The weather has turned now and after a few days of sunshine, temperatures have dipped and we’re into the fall. Street cleaning has started. Every Monday a truck arrives to suck up the leaves that residents have spent the weekend collecting and raking into the gutter.
I still think it’s magical when the deer leap over our fence and start munching on the leaves in our garden. They see us moving indoors as we look through the kitchen window, keeping one eye on us, but don’t seem too worried, making themselves at home for a few hours before skipping away.
It’s been a week of ups and downs, a few wins, and a few setbacks. Nothing that can’t be solved or sorted but there have been some frustrating moments. I know that writing is part of that sifting and sorting, it’s all going to be okay in the end.
Stephan
Teaching & Learning
My second mini-course began in fine spirits and it was great to meet a new bunch and we spent some time getting to know each other, welcomed into our classroom space, and working on ideas. This “Everyday Learning” course is a real mix of activities and I’m approaching things a little differently than last year when we were fully remote and working through zoom.
Now that we’re in the classroom, we can be hands-on and it has already been fun to bring out pots of sharpies and big pieces of newsprint so that the students can take notes and sketch out ideas. Doodling is encouraged and there are some talented doodlers among us. I wish that I could find the research that I heard once at a conference explaining how low-level hands-on tasks increased the attention of learners, especially paper-folding, knitting, Lego, activities that weren’t too complicated to distract the learner away from hearing a conversation or listening, but just enough to center the learner and provide a little bit of focus. If you know which paper I’m talking about please send it my way.
I’m very happy to see the room messed up a bit and love the color that work brings to the space. We only have seven (six now) weeks to design and build learning packs and include instructional zines and links to videos and online guidance for teachers. I hope that we’ll be in a position to give some packs away to libraries and schools, that we might invite some kids to test them out and tell us if they’re any good. Along the way, we’re going to think about the value of learning in the wild, how these sorts of activities helped to bring families together and helped to maintain important links between libraries, community groups, and schools during the lockdown.
Life Lessons
I said it was a week of ups and downs and as I’m trying to get a few things ready for next year, other important considerations are coming up. I’m sorry to be vague about this but it’s only a question of where my energies need to be directed. I have ignored a few things this semester only for three emails to come in at once and remind me, so now I have to put some things in place to sort them. Sometimes it’s like that, you don’t get to decide where your focus should be all the time, there are responsibilities and others are counting on you.
These are life lessons and this is a space for reflection.
Also, we talked in class about managing and organizing our time and I spotted a really good piece of advice that I mean to pass onto my students:
Always plan time for tasks not deadlines. 30 min to review brief not brief due EOD.
Sunday evening or early morning reviews are a regular work habit, I know that I can’t get everything done in a week and still survive it, so planning out times to complete particular tasks and adding in slots for reading and answering emails (strictly one or two focussed times per day) has helped me to manage my time much better. I am more realistic and I have some spots left open for so-called emergencies or at least when I need to be reactive and something has come up. These moments used to be super disruptive, and still are sometimes but the buffers are there to absorb the impact.
Lost and Found
I used a few tools and read a few articles this week which I’m pleased to share with you.
You’ll see in the photo above that we used post-it notes to sort through ideas and share them with the group. I started to take photos and was reminded that there’s a Post-it app that captures these sorts of cluttered boards. We’re using Discord for our backchannel, so I added these pics to the class channel.
Students in the course will need to keep a design diary and I don’t mind how they do it. I love to see processes and don’t think you need fancy tools, a slide deck is fine or something like Miro which is a great way of sorting ideas. I usually share this wonderful example of why taking photos of sketches, prototypes, parts, and tests is a brilliant thing to do. Why hasn’t anyone made it yet?
Finally, in my searches, I came across an open-source event organizer called Unhangout - which offers an alternative to zoom or teams. Developed by the people at MIT Media Lab, it organizes breakout rooms by questions and discussion topics, helps attendees organize sessions around their interests rather than prescribed by the host. I would be very interested to attend an event using this platform and see how the time online might unfold, hopefully in a more natural and fluid way than usual.
Thank you
I managed to open up my sketchbook a few times this month, once on the bus but that was a bit of a disaster, I wasn’t comfortable and the potholes and bumps in the road made a straight line particularly challenging. It was nice to sit down yesterday for a few moments over a cup of tea and listen to music, take some water to the paper and see what came through. I’m using photos from line of action or sketch-daily and some other online figure and portraiture sites, also sometimes I just see a picture that I think will be fun to draw, I love people wearing glasses or shades, they always add interesting detail to the face.
I hope you’re having a good week and things are going well. The weekend ahead is looking cold and probably a bit wet, so I’ll be streaming radio, maybe making some print plates using all the tetra paks that I’ve been keeping, including new Oatmilk cartons. It’s messy work and I can’t wait.
Take care, speak soon.