder if that means his children will see much more modern looking photos of their parents than I have.

Week 10 Digital Story Critique: Toby Morris Comic on Privilege

I first saw Morris’ comic on privilege on Imgur.com an image sharing site. Imgur is a sub community of Reddit meaning a majority of the users are White college aged men. The community of Imgur has been changing over the years and it has helped me keep a pulse on the collective consciousness of millenials. Since turning 30 and getting married I find myself more and more distant from what young people are thinking about. It's been a very easy transition out of the young world and into a more adult or routine based existence. The highs are not as high and the lows are not as low. I can see why over time most people choose to settle down and in a way give in to their age. But I digress; the point of this story is about how these young people are thinking about their own lives. I have seen the Imgur community change from a more opened minded and progressive community to one of greater division especially with the up coming presidential election.

Like I said earlier the Imgur community is mainly young White men who are in college or recently graduated with debt. In the past year or so I’ve noticed then become more hateful and aggressive toward women and feminist rhetoric. They have stopped supporting African Americans and have begun to vilify them saying things like, “Wow, look a group of black men breaking the law.” And that comment is getting hundreds of up-votes. I still follow Imgur since I’ve been a part of the community for almost 8 years. But the culture is changing and I believe it’s not just those young angry men but also an entire swath of America who feel they are being left behind.

But Imgur still provides some deep insight into what people are thinking. The comic Privilege on a Plate by Toby Morris so succinctly sums up privilege in a clear and understandable way. It’s something all people born without of feel instinctively, they know deep inside that the game was not fair from the onset. I will admit that I was born into privilege but it was not until college that I realized how privileged I really was growing up. UC San Diego was the fist time I went to a public school and my of my friends there grew up in much harder conditions than myself. They overcame the odds and got good grades and ended up at UCSD, I on the otherhand was pretty much handed everything but I came to acknowledge that fact. The comic argues that not only is life so unfair but the most dangerous part of privilege is last frame of the comic where Richard says the key to his success is, “Less whining, more hard work I say. I’m sick of people asking for handouts. No one every handed me anything on a plate.” Richard and people like him truly believe that they did this on their own. It seems the more successful you become the more you believe that you earned it and are less likely to be generous and support policy that help the poor.

This digital story is important because if sums up so beautifully and major division in our society. As the rich become richer they are more likely to see the unfortunate as those who were not given a good opportunity but rather people who deserve to be poor for lack of effort.

Week 10 Response to Course Reading: Joe Lambert

The excerpt “A Road Traveled” follows Lambert from his youth in Texas through his live on the road as a digital storyteller and leader in the new story telling community. His story reminded me a little of Jack Kerouac’s novel “On The Road” except Lambert had much more vision. The carefree nature and opened mindedness of Lambert was so refreshing, his honest portrayal of his difficulties and successes drew me into his story.

He talks a lot about his political beliefs and he is definitely a progressive character, he does not hide that fact from his criticism of Texas Culture to his dismay of George Bush 2 being elected president in 2001. I feel like his up brining with his beatnik parents and his exposure of leftist radicals and folk singers impacted his life view of authorship and digital storytelling. The thesis of this piece is believe can be summed up by this quote in his writing:  

Digital storytelling is rooted fundamentally in the notion of the democratized culture that was the hallmark of folk music, reclaimed folk culture and cultural activist traditions of the 1960s. Women and people of color began writing with citizen-centered authorship.

Growing up in the 60s be tool that progressive attitude with him throughout his life and ended up in on of the most progressive enclaves in the country the San Francisco Bay Area and UC Berkeley. He was like the Johnny Apple Seed of digital story telling Lambert had a profound believe that permeated through all aspects of his life including job, ethos, music, politics and storytelling and all people should have a voice and often time be most worthy voices and those that are unfiltered and human based not academically based.

I loved that in the end he felt that he had exhausted his ablity to impact the medium within the academic setting and moved to more community outreach and began work with domestic violence and veteran storytelling. Lambert is a true pioneer of the digital storytelling format but the very idea digital stories and ever changing and evolving nature of the medium have overtaken his influence. I’m glad that I was given the opportunity to learn about Lambert and his influence in this field. His life story is one that I too aspire to live; he lived with a vision and brought that vision to life through much hardship and sacrifice.

