Making Open: Comix and Convos

Description

Our workshop will focus on pedagogical implementations of how making web open comix using APIs, github, google sheets, graphics curation, and “creative writing” can open learning opportunities in and out of formal learning environments.

In combining these literacies and approaches, participants will learn basic principles of open creative projects that can help them shape praxis in/through/with their learning communities.

Using a set of comix we created as a syllabus for a course about “Domain Literacy” as the exemplar, we will engage participants as they create their own basic comix.

Timetable

This timeline depends on how familiar people are with the various tools, but ensures each participant will come away with some form of comix.

00-05 How we made our web comix & what tools we needed - details of our “Domain Literacy” syllabus set of web comix 06-10 How/why you can infuse your work with social justice issues 11-20 Github account setup, specifications, & forking 21-30 Google Sheets setup, copying, modifying 31-40 Finding the right images, tagging, & backgrounds 40-50 “Creative writing” in a nutshell 50-75 Work on your own comix - we circulate and try to help out as we can 76-90 Share back and question period

Interaction

Our overall goal is to start a community of practice/inquiry that can continue after the conference.

Pre-conference, we will foster interest in our workshop by engaging attendees using the conference hashtag and stoking their interest through sharing various blog posts and comix. During the workshop everything we will do will be collaborative and hands-on.

Using various collaborative tools, we will make several reference documents with participants and create a hashtag together to use when we follow the comix making method.

Takeaway

Our 3 main takeaways from our workshop are:

1. Critical and digital literacy are necessary elements of all citizens.
2. We must learn how to author socially charged messages in as many media as possible.
3. Although some tools may seem challenging to learn at first, these can no longer be barriers for practitioners.

Outcomes

Outcomes for our workshop are simple: get people to create comix that they would not have been able to do previously. They will publish their comix in blogs, on sites, and in social media. We will share others’ work and amplify their voice as much as possible.

Depending on the breadth and depth of people’s sharing, we may decide to start incorporating research into future workshops/sessions.

Abstract

We are building a community of web based comix makers who care about critical and digital literacies. Our workshop will share our open comix domain literacy project using APIs, media, and Instructional Design. After that, we will get you into making, and some pointers on how to teach, web comix of your own. You don’t need to have great drawing skills! You just need a laptop of some sort and an open mind! Come collaborate w/us and #resist.

Examples of what we’ll be talking about: http://kinlane.com/2017/01/06/what-i-mean-when-i-say-domain-literacy/ https://kinlane.github.io/teh-jigz-up/ (first trial piece - many to follow soon)