Bit of an hiatus here while we set up the new blog at www.authenticblogging.com
Once we do (Graeme and I that is), there will be loads of stuff available to help set you (or keep you) on an authentic blogging path.
Stay tuned.
Libby
I really want to support the film Freedom Writers (see previous post) and am waiting to get a copy.
Interestingly, StoryMakers Studio found my blog entry and contacted me with an invitation to an event in support of the film. It’s in Hollywood at the Chinese Theatre and I won’t be popping over for it (funnily enough) but here’s their info for anyone wanting to follow up on this powerful film and what’s happening around it.
“a live conversation with a whole bunch of people who made the movie, including writer/director Richard LaGravenese, several cast members, at least one of the original Freedom Writers and Erin Gruwell…
“For those of your members who can’t get to Hollywood to attend the live event, we’re considering videotaping the evening and making it available for viewing later….Anyone who would want to watch program on a tape delayed basis can sign up by going to:
http://storymakersstudio.com/freedom/viewpage
Since a big part of this evening is all about raising awareness for Erin and the Freedom Writers Foundation, we’d really appreciate your support.
Let’s make something wonderful happen.
Gordon Meyer
StoryMakers Studio”
Important independent films like Freedom Writers (eg. early Micheal Moore, Super Size Me, What the Bleep) are doing much better now a days thanks, in part, to the promotional power of the internet to spread political messages virally.
To find out more, just go to http://www.storymakersstudio.com/freedom
More power to them. And as the man says… let’s (keep) making wonderful things happen. Why not tell your own stories and get them out there.
“The moon and sun are eternal travellers.
Even the years wander on.
A lifetime adrift in a boat,
or in old age leading a tired horse into the years,
every day is a journey,
and the journey itself is home.”
For me? More blogging inspiration, in the here and now.
“i have been full of steam
for months
for years”
“to shut yourself up
would be the hugest crime
of them all”
“let’s celebrate now
all this flesh on our bones”
Currently looking into the viability of teaching blogging to academic staff and students, at Sussex University initially. It’s certainly the way things are and need to be going. Heck, Universities created the internet for these reasons in the first place, but long-lead-time dead-tree journals seem to have taken over the publishing side of things and there is not a lot of deep content out there.
Specific (participant) outcomes expected:
- Your own free weblog site for individual or group publishing.
- Instantly and easily publish your own or a group’s academic /
creative work (in progress or completed) online, without having to wait
for it to be updated by webmasters.
- Share thoughts and work with an extended learning community for
feedback and discussion.
- Collect thoughts, notes, longer pieces / items and reflect on your
own learning with private or public posts.
- Support the development of student and staff voice and collegiality
- Develop greater confidence in expressing yourself
- Be heard!
- Enhance your public profile for media and public speaking.
So far the response has been great. Will see what doors starts to open…
Increasingly my teaching practice is focussing on blogging for a wide range of learners and contexts, including:
Here is a general, introductory message about the tailored courses available.
Come and join the global conversation. Blogging is a profound, effective new way to express yourself, connect, learn and be heard. It’s a process and an outcome, supporting personal, academic, business or organisational growth.
Many and diverse people, all around the world, are successfully blogging online about their:
- learning
- lives
- diverse interests and hobbies
- businesses
- electorates
- public roles, and
- creative pursuits.
Blogs (or web logs) can include words, images, sound and links as well as comments back from your new-found audience.
This is your chance to find out what blogging is all about and get your very own (or a group) blog working for you. Suitable for anyone that can use a basic word processing package that has used the internet before. You do NOT need to be an experienced writer, as you will be developing this skill in your own style. Within three sessions you can have your own free blog site up on the internet.
By the end of the course, you will have found your voice and be confidently blogging. Join in and watch yourself and/or your business grow. Plus, learn how to have people find your blog when you are ready.
……………………………………..
About your Teacher
Libby Davy has over 15 year’s experience working professionally and teaching communications – for individuals and organisations. She contributes to several blogs and was a pioneer blogger at www.barkingowl.com/learning and other spaces.
Currently studying a Masters in Person-Centred Education at the University of Sussex, Libby is interested in how blogs support life-long learning through their open, reflective and communal nature. Libby is a co-founder of one of the internet’s most exciting new online communities www.scouta.com, where she hosts groups on Education and Brighton.
After gaining a degree in communications and media Libby eventually went on to teach writing, editing and publishing at a university and community level. She is a published and awarded short-story writer, and has had her work broadcast on national radio. For many years, Libby worked in strategic communications, marketing, organizational development and business coaching.
Libby is a fun, friendly, Australian mother with a passion for education and human potential.
Contact 01273 540 023 or 07968 687 107 to book a place or arrange a tailored workshop series.
Dear mum got me to check out the new film Freedom Writers. Powerful stuff. Check it out yourself (trailer). We all have a voice.
The production notes within “About the Film” tell me a hell of alot about authentic education, biography, community, student voice, about the noble calling to teach, to listen, to find a way in, to make it real.
[Update: see new post here.]
“Why should we write? We should write because it is human nature to write. Writing claims our world. It makes it directly and specifically our own… We should write because, above all, we are writers whether we call ourselves writers or not.” Julia Cameron in The Writer’s Life: Insights from The Right to Write.
After having my daughter Bea, I finally sat down to write. Memories, stories, fantasies came forth. It was great. Better out than in.
I had written extensively and professionally before, but to a brief. For an audience, not for myself.