Midterm Gallery Walk Presentation

Introduction

Hi Class and welcome to my Gallery Walk though. I will start this presentation with a little about myself, and what I have learned in this class thus far. When I signed up for this class I was not really sure what to expect but I have always had a fascination with stories since I was a young boy. I remember I had a toy dinosaur that was mouth moved and I called him the Story Teller. My friends would sleep over and we would dim the lights and I would bring out the Story Teller and I would craft a scary story about demons and ghosts. I continued to write and tell stories though high school but somewhere along the way I lost interest in telling stories and like most people began to just consume my stories in books and audio format.

This class has taught me to love writing again. The sheer volume of writing for this class has engaged a dormant part of my brain that was dedicated to stories. I have learned that not all stories are written and that the future of story telling is different than the past. But at the same time the principals of good story telling not matter the format must be engaging and unpredictable and keep the audience guessing what is going to happen next. 

I have learned that technology and digital story telling is changing the way we both tell and consume stories. The future stories are much more participatory. Often times when I read a news story I read just a few paragraphs before I scroll down to the comments. This shows today the thoughts of the audience are often times just as important as those of the author.

I have also learned that digital story telling can working better than traditional story telling for students and children with learning disabilities. Often times students with LD have a very hard time with planning, revising and completing a traditional written story. Digital story telling including audio and video format give those student with learning differences more options that might be better suited to their learning style allowing them to excel and tell their stories. 

My goals for this class are becoming a better writer and learning to tell better digital stories. I hope to learn to create a story telling format that works in higher education. Something like an interactive or branching video. I also hope to learn more about how technology has influenced story telling formats and how we might leverage technology in order to tell better stories at the same time not over doing it like Hollywood.

Work #1

The first work I would like to discuss is Louiza KonDilis’ scholarship review of “Let’s redefine disability and difference”. Louiza bought to my attention the very immediate and important need for people with disabilities to be able to tell their stories. In the article she reviewed the author discusses a project where people with disabilities are given a platform to tell the about their experiences living with disabilities. In America roughly 1 in 6 people is living with some sort of disabilities it is a travesty that we marginalize this community both politically and culturally. In our image obsessed society people with disabilities need to be given a platform to tell their stories to inform the rest of us how they feel. They discuss bullying, depression, eating disorders and a general lack of empathy people toward other people with disabilities.

https://louizainte5340fall2016.wordpress.com/2016/10/14/week-8-redefining-disability-difference/

Work #2
The next work I will discuss is much more light hearted and was created by Ashley Padilla. She created a video of a fieldtrip she took with her students to a farm. I liked this video for it’s simplicity and general theme. Living in Los Angeles I rarely see farms and the students of LA never see them either but we all eat food. I believe that agricultural education should be mandatory for all elementary school students. My mother grew up on a bean farm and I recently inherited that farm, and I hope to pass down that farm to my son one day. The farming lifestyle and the importance of responsible growing is more important than ever as water shortages and lack of crop diversity is potentially going to cause a massive self induced disaster. I believe a video like this can be used as a possible virtual fieldtrip for students who do not have access to farms.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t9XeJHViutQ&feature=youtu.be

Work #3
This particular piece by Robert Piper captivated me because of the haunting sound scape he was able to produce just walking around a city in Korea. The sounds are like any other city but have a distinctly Asian-feel. I lived in Japan for 3 months and was always taken by the background chatter of the Japanese language. There is just something both mesmerizing and frustrating about living in a country that you cannot understand with people are saying. This piece by Robert Piper brought back those memories for me. There is rawness to the audio and at the same time a familiarly of city life that I have grown so accustomed to over the years. I really enjoyed just listening to the city he lives in and it made me think about his life and my own.

https://soundcloud.com/user-780088551/do-you-hear-what-i-hear-walking-in-uijongbu-korea

Work #4
This video by Haley Cristea entitled “3 Things that Made Me Happy Today” made me think about how dispersed we all are but at the same time are a all struggling with making ends meet. She opens her video with telling us about how she is working two jobs and is a full time grad student who is getting very little sleep. We are so caught up in our own lives that we often forget that we are all suffering though this thing called life. We see such a manicured facade though the lens of social media that we forget that we ourselves are not the only ones who are struggling. Her opening lines were refreshing and honest. From there he video discusses an up coming vacation to Europe, a place I’ve never been. Haley is looking forward to her vacation and seeing a Romanian Fountain, Cat café and soccer match. It was really uplifting to hear about this vacation. I really hope that she enjoyed it. Her video reminded me that we are all in the same boat and it also made me feel happy that she had such an amazing vacation planned.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rUACjv5fjTE

