Joyce Valenza posted a Tweet this morning, linking to her blog post about an open course on Digital Storytelling (http://ds106.us/). It's a great site for many reasons, but I found something there I didn't know I needed. It's a challenge called Daily Create. Every day, for the past 835 days, there has been a new creative challenge posted. Design a hazard symbol, write the last words of a famous person, take a photo of mis-matched socks in a public place. Today's challenge was to create a book spine story. I'd seen this idea before, probably on Pinterest, but today, having a few spare minutes, I decided to give it a try.
Choosing the books was more difficult than I had thought it would be, and was somewhat hampered by our cataloging department's propensity for covering up part of a title with the spine label. But I finally assembled my masterpiece and snapped a picture.
I edited my picture in Paper Artist, which I had installed on my phone but never used. The titles didn't show up well with some of the filters, but this one seemed to highlight them just enough. The app was easy to use and made my poem into a more interesting image than it would have otherwise been.
As I move toward summer break, which is quickly filling up with obligations, I realize that this challenge may be just what I need to stretch me a bit, both creatively and technologically. So, I'm going to try Daily Create, but with a caveat. If I feel uninspired by the day's Daily Create, I can substitute a project of my own using a tool I haven't yet tried. I most likely won't post many of my efforts here. I may Tweet out some of them (@caneslibrarian), or I may keep them to myself. But I will be pushing myself to try something new, and hopefully making some discoveries along the way.
Edit: I sent an e-mail to the English teachers after I wrote this post, letting them know this activity was available to their students. One of our English classes had to make an emergency visit to the library the next day due to electrical problems in the classroom. She suggested I get the students to do this while she re-grouped. The freshman English teacher brought her two honors classes in, too. I guess this is an example of 'if you build it, they will come'. Here are some of the poems created in the library.
Choosing the books was more difficult than I had thought it would be, and was somewhat hampered by our cataloging department's propensity for covering up part of a title with the spine label. But I finally assembled my masterpiece and snapped a picture.
I edited my picture in Paper Artist, which I had installed on my phone but never used. The titles didn't show up well with some of the filters, but this one seemed to highlight them just enough. The app was easy to use and made my poem into a more interesting image than it would have otherwise been.
As I move toward summer break, which is quickly filling up with obligations, I realize that this challenge may be just what I need to stretch me a bit, both creatively and technologically. So, I'm going to try Daily Create, but with a caveat. If I feel uninspired by the day's Daily Create, I can substitute a project of my own using a tool I haven't yet tried. I most likely won't post many of my efforts here. I may Tweet out some of them (@caneslibrarian), or I may keep them to myself. But I will be pushing myself to try something new, and hopefully making some discoveries along the way.
Edit: I sent an e-mail to the English teachers after I wrote this post, letting them know this activity was available to their students. One of our English classes had to make an emergency visit to the library the next day due to electrical problems in the classroom. She suggested I get the students to do this while she re-grouped. The freshman English teacher brought her two honors classes in, too. I guess this is an example of 'if you build it, they will come'. Here are some of the poems created in the library.
RSS Feed
