Slow learning for my brain, mind, and head.
A new verse of Home on the Range, for Daily Create #TDC1471 in honour of my furnace.
Home, home heat exchange
Not working, no heating today;
Today often is heard a discouraging word
Through three sets of chattering teeth.
Where the air is so cold, cuz it’s from outside,
The windchill so %$^&* unkind,
Yes I would exchange my home on the range
for one in a warmer clime.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/139056912@N05/24435275006/in/photostream
Gather round the campfire while I weave you a tale. A tale about what I have done to contribute to #Western106 in its first week. A tale that will be known in legend as ‘Some things that happened’. If you’re reading this, you are part of that legend. You read about these things that happened and contributed to the legacy. Good on ya.
To start the excitement, an introductory tweet was volleyed out into the world:
Time to head down the #western106 road. https://t.co/v88vkjPozQ
— Terry Greene (@greeneterry) January 11, 2016
Included in this tweet was a link to an introductory blog post, staking my turf, marking my territory. http://Howdy, Western106! This blog post set the tone and path for this experience. To be clear, the tone is 50% don’t know what I’m talking about and 50% let’s talk about it any way! And again, to be clear, that path is: like that way or something.
As if you were not yet overcome with the prolific start, what came next! Another Tweet! And a Tweet that signified another blog post. A post to let you know more about what I don’t know and how I’m going to tell you about it anyway.
#western106 #ds106 Where is the West? I don’t seem to know https://t.co/v88vkjPozQ
— Terry Greene (@greeneterry) January 13, 2016
Also, to throw more fuel on the fire: A Daily Create:
#tdc1468 #ds106. This is the steel horse them cowboys and cowgirls coulda used in the Ol’ West. Wheels of Life pic.twitter.com/ZcTEO4DSQ3
— Terry Greene (@greeneterry) January 15, 2016
As the campfire of the week diminished, I updated my Blog’s About page and also did another Daily Create or two but seem to have lost track of them. If you see them roaming the lonesome west, corral them in and bring them back to the homestead would ya?
Tune in next week for another episode!
The term ‘Western’ draws to my mind dusty, sandy land with craggy mesas in the back ground. Small towns in the middle of nowhere thrown together in no time at all. Men usually look dirty and smelly. Women often wear outfits so complex you’d think they would get in it just the one time and stay in it forever, yet they somehow always look crisp and clean. Approximately 30% of people are wearing ponchos. Holsters are everywhere. When you live in a place where the law is not quite in control, you’d probably want to be able to shoot your way out of trouble. This may still be a problematic attitude today.
Where is ‘The West’? Well the obvious answer is it’s over there to the west. Somewhat south, too because it usually seems hot. Maybe it’s Mexico. Mexico is probably close by anyway. I remember seeing Unforgiven when I was quite young and thinking it was a weird Western because it didn’t seem so hot all the time. So am I wrong or is Clint Eastwood? It might be me. I’m just describing to you how I have ‘Western’ stored in my brain. I haven’t seen a new Western since maybe Django Unchained, but that was kind of a Southern wasn’t it? Was that a ‘Southern’? Being from Canada, I think we should start a new genre called ‘Northerns’ where we just re-shoot classic westerns in snowy locales where we can see our breath and we have a tough time shooting with mittens on. The trailers for Hateful Eight show snow everywhere all the time. What are you doing to my understanding of ‘Westerns’, Quentin? You’re messing it up.
In my dusty, hot Western world imagine how uncomfy it would be after a big rain? Mud everywhere, can’t just throw your stuff in the laundry. You probably have to hike to the top of the mountain to find a creek to rinse off and beat your clothes with rocks while you freeze nearly to death in your birthday suit.
Anyway, this important piece of literature you just read was to let you know what a Western means to me right now. Let’s see if that changes as I continue to sit around this #Western106 campfire. See y’all next time!
Mornin’ ladies and gents, I’ll be coming along this caravan ride through the wild west of the Internet. I hang my hat in Central Ontario, Canada where we have a Wild West ethos, with a little bit of North East thrown in. I passed my younger days in Western Canada where no one remembers which laws to follow and blames the guvmint for the milk going sour. Anyhow, I make my living at the local college as a learning technologist which I don’t think was a job back in the old west.
I’m taking this dusty westernDS106 road with you to learn me a few more tricks to put in my saddle bags. More ways to lasso the learners into learnings. To add some story, some yarns to tell around the virtual campfire. What do I know about this stuff already? I’ve given it a go in the past embedding story into online courses. A little Wild West approach might be just the ticket to break out of the corral and make online learning more of a good time. I want to learn how to create in all them categories we added to our blog on the left hand side there, in all kinds of different programs and software.
If I’m going to stay on this path, I’ll have to hunker down and do it everyday, but also, I’ll have to kill two birds with one stone and create things I can use for this here school house I’m working at. It should be quite a quest. Saddle up and see you out there!
TG