Work #5
 
Lisa Fish’s critique of the podcast “Serenity for Working Moms” reminded us that we need to slow down and prioritize. Lisa opens her blog by telling the audience that she was having a hard week and that she was feeling overwhelmed this is not uncommon for people in this program since most of us are working full time and we are students. She discussed the podcast “Serenity for Working Moms”. In the podcast she found like most working mom’s there is more activities in a day than there are hours. She discussed the need to prioritize family and at the same time having high expectations for work and career. This really hit home to me because my wife and I just had a baby two weeks ago and I know that after our paternity and maternity leave we are entering a world of pain that all working parents know. My main take away from this blog is that it’s ok to mess up and not be everywhere at once. And that it’s ok to realize the limitations of both time and money when raising a child.

http://techyfishgirl.com/2016/09/26/digital-story-critique-serenity-for-working-moms/

Work #6
  
The last piece I would like to review is one by Heather Schlet and her review of “A Portrait of Lotte”. In this piece a parent videos their daughter regularly for 16 years for show the audience vividly the experience of aging from a new born to a teenager. This really spoke to me because of my new son just born a few weeks ago. The piece tells a story a profound and human story about aging, time passes so slowly in day-to-day life we are often blind to change, but when 16 years in condensed to 4 minutes it’s a very vivid reminder of our own mortality. I have seen a lot of picture a day videos on youtube but this one was so much more real because of how quickly Lotte changed from frame to frame. It made me think about her relationship with the parent and how that must have changed over the years yet they kept it up. But to what end? Is this a video for the daughter, I’m not sure I would want this video online. It made me think about Lotte and her rights to her image and how much young people are exposed by their parents in social media, don’t they have rights to control their own image?

Conclusion

I’ve really been enjoying this class. It has made me a more prolific writer and I has brough be out of my comfort zone of just watching videos and stories I enjoy. The class has challenged me to rethink what stories can be. I have really enjoyed reading and looking at other people’s work in the class, I have felt a sense of community even though we have never met. I look forward to the second half of this class and learning more and seeing more of you work. Thanks for all your feedback and help this semester thus far.

Week 8: Digital Story Critique “Le Grand Content”

I first watched Le Grand Content in 2008 and it was one of my first exposures to digital story telling in the form of stream of consciousness. The video was written and created by Karo Szmit and narration is by Andre Tschinder.  It tackles major themes of life and loss in the power point format. There is a sad comedic value in the story as the narrator expounds on all the reasons why people feel unfulfilled in their life in ridiculous pie charts and graphs. The entire movie makes you feel that you are watching something that can be quantified into numbers but you realize that the author is talking about the human condition.

 Thematically Szmit makes an augment that life is full of regret and unfilled promise but at the same time he’s not making any point at all. It’s possible that the entire piece is a stream of consciousness taking place in the shower. As viewer at first you think that this is such a deep movie but over time you realize that it’s more likely a piece of comedy made to poke fun at the power point culture and the arm chair phycology that prevails in our culture.

I wanted to review this piece because it spoke to me for many years, I still think about this digital story 8 years after first watching it and thematically it still love it. I love and piece of story telling that delves into what it means to be human to be mediocre in a world so full of expectations.

Week 8: Scholarship review “Digital Storytelling for Students with Learning Disabilities”

Dr. Haddad PHD argues in this article that for some students with learning disabilities digital story telling can facilitate better learning outcomes than traditional story writing. As someone who has struggled though out my life with the learning disability dyslexia this article hit very close to home. Haddad explains that students with and reading and writing LD often struggle with traditional writing formats there for digital storytelling which can include visual, audio and interactive elements can help these students formulate better stories because they are not bogged down in the traditional model of “planning out their writing piece, revising their work, and completing the piece of writing to meet requirements.” 

Using a smart phone or computer a student with LD can just start talking and telling the story orally then way that most stories were formulated throughout most of human history. It always helped me when I was young to speak aloud my ideas before putting them down on paper. Today by using technology LD students are more engaged with the content and according to Dr. Haddad “students with LD are better able to concentrate on the delivery of content, formulate sequence, and provide other elements to storytelling without being hindered by an overemphasis on writing.”

As a person who has a learning disability and some one who promotes the rights of students with disabilities this shift to digital story telling really excites me. Far too often students with LD are left behind by faculty and other students for them think they are unmotivated on top of slow, but the reality is that we must alter our curriculum to better suite different learning styles rather than for one single model on to all students regardless of learning differences or styles.

