I do believe that the title more or less covers what would normally go at the beginning of an introductory blog post such as this one. But I don’t want some short little thing to be the first post on this whole circus either so I guess I will have to do what has always been my favorite thing to do when writing: improvise. Grab the audience by the hands and invite them into the ring–let them stand beneath the trapeze wire walkers and sword swallowing jugglers. Let them see that there are no strings or fancy mirror tricks to be had at this show. Only God’s Honest magic here, ladies and gentlemen. Continue reading “Greetings, Salutations, Welcome, and Hello!”
DigPINS, Returns, and Identity Talks
You ever come across something you made a few years ago and go, “yeah, okay that’s a thing I did and totally blocked out of my memory.” That’s how I feel about this blog. As my post history here shows, it’s been a hot minute since I’ve posted anything, which I only started because of an assignment for one of my grad classes when I was getting my MA in Educational Technology. It’s not that I’m self-conscious or embarrassed about what I wrote–I’m not. I still stand by the silly circus metaphors I made about education and I’m still obsessed with Adam Savage making a box on YouTube. No, I totally blocked it out of my memory because it was 3 years ago that I last made a post on this blog and in Internet-time that is basically a different century. I’ve written and read so many papers, emails, articles, texts, snaps, tweets, posts, and everything in-between since then. I was never going to remember what I said and did here in the interim.
But now I am back because I am participating in the DigPINS (Pedagogy, Identity, Networks, Scholarship) experience with a wonderful cohort of Instructional Designers. This week’s topic is Identity (honestly threw me for a loop given the acronym order!), and it’s great because it gives me a new frame to look at how I curated / presented myself not only in this WordPress space, but online in general.
For this week, we were asked to complete a Visitor-Resident map of our use of the internet. An interesting reflection that made me feel less connected to the communities and sites I participate in than I realized when I saw how heavy the “Visitor” side of my map was.
There are many other ways of mapping / thinking of ones identity online of course–the Visitor-Resident map being a new continuum for me that I liked a lot. When considering identity online, the terms digital native and immigrant never sat well with me personally. It almost sounds xenophobic in a politicized discourse kind of way. Like the idea that we can only naturalize so many immigrants to our tribe before some quota is achieved.
I’ve dabbled with the idea of my identity on the Internet as a member of a marketplace for a while. I am a consumer or producer. It’s a fluid identity though. As a consumer I can easily become a producer of content and digital artifacts that in turn will be consumed by others. But that’s also rather capitalist and frankly a bit dehumanizing to me. I think that line of thinking places the human behind the content and artifacts they generate rather than in front of it–which may be the point, I’m not sure.
But then I often catch myself thinking of my online identity in terms of performer and audience. How the curated presentation of myself on the various platforms I engage with are really just a performance of a character I want people to like, agree, or sympathize with. I’m reminded of the relatively young comedian, Bo Burnham who comments on this in one of his comedy specials, “Make Happy.”
He asks to the audience what his show is about near the end of the special and then explains that it always winds up being a meta-commentary about performing because it was the most honest and relatable thing he could talk about with his audience as a performer. “Social Media, it’s just the market’s answer to a generation that demanded to perform. So the market said, ‘Here, perform everything to each other all the time for no reason.'”
This isn’t a new idea of course. Judith Butler has been talking about Performative Acts and gender identity since the 80’s. We perform ourselves to each other every day, so it’s no surprise that we continue to do so with a whole host of new and exciting tools at our disposal in this new medium and modality.
I went in to this identity exercise and week not really having a clear idea of who I am, or rather who I am trying to perform to be and become. And I’m not sure if I really have a better understanding of it now either, which is fine. It’s made me more thoughtful of my engagement for the time being, and for now that can be enough until I figure the role(s) I want to play.
Where To Start When Teaching Poetry, Or Stepping Through the Right Doorway
I love poetry. I love reading it. I love writing it. I love listening to poets perform it. And I love teaching it. However, without fail, every class I have ever had while teaching creative writing has told me that they “hate” poetry. And I get that. I felt the same way about poetry when I was first introduced to it in a creative writing class. Continue reading “Where To Start When Teaching Poetry, Or Stepping Through the Right Doorway”
Looking For a Tool to Write With?
If you haven’t noticed already, I like to write. I feel that writing, particularly creative writing, is the fastest way for young people to grow more empathetic, inquisitive, and articulate–besides reading of course. Continue reading “Looking For a Tool to Write With?”
Ryan's Three Ring Circuits 