HERO’S JOURNEY

I and Kristiana teamed up to improvising the heroes journey story.

 

 

 

While going through my notes, it is clear to me that the two most interesting points we discussed/touched on last week were the youth readiness skills, as highlighted by the UN, and the I wonder exercise we discussed about.

Upon doing some research on the readiness skills, I found the “Global Competence Model” which describes Internal Readiness Skills and External Readiness Skills.

Global Competence Model

Internal Readiness Skills start from the self, focusing on Self-Awareness, followed by attitudes which include Risk Taking, Open-Mindedness, and Attentiveness to Diversity.

External Readiness Skills include Global Awareness and Historical Perspective which may include hidden aspects that inform a person’s values and beliefs. This group also includes interpersonal skills that a person develops over their lifetime and reflects a person’s level of experience interacting with others. Intercultural Capability refers to the more pragmatic ability to apply cultural knowledge to personal interactions, to modify their behavior to show respect for different cultures, while Collaboration Across Cultures refers to the ability to work effectively in diverse teams.

More information at https://globallycompetent.com/global-competence-model/

I wonder, too…

The I wonder exercise in my opinion allows us to frame a problem/task in a way that really capitalizes on the creativity that young people (and old people!) are able to bring to the table when tackling global issues. When problems are seen through a less nuanced lense and with genuine curiosity and a healthy dose of naivety, sometimes a valuable discovery is made and/or insight is obtained.

 

The most memorable part of last class was the hero’s journey. It was challenging because that was my first time build a story in five minutes. I started noticing something similar in all these stories, heroes from every time period were taking more or less the same journey. I found this was a circular journey, it started with call to Adventure, Hero left home and meet challenges and end with The Return Home. I think this way of storytelling was engaging, it could be applied to any of our design thinking. As a graphic designer, this step could help me understand a user’s experience and provide a better solution. Another memorable moment was to generate How Might We questions. We did a lot of brainstorms in our studio and I found HMW is the best way to help us create ideas from insights quickly. Although we do this so often, we still need to keep practicing how to frame a good HMW question. We don’t want to ask a question that’s too broad or too narrow, a good HMW question allows the right amount of creative freedom.

-Olivia

As I write these words, I wonder if it is week 2, week 3 or next week week 4 already? Weeks are passing quickly but that should not deter from me addressing the scheduled homework:

1. Many of the entries are very detailed. I don’t know what ELA and wingspan subjects stands for. It’s interesting to see that many young students’ favourite subject is Science. Back when I went to primary/secondary/high-schools the favourite subject would’ve likely been Physical Education for most. I’m finding many of the answers quite interesting too keep my input modest. There are many that made me think that ‘oh my, these kids figured out major stuff of the world!’ but there is also much idealism happening, which I guess is good.
2. I wonder why solar panels are not as effective as ‘conventional’ power plants.

I wonder why humans decide to migrate to a world of concrete (cities) instead of settling in the rural areas by nature?

I wonder why does natural world not quite cope with our progressively increasing consumptionism?

(these are 3 example ones, now as to the links that were presented:)

I wonder how much energy does a household draw?

I wonder how much energy can be saved by turning off machinery that is not used constantly but remains on standby for most of the time?

I wonder how much energy do contemporary TVs draw?

I wonder where do all the 1.8 trillion garbage come from?

I wonder if it is possible to clean up the oceans in an affordable way?

I wonder how much does it cost to create the world’s largest ocean cleanup and who’s paying for it?

I wonder how they created this video for the largest ocean cleanup?

I wonder if the oysters feel comfortable in New York?

I wonder how clean our harbour can be if the oysters come back to New York/New Jersey?

 

I asked around what my friends think about the question: ‘where do all the 1.8 trillion garbage come from?’

 

None really have known. So I did a straightforward research and googled the questions, after which the following pops up:

 

Well, the first link that pops up is the following: https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/science/2018/09/07/great-pacific-garbage-patch-where-did-all-trash-come/1133838002/

And it is said that ‘the garbage patch’s trash comes from countries around the Pacific Rim, including nations in Asia and North and South America, said Laurent Lebreton of the Ocean Cleanup Foundation.’

 

Why is that?

 

There are more details that follow but all in all, it seems that most garbage comes from the most populous developing countries.

 

Why is that?

 

Well, they focus on production at the lowest cost without taking under consideration the impact it is making on the environment (that is my assumption).

 

1. Reviewed! I have some concerns in relation to the affinity diagramming module, other than that the material looks good 🙂
2. I have a Mouse Create account and all good!

I added the contact information to the sheet and put a picture of myself (it’s a bit old but I don’t think my appearance changed much in the last few years)

Writing a few thoughts:

Weeellll, I’d consider waiting 25 minutes for the elevator to bring me up on time to class to some degree memorable but other than that, I feel that the narrative tools presented are a very powerful tool to convey a message or a set of messages. I personally enjoy a variety of media that embed a strong narrative in conjunction with other features, I usually prefer a set of audio-visual cues. I did know of the hero story technique, although did not quite use it that often, I don’t believe it should be so rigidly followed as good stories don’t need to (in my opinion) follow such tight constrains. If they did, there would be no innovation and all of a sudden every second movie being released would be considered cliche (now that I think about it, every movie could probably now be considered cliche. Perhaps that’s why I don’t go to the movies or play video games anymore?).

I did however really like the level of originality presented by each pair in case of the stories being told, I think I recall one of the alien destroying earth and our coffee cup, which I was surprised I managed to tell in a somewhat fair fashion.

Also, why is the map below on the post creation site showing Houston? (WordPress, we have a problem? Bad pun intended.)

I’m still looking through the videos provided in the syllabus.

This week of class gave me greater insight into what we are doing with the middle school children. I was concerned that a tech project over a period of just a few weeks could potentially be too much for the children – both because it was too much work and because a lot of time would be spent calming the children down. But seeing the simple technology makes me feel more comfortable with the final project. Also, knowing that it doesn’t have to be a technology and can simply be a game of “trash soccer” also puts less stress on me.

I haven’t worked with middle school kids in two years and I’m curious as to what I can teach them and what they can teach me.

Hello!

Next week, we will be going to New Jersey to visit the middles schoolers for our collaboration. I am very excited to meet these brilliant students and to learn from them. The Mouse modules for brainstorming and framing questions are both very interesting and inspired a new way of looking at problems and brainstorming for solutions. I am personally not very good at brainstorming and story telling so I hope these activities with the kids will help me become more wild with my ideas and I look forward to creating with them.