Meeting the needs for students with different learning styles, LD and autism is going to be an important challenge for educators in this century as more youth are diagnosed with those disabilities. Our perceptions of narrative and storytelling must evolve along with the modalities that we consume the stories and the technology. This change will likely help students with learning differences and the more fluid model to story telling allows for more variety of intelligence to shine.

Week 8: Daily Create “I’m a Real Boy”

When I was 7 years old I decided I wanted to be a White American boy.  I grew up in the working class suburb of South San Francisco. A lot of people think that when I say South San Francisco I mean the southern edge of the city of San Francisco. That is very much not the case as anyone from the San Francisco will attest. South City (pronounced Sow-City) as we locals call it was an Industrial town dominated by paper mills and chemical factories manned by working class Italian and Irish families. So-City in the 80s was a very different place than it is today, we were the only Asian family on the block and I was often ridiculed and taunted by local boys.

It was in those moments of weakness and misguided dreams that I decided to be White. The first order of business was to stop eating Chinese food and all Asian food for that matter. When my family would go out to our weekly Chinese food dinner, I would refuse to eat and would insist that my mom and dad went to McDonalds to pick me up a hamburger and would ignore the Chow Mein and steamed fish. I would speak English loudly and clearly in front of White people so they knew that I was a White American boy disguised as an Asian Boy. I rejected the Asian Markets my mom would enter and look away from the Chinese immigrants walking the streets shaking my head wondering why they did not learn English and blaming them for my mistreatment.

This obsession with converting over to the White race ended within a year or so but haunted me till college when finally truly embraced my Asian heritage. But till this day I muse about what my life would be if I were a White man.

If I were a White man I would feel secure every morning looking in the mirror knowing that today was going to be a good day, I will not be judged by the color of my skin.

If I were a White man I would not fear the police, I would call them and embrace them knowing that they are good men here to protect and serve my community.

If I were a White man I would speak up in a meeting and people would listen to me, they would think, hey this guy is really bright he has a lot of great ideas.

If I were a White man I would go to a restaurant and when I’m not seated I would not wonder if they did that because of my race.

If I were a White man, women would look at me and think here’s a handsome man, let me give him a chance, he seems so masculine and tall.

If I were a White man I could be a Republican and look down on minorities for their failure to assimilate and learn English. I would pride myself on my hard work and pulling myself up from my bootstraps, I didn’t get any handouts. Hard work and dedication is all it takes to succeed in this country. Oh man that would feel so great.

If I were a White man people would love me, they would see me for my virtues not my skin color.

I think that’s enough imagination for now. It felt really great for a moment to feel white. I think about it a lot, I think all minorities do. That’s the really odd thing about the white people I talk to about race. They just don't think about at all. They don’t see race, it’s so crazy to me. But I guess that’s the biggest advantage of being in the majority, it’s a privilege to not see race.

Now that I have a son of my own I wonder if he’ll have to go though the same self-hatred that I experienced as a youth. I really don’t think so, I’m optimistic that this world has changed in the last 30 years and that my son will hopefully not see race either.

Week 7: Self Reflection

As we approach the half waypoint in this class I feel that I have become a much stronger writer. I think that the main issue with my writing was that over the years I had become too accustomed to writing short emailed of bulleted lists and in the writing style of the University of California. In our culture we write a lot of short emails sometimes not even in complete sentances. This class has taught be to slow down that think about what I’m writing but also write in great quantities.

I did speak about the idea of just writing regularly to get better at writing in my last self-reflection a few weeks ago. Today I would like to talk about the course content.

I was watching a educational video about a university in the Netherlands where student can choose their own learning goals and curriculum. I feel that this class with it’s wide range of topics has allowed me that breadth to explore topics that I feel are important to me. It class really is about allow the learning to learn rather than the model of the learner only learning from the faculty and what that particular faculty thinks is importatnt.

I have been in higher education for almost 8 years and this is the first class where I truly see the learning choosing that learning path. It’s refreshing but also a little scary. In the beginning of the quarter I was a little lost and wanted Lori to give me more specific guidance on what I should be doing on a daily basis but now I am so thankful that I took this course and I have learned to build my own learning path.

I feel that the theme of me becoming a father is something that I will touch on more and more as the semester continues. My son was born last week and now I have much more fodder for narrative rather than just an abstraction of what it might be like to raise a son.

