Me manifesto

I’m going to read you a story, our story.  As you listen, I hope you’ll share what comes to mind. The more people who do, the more we’ll all benefit.

To interact with this story…
(and ultimately make the most of it), you will have to click here to proceed to the source recording on Soundcloud.  You’ll also have to log in to Soundcloud, which you can do at the click of a button through the Facebook login option (nothing gets added to your Facebook page, but your Facebook image does show on the track’s comments, which is a nice touch) or by signing up through a separate email address. In the end, you’ll be glad you did (see here for reasons why).

How this story works…
As you listen, you’ll see an orange shading follow along (on the soundcloud site itself) or a dark blue one on the embedded soundcloud wave below the wave indicating the point in the story we’re at.  At certain points in the story, I’ll leave a silent space.  When you hear (and see!) this space, click the blue/grey comment bar under the where orange shading is progressing and type in a word or phrase that suits that space for you. You’ll then see your comment left at that point.  If you need extra time (you may – I only left 7 seconds of space each time), you can click the track’s pause button.  It will be most meaningful if you wait until after the entire track has played before you focus on previous comments.

Once all is said and done…
You can listen to the story again using the embedded file here and read the comments left by anyone who participates.  What you’ll get by seeing all the differences between comments is obviously an almost choose-your-own-adventure story, but also many other manifestos to reflect on, helping you build your own.

 

My Me Manifesto is what this story represents:

  • collaboration between individuals for learning, be they fellow teachers or my students;
  • reflection on past experience and the process of learning; and
  • inspiration, which I hope participating in this interactive story with this interactive tool has sparked.
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Baiba

Brilliant idea, Tyson, very creative!
But the commenting part did not work for me. I was not allowed to write a comment though I could read your “answer” for the gap. And… the moving shade was bluish grey on my computer, not orange 🙂
I use Firefox.

Baiba

You are absolutely right! I behaved like a teenager who rushes to the task w/o reading the instructions 🙂

Louise Taylor

Brilliant idea, Tyson. It’s been a while since I actually re-visited/re-visualised that first English classroom.

Cecilia Lemos

So creative, Ty!!! I really enjoyed forcing my memory to remember it all. It had been such a long time since I had last thought about that first teaching job (which started out as something to help me make some money while in college and turned out to be my real calling).

Thanks for that!

Rembrandt

A very cool idea and easy to follow instructions to participate! Definitely I have some food for thought about my own manifesto thanks to your story.

Tara Benwell

You always said we should use Sound Cloud. This was a fantastic way of proving how useful it can be with learners. Loved it! I would have liked more time to think! (longer pauses)

Brad Patterson

This is awesome, Ty. Your creativity with your blog inspires me. Not at all easy to come up with new ideas that match with sharing resources and involving your community.

Really enjoyed reading everyone’s comments and hearing your voice. It was a fun reminder of how close our accents are, and yet, as when I met Tara the “out” sounds rang beautifully canadian and it gave me a smile (my best bud in China for 3 years was from Toronto).

To add my 2 cents, the character in your manifesto image is 宝 which means precious. The top line actually means a house or cover/like a roof. Underneath is the character for “jade”. So, something that is precious is what we keep under a roof. Likewise, country in chinese is similar: 国. You’ll notice the “jade” in the center, but this time protected by four walls. So a country was originally the town or district walls or GREAT WALL that protected the king’s jewels… just for a bit more fun, king in chinese is 王… so jade is just a little added line on a king: 王 and 玉.

Cool, eh? 😉

Brad Patterson

Kick me 😉

You know, the cursive script is a tricky one, and it tricked me here. The character above is not 宝 but 宣 which are close, but not too close either. So, yep, 宣 does mean declaration of manifesto.

Now yer chinese students reading this are gonna laugh at me 😉 Good stuff as always, Ty!

Shelly Terrell

Absolutely brilliant! You’ve just upped the level of creativity displayed this year! I think this is going to be an incredibly strong year for us! I’ll post my comments soon! Thanks so much Tyson! You’re amazing and meeting you was one of the best experiences of my life.

Naomi Epstein

WOW!!!!
This is amazing! Now I know why everyone was excited about this post! I kind of behaved like a student, thinking the instructions look long, it may involve registering for something, so I’ll look at it later…
Such a clever idea AND
It was great to hear YOUR VOICE! Your students must adore the way you speak so clearly!
Naomi

Naomi Epstein

Oh, true, I guess I did hear your voice then but this was different, this was storytelling mode. Different kind of reading!
That was good too!

sharon noseley

I can’t believe you didn’t consider yourself creative!
Firstly, it was soooo creative of you to introduce this tool to us all and secondly, you created a mini story that made me reflect on my past teaching years and stop,think and reflect! Thank you!

I m particularly interested in YLs and loved this example of a tool I could use with them to create their own stories..with guidance from me as their level would struggle to write their own complete story….I’m gonna put it to the test!!

[…] 4C by Tyson Seburn […]

Eileen Murphy

Hi Tyson,

Am joining in the conversation very late here but thanks so much for sharing this – great tool and I loved the suggestions in your presentation too. Will be getting a mention in the ‘speaking tools’ section of my essay and I hope to use it this summer in teaching 🙂

Eileen Murphy

The mention is in 😉 Thanks again.

[…] Soundcloud (www.soundcloud.com) – practical example Me Manifesto […]

[…] Me manifesto – What you’ll get … is obviously an almost choose-your-own-adventure story, [and] many other manifestos to reflect on, helping you build your own. (Seburn) My first post this year, for Shelly Sanchez Terrell’s 30 Goals Challenge for 2012, showcased practical ways for using Soundcloud, a tool I recommended repeated in 2011, with students. So many participated. I loved it. […]

Jennifer

Love this! Will definitely try this out with my students. Thanks! Just wondering whether anyone has tried using blogging in their writing classrooms and if so, how did it go?