Interstitial Options
In one of the instructional posts you have been asked to read1, you’ll find this Latin phrase: Verba volant, scripta manent. It is the idea that “spoken words fly away, [while] written words remain.” It’s important enough to the philosophy in here that we probably want it posted on the wall as part our burgeoning creative clutter.
Why? Well, we live in a hypertextual world, which means that we can communicate through the Internet in ways that were unimaginable even 20 years ago. The written word is more permanent, more accessible, and more immediate.
Face-to-face discussion, of course, remains as powerful as ever in a classroom environment. What we want to do is to expand that environment to include interstitial options, like this website and Google Classroom. I’ve tried to explain the evolution of it in this essay, which you are encouraged to read. Here’s what Neil Postman had to say about it, in what is probably another lock for the classroom wall:
Writing makes it possible and convenient to subject thought to a continuous and concentrated scrutiny. Writing freezes speech and in so doing gives birth to the grammarian, the logician, the rhetorician, the historian, the scientist — all those who must hold language before them so that they can see what it means, where it errs, and where it is leading.
I’m repeating a lot of what you’ve already been told, but that’s the point: The more often we write down our ideas, the more we are able to revisit and refine them. The more we think in writing, the clearer those thoughts become. It’s an act of iteration, and we need to experiment with tools that let us iterate and collaborate better.
Some of you are already using the comment section of this website to ask questions and engage with the material. That’s great. You’re also sharing documents through Google Drive and leaving comments on each other’s writing in Docs. That’s great, too. Your next stop is Google+ Communities, which were fairly successful last year:
Look at those online communities, make note of how students are interacting, and consider how we can adapt Google+ for this year. You can build your own Google+ Community that is as focused (e.g., on a single table in a single period) or as expansive (e.g., the entire junior class) as you want. I want you to find time over the next two or three weeks to experiment. Those of you who have already built a Community need to share your findings with others.
One way to share our thinking and bolster a community is to use this subreddit:
It hasn’t been utilized in more than a year, but I think it could be rebooted to be tremendously helpful in here. It exists outside the technical boundaries of the school, yet runs under the auspices of the course. It isn’t just an extension of Room 210. It’s a subreddit about carving meaning out of difficult circumstances and using language to transform ourselves and our surroundings. It’s about becoming better people by hacking our current habits and mindsets. It’s part of a makerspace, and that kind of work continues long after you graduate and see your BHS Google account deleted.
At least, it could exist in that capacity. You’ll see that some of the erstwhile moderators are graduates, and I’ll reach out to them to see about their interest in remaining part of the community. I’ll also invite you to think about becoming a mod yourself, if this idea takes off.
The first thing I’d like you to try to do with one or more of these interstitial options is to share your Pareto Project ideas with each other. These projects are a great example of makerspace work that doesn’t require a classroom to be successful. Note carefully that this is not a formal assignment; it’s directed mostly at the students who fit (or are hoping to fit) the highest profiles. This is another example of doing more than just what is required, and it’s absolutely the best kind of galvanizing, infrastructural work you should be doing.
Ask questions below about how to get started with Reddit, Google+, etc, and offer suggestions about what else might help us work together interstitially. One of you has suggested Discord, for instance, so I’m looking into that. What else might fit our makerspace?
There’s no hyperlink, because you need to start making those connections on your own, at least eventually. Everything connects, and most things are reiterated again and again. If you can’t see the bigger picture, let me know, and I’ll help fill it in. ↩