I also really appreciate that we are using my blog for the course it’s finally filling up with interesting content.

Week 7: Video Assignment Brag Video

I’ve seen a lot of youtube videos in my day and strangely a lot of content is just some one in front of there computer talking about things sometimes there are rants sometimes they are teaching you something but often time where is a sense of self obsession and importance to all their videos of a talking head.

I cannot say that I’m a totally humble guy since I find my life to be pretty damn good. But I try my best as most Asians to be humble about it and keep my mouth shut when things go well or you will get what Japanese call “Bachi Gataru” which roughly translates to divine retribution or punishment for being a fool or braggart. Pretty much what karma in the way we western people think of karma. So even making this video was hard for me and it’s very existence is asking the gods to punish me for my arrogance.

By anyways here it is. In the assignment bank I was drawn to it because it was something very different and it gets my head into a space that is uncomfortable for me. But after shooting the videos I can totally see why people talk themselves up, it felt great, I really did feel better after shoot the video. 

Week 7: Scholarship review of Social Learning, ‘Push’ and ‘Pull’, and Building Platforms for Collaborative Learning

This week’s reading, “Social Learning, ‘Push’ and ‘Pull’, and Building Platforms for Collaborative Learning” by Colin Lankshear delves into the profound changes that are happening or rather should happen in education in the 21st century. The biggest take away from this reading is that the push method of education needs to be changed to the pull method in order to meet the educational needs of students in the digital age.

The push method of education works under the 20th century assumption that educators can anticipate the needs of the students order to become productive thinkers and intellectual contributors to society. Since the advent of the internet and the ever changing landscapes of society John Seely Brown sees this ethos of education as grossly insufficient for today’s young students. Brown believes that the pull method of education where instructors equip students with the ability to think creatively and meet the immediate needs of the community and ever changing society, “[Pull models] help people to come together and innovate in response to unanticipated events, drawing upon a growing array of highly specialized and distributed resources. Rather than seeking to constrain the resources available to people, pull models strive to continually expand the choices available while at the same time helping people to find the resources that are most relevant to them.”

This “Pull” method of education will be a major shift in the way Americans are educated. I cannot speak for other countries but in America I feel that there is such a profound attachment to standardized exams and learning outcomes that we cannot see the bigger picture for our students. The bigger picture is that we cannot forsee the issues and challenges that will face us in 20, 30 or even 40 years when these young students will be running the world. In the ever changing geopolitical and technology driven world the idea that we can push information down their throats is completely misguided, we must groom them to become thinkers that are adaptable and intellectually curious. They must be the Wikipedia of thinkers, constantly improving and ever collaborating and not the static and dated encyclopedia Britannica.

Changing our education system to the pull method of education will require to retrain faculty and K-12 teachers to embrace and new model of instruction where they are not longer the sole source of information but rather they become the facilitators of creative and constructivist learning, giving the students to tools but not the information and allowing them solve the problems that we cannot even see.

My son Wolf was born last week Friday and I think about what kind of world he will grow up in and possibly raise his own family. In 30 years the ice caps will likely be melted, water shortages in California will become the norm; the politics in the Middle East are likely to become even fiercer and there are so many problems that we cannot even foresee; who will we turn to solve these deeply troubling issues? We must turn to the youth, unless they are fully equip with the ability to think in this ever changing world we are possibly screwed. The education system must be improved and we must foster the pull method of education if we are to have a future.

Week 7: Digital Story Critique “The Three Little Pigs”

My son was born last week Friday and I have begun to think about how he will be learning interacting with narrative. So today I decided to review an interactive storybook that is hosted on education.com

This story is just the three little pigs but what is very interesting it how children are interacting with technology at very young ages. I’ve seen toddlers as young as 2 years old using an iPhone and iPad to access apps and view content. There is a simple beauty to the way Mac has enabled young people to use their products. This particular interactive story reads the texts to the child, show pictures and allow for repeating and highlights words as they are read.

This is not the most innovative use of technology is storytelling but it's a simple and elegant design that allows for children to interface with the story using html 5 and touch screen technology.

I would have loved something like this as a child. A computer will never replace a parent reading to but as more and more house holds have both parents working digitals stories like this maybe become a stop gap solution for busy parents. This next generation of kids will be the screen generation, they will be raised with the internet and constantly accessing information and entertainment on screens either through virtual reality or just on smart phone like the ones we are all addicted to. It’s likely the beginning of the human cyborg where we are not complete unless we are connected to our technology.

