“83” flickr photo by Sharon Gerald https://flickr.com/photos/sgerald/24608048596 shared under a Creative Commons (BY-SA) license
Earlier this week I attended a Creativity Workshop put on by the International Center for Studies in Creativity.
I want to share just one activity we went through in which I inadvertently Huck Finnified education. Now to be fair, all I really remember about Huck Finn is him + raft + river = freedom. That seems like a good direction for some (lots) of education to go.
The activity was a story-boarding exercise that is meant to help you to plan for reaching your goals. You get a 6 or 8 panel sheet and start by drawing your starting point in panel one and your end point in the last panel. You then fill in the blanks in between, making them up as you go. It being a creativity workshop you were free to be free thinking, so somehow mine involved a gondola and Huckleberry Finn. Despite (or maybe because of) those silly bits, I was able to maybe see some stepping stones to a less silly goal.
Here is the legend for what you are about to witness
…and here is the sheet, pre-‘art’
The beginning: a class with PowerPoint stinking onto students. PowerPoint really is the Nickelback of ed-tech, isn’t it?
The end goal: learning whilst floating down a river on a raft like Huck Finn
How do we get there? I don’t know! Maybe this is step one: Screen share from devices to screens on the side of the room.
And then what? I don’t know! Maybe this is the next step. Why even those side screens. Step 2 was silly. Let’s just share device to device. Also less walls now somehow.
What is even the next step? Who knows! Maybe this ridiculous step. We can just share device to device now so we can take the imaginary gondola down to the river. How come gondolas aren’t used as public transit options by the way?
And then what? This is so ridiculous now does it even matter? Oh yeah! We’re at the river. Let’s get on these rafts. Huck Finn time.
Now we can go full Ed-Huck Finn.
The whole silly affair.
You may be able to use this story-boarding activity to actual good use yourself. try it out!
