Tag Archives: google doc

Rhizo15

Mr X is hacked by the rhizome #rhizo15 #rhizostorm

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After writing Mr X loses his battle for objectivity I was overwhelmed by the response from the #Rhizo15 community through comments on the blog, in the Facebook group, on Twitter and Google+ group.

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blog comment barry dyck

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blog comment Aaron

I have to admit I felt elated with so much attention but what really excited me was when Terry suggested it would work as a radio play/podcast.

Hello there. My name is Tania Sheko. Thanks for responding so positively to this short piece of fiction/non-fiction. I’m taking up the suggestion to create something for #rhizoradio (suggested by Terry Elliott and seconded by Simon Ensor) and other suggestions to do a collaborative rewrite eg include a larger cast so we can actually (somehow) create a podcast for #rhizoradio (which is going to be a thing I think). Hope you can join me here!

With Maha‘s well earned influence the Google doc I shared was suddenly populated with #Rhizo15 people (and others?) working together across time zones to hack my ‘story’. So many creative people chatting in the margins of the document about what could work.

blog comment terry

blog comment simon ensor

It was fun watching the little animal-head avatars popping up at the top as people joined in. Kevin Hodgson shared some an introduction on SoundCloud and then Simon Ensor  did a brilliant reading of Mr X – who evolved into Mr Arborescent (or just Arborescent, as Laura Ritchie suggested). The ‘me’ character was named Rhizoka and the narrator became an inner voice (voices in the head). The ‘me’ character then exposed a muliplicity of identities and even spoke in more than one language.

Ronald created an introduction and Simon did a brilliant Mr X (or Arborescent) in a British accent.

I don’t think it’s finished but I sure hope it actually gets acted out as a podcast/radio play. Thank you so much to all who jumped in – it’s been amazing! It’s still open so come in and contribute. I saw Maha talking on Twitter about who might be able to create the podcast so I hope someone will because I’m not sure about how to do that.

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Thank you, people! So far Maha Bali, Sarah Honeychurch, Angela Brown, Ronald Rudolf, Kevin Hodgson (@dogtrax), Laura Ritchie, Aras Bozkurt, Keith Hamon, Simon Ensor and Barry Dyck. Hope I haven’t left anyone out.  Let me know if I have.

A great way to start #Rhizo15!

Collaboration, Digital citizenship, Google

How do you find 50 people you don’t know from all over the world?

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As you already know from a recent post, I’m lucky to be attending the Sydney Google Teacher Academy in April. I have to say, I’ve been curious to find out who is going and where they’re from. Someone started a Twitter #gtasyd hashtag which got the ball rolling, and soon I was adding people to my Twitter network and to a #gtasyd Twitter list. At one point, somebody asked for those attending the Sydney academy to share their 60 second video. I was thinking the same thing, although I’d tried searching YouTube but the results returned a mixture of people’s videos from different years.

Even though it seemed a little too obvious, I decided to create a Google Doc. This worked very well – after I realised that I’d made it public but hadn’t allowed anyone to edit. Soon #gtasyd people were coming in and introducing themselves, providing photos, a little background to place them geographically and add a personal touch, adding blog urls, Twitter usernames, and a link to their 60 second video.

You can have a look here if you’re interested. At first I thought we were either from Australia, New Zealand or USA but then Boris from Nizhny Novgorod, Russia added his details, followed by a ‘lucky Frenchman’.

Suddenly I’d gone from having very little information about the people I’d be meeting in Sydney – only those who were already in my PLN – to knowing quite a bit about them: where they lived, their identities on Twitter, Skype, Facebook, Diigo, etc., what they looked like, a little family background, not to mention the fact that I could browse their blogs for interests, focus, mindset and more. The fact that these people had a rich web presence made it easy to find the information I needed.

How important is a web presence? How important is it for us to help our students begin to create a digital footprint, a positive and authentic identity online?  These are obviously rhetorical questions. We need to stop focusing on the dangers of our students’ online activity and focus on teaching them to create strong, positive digital footprints.

At one point, as I was watching Boris (from Russia) enter his details on the Google doc (I love the way you can see it take shape right before your eyes), he noticed I was viewing and we had a short chat. That was cool – I was at school in Melbourne, Australia, and he was in Russia in a different timezone.

I’m glad that Australia finally got a go with Google Teacher Academy, and I’m looking forward to meeting everyone in April. I wonder what kind of projects and connections will come from this experience?