Week 6: Response to Is Virtual Reality the Future of Film?

Living in Los Angeles cinema and entertainment are often a topic of conversation. Currently film in undergoing a major shift is both distribution and consumption. In this News Week Article entitled, “Is Virtual Reality the Future of Film?”, Anthony Cuthbertson delves into the topic of narrative within virtual reality.  Cuthbertson also interviews Steven Spieldberg to get his take on the future of VR in cinema.

A few of my friends have purchased the Samsung Galaxy and have tried the VR function and have heard mixed reviews. The VR space is still in its infancy and there is little content available to consume outside of pornography. Interestingly the pornography industry has been a the leading edge of many technology and filmmaking paradigm shifts over the past decade. Including video compression, live chat, 3D video online and so on. Many people believe that VR is the next big leap in cinema but Spieldberg has his doubts saying, “I think we’re moving into a dangerous medium with virtual reality. The only reason I say it is dangerous is because it gives the viewer a lot of latitude not to take direction from the storytellers but make their own choices of where to look.”

His statement backups so much of that I have been reading about when it comes to digital story telling. That the basic relationship between the storyteller and the audience is changing from a more passing consumer to and active aspect to the narrative. In VR the consumer decides where to look it no loner is decided by the director. VR is a one take environment meaning editing no longer has as much importance since the user is part of the story not just watching the story.

I’m excited to see where VR goes over the next few years but I’m also no convinced that it will replace movies. Most likely VR will remain it’s own form or entertainment allowing people to experience a more life like fantasy. Hopefully the content will soon catch up with the technology.

Week 6: Digital Story Critique

Digital Story Critique: Story Corps "What was it like to be pregnant with me in jail?"

This week I’m critiquing the podcast Story Corps ”What was it like to be pregnant with me in jail?" about a young mother who was pregnant while in jail for taking drugs. The piece starts with Savannah Phelan, 8 asking and a sad child’s voice “Why did you go the jail?” that just pulls in the listener immediately. The voice the questions, perfect entry to the story. I will have been a fan of Story Corps for over ten years, I remember driving home on the 10 freeway crying so hard after listening to a piece on two 80 years old recounting how they met and fell in love. There is something so raw and real about the format. It’s just two people talking and there is power and beauty to that simplicity, no sound effects or fancy editing not even music just two people talking with a mic.

This particular story is one of tragedy and then redemption. The mother you can just tell in her gravely voice and working class accent that she did not have an easy life juxtaposed to the innocence of the her daughters voice made for such an interesting and powerful interaction. The daughter must have just found out that she was in jail while in the womb and was surprised and saddened why the revelation. The mother was honest and compassionate with her answers. And in the end said the most beautiful thing, “You are my angel you saved my life, I will forever be grateful to you. Not many people can say they saved their mothers life.”

Becoming a new father myself this story hit very close to home. It made me feel thankful that I have a normal life and can afford to house my child, and that is not the case for so many people who are struggling with drug addiction or just poverty. Life is not fair and I acknowledge that I did not earn all this in my life but it was gifted to me by the lottery of life. This story really helped me appreciate what I have right in front of me.  

Week 6: Daily Create "Letter to Unborn Child"

Dear Wolf,

This is my first letter to you and it is part of an assignment for my graduate program at University of Colorado. By the time you read this letter I hope that I’ll be completed with my Masters. You are still a fetus inside my lovely wife Julie. I think about you all the time, I even thought about you before you were conceived. You were abstraction, someone who I wanted to meet but not yet a real person. Right now in my life I’m 36, I’ve been living a pretty normal life for a while now, working, smoking weed, drinking beers, hanging out with your mom, watching baseball games, seeing friends, running and hiking.

This is what I want to say to you as my unborn child, first off for some reason I already love you. It’s hard to explain but do, I worry about you and think of you all the time. I think about what kind of man you will become and I think of all my mistakes and wish I could guide you through life to avoid pain but that is not the way life is. When we bring you up in conversation I always say: we cannot make rules or even think about how we should raise you until we meet you because every person is so different and there no single right way to raise a man, that said I have a few shards of wisdom that I would like to pass on to you.