I had fantasies about going the whole way, but other, less isolating pursuits spoke louder. But I have kept writing, and will never stop. No idea where it’s all going, but I laugh as I recall a Leunig cartoon… something about a man going to see a Physician.. “Doctor, doctor… I’ve got this thing inside me. It’s hurting me. Please, please. Take it out.” Doctor asks “what is it?” of course. “A book Doctor, a book. I think it’s a book.”
Have you ever had this feeling? I sure have. Blogging certainly releases the pressure, and there are other pieces of life-saving surgery pending (41,000 words for the MA over the next two years… phew. Hope there’s not too much blood loss. Must plan to allow some post-operative recovery time.)
Some further quotes found just now that help relate these thoughts.
“I write for the same reason I breathe - because if I didn’t, I would die.” - Isaac Asimov
“Better to write for yourself and have no public, than to write for the public and have no self.” - Cyril Connolly
“Your vision will become clear only when you look into your heart … Who looks outside, dreams. Who looks inside, awakens.” - Carl Jung
“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.” - Martin Luther King Jr.
Until I work out how to update my old fashioned writing website, I will just add some other stories that never got collected, via this blog. They are several years old now, from what feels like a distance land, with all that has taken place and transformed in this short/long life so far.
First of all, there are several stories up on the original “Here” writing website, which (if anyone is actually out there? But thanks Cyril, I’m with you) is the best place to start.
Then, there was…
The Surrealist’s Ball - just for fun.
Food & Art - deeper ruminations
First Day of School - sweet, vivid memories (with an edge)
Italian Hotel - power, breastfeeding & gender - a short story
My New Friend & Bees - free child voice (inspired by the questioning nature of children and their fascination with guts)
The Oracle - a short but zapping mystery revealed
Days of Milk - fantasies of being a kindergarten teacher
Lick Hum Dresser - sensuous, Australian, languid short story
Has been good to look back, reread, remember what I have been doing with my words over those years. All part of the learning journey. While some have been published or broadcast, most are yet to be read. Not sure what to do with them really… two many interests for one lifetime…
Well I will just talk about my childcare background for now as that is the key focus of the BLOG and my work at present…
There have, however, been many incarnations as is typical I suppose of Gen Xers like meself.
Snippets of other incarnations at www.barkingowl.com and www.barkingowl.com/here
My application to the Child Care Advisory Committee is available here and tells the story of how a philosophical, searching 30-something-year-old ‘pre-mother’ looking for the best place to devote her work energy can get so passionate about campaigning for excellent child care/early learning models - and about the Reggio project in particular. It’s already out of date (current as of mid 2004), but then.. that’s the learning journey innit.
My undergraduate studies were in media studies, communications and cultural theory - getting hands on, practical skills in communications (writing across genres, photography, strategy) plus critical thinking foundations around the work of Berger, Sartre, Barthe, de Bouviour, Said etc.
This makes a deep interest in the Reggio Project specifically and social constructivism in general, a natural extension.
Early work experiences in the “belly of the corporate beast”, living in the country, becoming a mother, travelling, writing, photography (see ABC radio interview about our sea change here and ABC TV doco here) also shaped my ideas about many things.
More ‘media tart’ links here. We’ve always been pretty keen on documenting the learning journey, which is again why the Reggio project is so appealing. They are into documentation in a big way.
Oh, and I went to a school called the Lance Holt School that was based on the Summerhill school in the UK. That might have something to do with things too… 
Rawwwther an empowering place to learn. Much to be written about that!
Ended up at Presbyterian Ladies College so you could say, educationally speaking, I’ve had some pretty brooooooaaaaddd ranging experiences to draw from.
I’m looking forward to being able to make a contribution to the advancement of high quality child care for ALL from “within the system” - as well as from within the community.
Child care seems like a fundamental thing to get right when you think about it.
Researching, writing and distributing these posts through traditional and online media will hopefully help stimulate debate.
I’m still really struggling with how wanky and opinionated this Blogging thing feels.. still finding my voice and trying to understand the new private/public space I have entered. So leaving comments might help me deal with this. I suppose blogging these ideas and storing information I want to share here might be useful beyond just developing my own thinking. If you let me know if you got something out of visiting here and perhaps even what the context for your interest is, then that will help shape this.
Hmmm… we shall see… is it blowing in the wind…?
My first post. Finally I’m blogging. Hi Gra! Thanks for getting me going. I will probably now start to understand a whole heap more about you and blogging and all sorts of stuff. Good to have the words flowing anyway… now on to putting up that media release, and inserting links and stuff. Wow. It’s happening. The birth of another elephant in the back room demanding to be fed.
Okay, so it’s day one and I’ve already learnt a few things about blogging:
1) You could do it all day!
Wandering from your site to someone else’s, heading off on their tangents as well as your own. It’s personalised ’surfing’ I suppose (if that’s not now too uncool to say). There are threads and connections. It’s more meaningful and social than surfing outside bloggersville.
2) It’s hard to know who you are talking to
I suppose I will always be talking to myself most of all, and Gra in case he drops in. Perhaps I will end up hearing from others from time to time, but I can’t imagine having “regulars” or a structured idea of an audience. So I guess I’ll just do my thing and think of it as a way to add content to the Net for random access to search expressions… and enjoy clarifying my ideas and feelings as I prattle on.
Blessings (to me? you? whoever is out there)
Libby