The UT Arlington LINK Research Lab kicked off a great series of speakers with the Cog Dog himself, Alan Levine. Alan came in on Monday and gave a great historical look at the web with a subtle kick in the pants for all of us to pay attention to where things are going and how we want it to be. You can view the recording here.
The real fun times were had on what I labeled “CogDog Day” because we were privileged to spend the whole day picking Alan’s brain on a wide range of topics. We even played with some of his online toys.
First up was pechaflickr, a type of storytelling game that can also serve in any capacity that you need a random flickr image generator. Alan even once used this tool to present a tech talk. Our particular group choose the tag “texas” and a quite hilarious tale of life in Texas through the random pictures that appeared.
Next up was a game of Five Card Flickr, another storytelling tool that allows you to pick from five random Flickr images and write a story about them. You can see our actual story (5urv1v0r) here. Good times were had by all.
Next up on the digital storytelling adventure was the Storybox, which is Alan’s build of a pirate box in an old 1940’s camera (picture below by Whitney Kilgore). Alan basically goes and sets up this box and has people share digital stories through photos, videos, and forum posts. Since it is self-contained server, it can work even where there is no Internet, or you don’t have the password, or even where the network you could use is too restrictive for sharing remixed media.
If you missed out, I would check out some of the upcoming events at LINK Lab. You never know what surprises await!
Matt is currently an Instructional Designer II at Orbis Education and a Part-Time Instructor at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley. Previously he worked as a Learning Innovation Researcher with the UT Arlington LINK Research Lab. His work focuses on learning theory, Heutagogy, and learner agency. Matt holds a Ph.D. in Learning Technologies from the University of North Texas, a Master of Education in Educational Technology from UT Brownsville, and a Bachelors of Science in Education from Baylor University. His research interests include instructional design, learning pathways, sociocultural theory, heutagogy, virtual reality, and open networked learning. He has a background in instructional design and teaching at both the secondary and university levels and has been an active blogger and conference presenter. He also enjoys networking and collaborative efforts involving faculty, students, administration, and anyone involved in the education process.