If you can only learn one thing from me it is this, I want you to be happy, and that is no small task. People talk about happiness all the time but very few people achieve it. It is a life long practice in compassion, confidence and self-understanding. This is something that no man can teach you, that no religion will give you, that no woman will fulfill. To me if there is a single life thesis it is that happiness is not selfish, it is selfless. If you work your whole life at achieving happiness that is a life well spent. So there you go, there’s happiness and that’s something that you’ll have to find or deal with on your own. I hope that I will be happy too throughout your life so I can help show you that door. But for some stupid reason, I see so many parents and they are so uncool and miserable, I don’t know why that happens Wolf, but just know at this moment in time as I sit here at the UCLA library just days before I meet you, I was a happy and cool guy. By the time you read this I might just be another asshole dad inflexible and angry, if I’m that, I’m sorry.

I also wanted to talk to you about confidence. You are growing up and different world than I had. When I grew up it was not easy being an Asian dude. For some reason Americans (American media) decided that we are ugly and effeminate. I have been fighting that stereotype my entire life, but I also fell into it. There were times I had no confidence, I did not believe I was worthy or cool enough to have friends, to deserve respect, to talk to girls, to have a well-paid job. Wolf, you have to listen to me when I say that what you think of yourself is 99% of the time what other people think of you. I was so happy when I found out you were going to be a boy, I always wanted to raise a boy but I was also scared for you. It’s not easy being an Asian dude if you were born an Asian girl all men would desire you, you could navigate the world as an object or desire, but instead you will as an Asian man, often the object of rejection and ridicule do not let that define you. Walk with your head high knowing that you are The Mutha F*ckin Wolf.

Another thing I want to touch on is fear. Fear is part of being human. We were designed on the plains of Africa to be a skittish upright monkey. There will always be fear, fear of the unknown, fear of rejection, fear of dark places, fear of getting lost, fear of being killed, fear of failure. Almost all of the time those fears are unfounded; the world is not a scary place. Let me get that into your head, you have nothing to be afraid of. Fear is the base mind telling the body that there is danger, when we were hunted by lions that might have made sense but now it’s petrifies the modern man from achieving his true calling and that is to overcome the base mind and reach a higher level of thinking and self awareness. I named you Wolf because you have nothing to fear, it is you that people fear when they hear a bump in the night.

Life is not an easy journey, I hope that I can be there for you through most of it but there will come a day that I will not be around. Or you’ve just moved on past me. And that it totally fine, I don’t want some clingy fearful boy in my life forever. I want to someday be with your mother again just the two of us, in love like the days before you came into being. So Wolf if you take away just a few things from this writing exercise it’s that I love you and always will, seek happiness at all costs, be confident in yourself and fear nothing for there is nothing to be afraid of.

Love Your Father,

Travis Lee

INTE 4340: Self Reflection

Hi Lori,

The biggest take away from this course is that I am a better writer when I’m writing in high volumes. When I signed up for this course I assumed it would follow a more traditional graduate school format where there is a high volume of reader and then a couple of major writing assignments due at the midterm and final. What I have learned is that writing improves more through volume and consistent practice then is does from attempting to perfect a single essay. We as aspiring writers and storytellers should recognize the value of high volume writing.

As my life get more and more busy every day as my wife is approaching delivering our fist child I find my mind consumed by the tasks of everyday, making dinners, going to work, preparing the nursery and going to the doctors. I find this class a respite from the realities of life. I enjoy the readings on the future of story telling, I truly love taking a break from going though the motions and focusing on the ideas behind them. The theory of why we do what we do is much more interesting than merely doing and not thinking. That I what I love about school, it allow a break to think about things that matter, when I feel like all the things that matter in the drudgery of life seem to take over all aspects of my life.

I also really like thinking about story telling and narrative in the digital context. I rarely read books anymore. I cannot say that is a good thing but it’s the reality that we are living in. I consume most of the story telling in the audio and digital formats. Think about how story telling has changed. And one of my biggest take away is that we are living in an age of online collaboration. We are no longer hermit writers like Emily Dickinson most writers now are only writing to be consumed while on the move in bite size pieces.

I look forward to learning more about the future of storytelling and improving my writing for this course.

Best Wishes,

Travis Le

Week 5: Audio Podcast on Southern California

This week I created a podcast from the DS106 assignment bank. This podcast tells the story of how I fell in love with the wild spaces in Southern California. Los Angeles has been my home for over 10 years now and when I arrived I did not think it was a beautiful place, it took a long time for me to discover its austere beauty. I have since fell in love with hiking in the deserts and scrubland outside of the city.

I cannot wait till my son is old enough to join me on the trails, i just hope that he's not like me when I was a kid preferring to stay inside and play video games. I hope that you enjoy this podcast as much I did producing it.

