The Story of Us

Welcome to Learning Event Nine of the #WalkMyWorld Project 2015.

What do you have a unique perspective on? What have you learned while interacting with this group?

Photo by Profound Whatever http://flickr.com/photos/hoyvinmayvin/8651581044 shared under a CC BY-NC-SA license

What have you learned about learning and participating on the web? How will you use this information moving forward to use and share files in an open, friendly, respectful way? Over the course of the past eight weeks, we have been building, sharing, and connecting in online spaces.

Some of you have joined this project as a class requirement. Some of you have joined to learn, interact, and play with others. Regardless of your point of entry, hopefully you’ve learned some things about interacting, sharing, and socializing on the Internet with others. Sadly, this type of interaction doesn’t happen often enough in online spaces.

 

Photo by Profound Whatever http://flickr.com/photos/hoyvinmayvin/8651580956 shared under a CC BY-NC-SA license

Over the course of the #WalkMyWorld project, you have been acting as a Webmaker. Some of you have also been acting (unofficially) as Webmaker Mentors. We’ve been building, breaking, and sharing online all while building up our web literacies. This is important work as together we are building the future of a web that is open, free, and participatory.

For this learning event we will use all of the tools that we’ve used over the project to document and report on what we have learned individually and collectively. We will reflect on what we have learned, and the role of learning socially in this experience. We’ll share how we want to learn and participate on the web going forward. Finally, we’ll use and share digital content in an open, web-friendly format with others. This learning event is based on a project for the Webmaker Clubs and the WNYC Radio Rookies.

Your response for the ninth learning event

Watch the following video from WNYC Radio Rookies.

Print out and follow the storytelling and recording tips if needed.

Photo by Profound Whatever http://flickr.com/photos/hoyvinmayvin/8651580964 shared under a CC BY-NC-SA license
Brainstorm possible ideas or topics for your Story of Us. What do you have a unique perspective on? Is there a social problem you would like to see addressed in a story? What sides of a story are often ignored? What is a story that people don’t know about, but should? What is something you are very curious about and want to know more?
Are you concerned with the way that gender is viewed online and in our classrooms? Are you concerned with high-stakes testing in schools? Do you work to find better ways to embed STEM into all aspects of teaching and learning? Do you wonder about privacy and security in online spaces? All of these are possible starting points. What do you have a unique perspective on?
Use digital tools to create and share your Story of Us. A good Story of Us has three parts:
  • Me. Start with a story about who you are. This helps your audience understand your perspective and establishes your voice in the story. Focus on an event, or challenge in your life. You have have had multiple opportunities to share aspects of your identity in the #WalkMyWorld Project. You may decide to take one of your earlier shared pieces and build off of that.
  • Us. After you start with your story, bridge your personal perspective out to connect with the audience. Explain why your point of view is relevant to the other members of our community. What challenges and opportunities might others encounter if they’re presented with the same obstacles or decisions? What choices do we have in response to these challenges? Might we have the opportunity to live and learn together? What might this future look like?
  • Now. A good story ends with a call to action. You want our audience to know they can take action…and what that action should be. Present the opportunities we all have for enacting change. Do you want to connect with others and continue to work and share in the future? Present concrete steps about what could and should be done next.
    Photo by Profound Whatever http://flickr.com/photos/hoyvinmayvin/8650482721 shared under a CC BY-NC-SA license

    Record, reflect and share your Story of Us on the #WalkMyWorld hashtag. You might also chose to include the #teachtheweb hashtag now that you’re a webmaker. As you create and share, you should consider the tools you’ll use to record and share your story. You might use Soundcloud, YouTube, or Google Drive to save and share your files.

    Be sure to stay active on the #WalkMyWorld hashtag to see what others share about their journey. I’m sure we’ll have some people in the #teachtheweb community checking out and responding to your cool work.

    A guiding example

    As detailed earlier, this learning event is based on a project by the webmaker clubs and the WNYC Radio Rookies. We recommend joining the Mozilla Learning forum to get in touch, connect, and borrow ideas from other fellow webmakers.

CC BY-SA 4.0 This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.