Welcome to Learning Event #1 (#LE1) for #WalkMyWorld 2021. In this journey we’ll think about the story of you…told from past, present, and future.

As we start to meet and connect, we recognize the fact that we are not clean slates. We all come with experience, dreams, and scars.

We may running from something in our past. We might have certain stories to tell ourselves to keep our sanity.

Sometimes we have the tools to deal with these challenges, and other times we need to reach out for support from others.

The video above, To This Day, is an animated version of a spoken word poem written by Shane Koyczan. In the poem, Koyczan talks about the bullying he and others received during their lives and its deep, long-term impact.

You can listen to more about this poem and the challenges of growing up in his TED Talk below.

WRITE

We’re joining each other in the middle of the story. We might have a place that we’ve come from, or that we’re going to. We might be on a journey to a bigger goal, or we might be living in the present moment.

So, as we begin, please redefine who are you.

Open up a clean writing space in a Google Doc.

Write down six words that identify who you are…or would like to be.

You can choose to add any other text, images, or multimodal content that you see fit.

Share a selfie or something that represents you to serve as a visual icon on your journey. This can be a photo, a GIF, an object, a drawing, a meme…whatever representation you choose.

CONNECT

After you have identified your six words and identified a visual representation of yourself…share this out with others.

You can share this locally with others through your learning networks. As an example, this may be something you share with peers in Google Classroom.

You could also share this out on Twitter as Write.As using the hashtag #WalkMyWorld.

If you’re interested, we do have a semi-private group in Flipgrid for sharing and discussing this year. Send me an email and I’ll bring you in.

As you connect with others, ask them to read what you’ve shared and have them tell you who they think you are based on what you’ve written.

What did they see? What did they miss? What were the differences in what you wanted to tell?

If you feel inspired, take time to reflect and write indicating who you are, and what you thought as others in the group learned more about you.

You can share as much…or as little as you’d like.

Enjoy…and let’s connect with each other online.

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graffiti flickr photo by Ana María León shared under a Creative Commons (BY-NC-ND) license

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