Week 5: Digital Story Critique Revisionist History by Malcolm Gladwell

I have been a fan of Malcolm Gladwell for over ten years since reading his book “The Tipping Point”. Although he is often seen a smug and an intellectual for the masses I enjoy is ability to communicate difficult and controversial topics into a form that is both entertaining and digestible. His New podcast “Revisionist History” confronts topics that are often glossed over in the news and takes a much deeper analytical investigation into the story. His ability to voice over, mix music and add sound effects creates a deep sense of immersion in his story telling.

In this particular episode Gladwell tell the story of two elite colleges Bowdoin College in Maine and Vassar College in upstate New York. Both are roughly the same size and have approximately the same operating budget. But Bowdoin has invested heavily in amenities of the student including and top ranked chef who specializes in organic gourmet food at the cafeteria and Vassar has invested instead into financial aid programs for minorities and economically disadvantaged youths. Gladwell attacks Bowdoin College viscously explaining that all universities receive federal funds so in some ways we the tax payer are paying for these privileged students gourmet meals while Vassar is going what should be done with tax payer money and that is give a top notch education to any student who is academically gifted enough to be admitted to Vassar regardless of income.

I enjoyed this story not just because it was brave of Gladwell to take on a University and their practices with financial aid but also his ability to tell this story using interview, sound effects, music and data. I read later that he was under fire from Bowdoin University for defamation but that does not negate the real thesis and that is what is the ethos of higher education. He believes that a University education is not a privilege but should be a right of every high school student who has the ability to go to college and that the universities should be doing everything in their power to make this happen and that includes cutting back on superfluous spending on things like gourmet meals and world class chefs.

I hope that audio only formats for story telling will continue in the future. Audio mixing software now comes with all PC and Mac operating systems this will allow more amateurs access to not on the tools to build but also the platforms to disseminate their stories.

Week 5 Response: Audio in the Classroom Chp. 2 & 3 (Erik Jacobson & Christopher Shamburg)

This week we delve into the value of audio only formats specifically examining remixing and Podcasting. Erik Jacobson’s article “Music remix in the classroom” delves into the history of music remixing and expounds upon the originality and value of the musicians who create this dynamic genre of music. Many people do not see remixing as “real” music because the tracks are often sampled from others and view the genre as unoriginal. Jacobson counters by auguring that all music has historically sampled from previous music including classical, folk and jazz. The beauty of remix genres such as hiphop is that they are not even attempting to mask the sample rather they embrace the sampling as a feature of the music instead of the something that should be hidden.

This postmodern view of music recognizes the power of recreation from existing material. We live in the cut and paste generation, instead of trying to pretend that we have original thought why not embrace the collaborative power of creation. This got me thinking of education and how teachers do not need to be original rather they must be proficient in “remixing” existing content into a coherent and effective learning exepeirience.

Many of my faculty I work with have attempted to video all original lectures and write original articles for their students. I commend their efforts but I also have faculty who have embraced the open educational recourses and in a way have remixed their courseware by leveraging the power of other people’s thoughts and ideas that have likely more specialization in those specific topics. Those courses mix in podcasts from NPR, guest lecturers, youtube videos and reading from people all around the world researching and investigating their particular passion. Those courses that lean heavily on the remix model are not hampered by unoriginality but rather are vastly more engaging and dynamic than their more “original” counterparts, just like the remix hip hop artist that Jacobson outlined in his article.

I also wanted to touch briefly on the Podcasting article written by Christopher Shamburg. I also agree that the medium of audio only format for story telling have experienced a resurgence due mainly to podcasts available online. As an avid podcast listener I believe that there is potential for podcast to have a greater impact on education than it is currently being used. There are many students who are audio learners, myself included. I find myself draw to audio format because of the on the go nature of my life, I usually only have time to really focus on a story when I’m commuting, running errands or at the gym. We have a mini computer with us at all time but we often are using are eyes and hand for something else, this is when for practical reasons audio only formats are the best option for story telling. I find that many students are experiencing the same thing time constraints. I plan on producing a podcasts for this week’s audio assignment to practice the skills shown in the article.

Paper Puppet Theater - Cirque du Homophone

This is a puppet show my wife Julie and I put together over the summer to teach children about homophones. It tells the story of a young heroine named Rose and her adventures at sea with her pet deer. It was shot on the iPhone 6S using only paper props. The lighting was done with a sunlight desk lamp.