squareONE explorations
resources, discoveries, insights, perplexities

The first beta test of videographing a squareONE tool process. I recorded demonstrations of Grab Bag and Play of Opposites. Thanks to my brother and his camera. (I’ve got my eye on a Canon HV20 to be purchased after the first of the year. I’ll also use it to tape a new tool I’m developing that uses an interview process and is oriented around conversational learning.
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A single take…

Annenburg Media provides online and material resources to, “to advance excellent teaching in American schools.” Anybody can sign up and view the online videos. Each is described and most are components in comprehensive continuation of teacher education. I highly recommend A Private Universe. I’ll be working my way through the lot. I just happened upon their web site while googling something else. Like many web sites, presumably not many people know about Anneburg Media. So, it’s a find.

Link to programs.

I was dumping audio from my Zoom H4 digital recorder, and, lo-and-behold, there was an environmental recording on it etched from placing my backpack with the recorder in it next to the chain link backstop on the Freeplay softball diamond. I blogged in November about that endeavor.

What’s neat is how the recording captures lots of aural evidence that supports the hypothesis of the Kolb’s paper. This is expected, yet the reduction of the life world of the softball game for the sake of research is one thing, with its data set drawn from interviews and recollected impressions, whereas the capture of the aural environs is altogether more directly related to the real time life world!

(This reminded me that ethnographic documentation is drawn from the more robust “multi-sensorial” analog direct experience of the participant-observer.)

…but little drama. I’ve been an Apple user ever since a fried hauled a six month old original Macintosh, (‘the Macintosh-128k, floppies only,) and gave the $4,000 computer to me in the fall of 1984. I used that machine until 1992, when I got a hand-me-down Macintosh HD30, and in short order had an LC, LCII, shared a Performa 638, was gifted with an old Mac laptop; always running several years behind the leading edge. In 1998 I bought my first new Apple, a G3, and used it for seven years. Then, in 2005 I bought a refurbished MDD, which remains my principle computer. I’m tied to the current PPC by virtue of the investment toward turning it into a digital recording platform.

It adds up to seven Apples over 24 years. Having to use godforsaken PC’s at work has only verified the superiority of my almost completely trouble-free experience. For example, my two year old HP tower at work crashes more in a week than my Macs due in a year. Actually, my five year old MDD running Tiger has crashed twice in the past year. I don’t have a big brief against the Wintel XP experience except for the crashing, almost all of which has to due with piss-poor memory management on the 2gb RAM HP hunk-o-junk.

Over the years I’ve experienced one hard drive failure! And, it was trivial since it was a font server. Although I’ve learned how to get into the box and done lots of upgrades, I’ve never had to deal with any kind of serious computer problem. I’ve helped lots of people to enter the Apple world. Over the past few years this has meant hipping people to the value proposition of refurbs from Apple.

But, when it became clear Apple was going to refresh the MacBook line, I set my eyes on a new one. My wife has a white refurbed MacBook, and I figured the new ones would be just the ticket. I started reading the forums and macrumors to learn what was to be in store for me. I dismissed what seemed to be preposterous ‘early’ intel on removal of Firewire.

Imagine my surprise when the new line was released and it turns out Apple has plucked the Firewire out, and, worse, has opted for the slightest uptick in speed in the new chipset. Although Firewire isn’t immediately necessary, my audio dreams prefer Firewire. The new graphics set-up held little appeal because I’m not a gamer. I waited to see what the speed boost would be in relation to a last generation plastic MacBook. It was about 15%.

I jumped on a black last generation MacBook. It cost $400 less than a new one, cost the same as a new white one, and so I accepted once again being behind the edge. Although I was surprised Apple didn’t release substantially faster machines, the fact is I simply opted for the best value proposition given my current and future (audio) requirements. No real knock on Apple, but the underwhelming new laptops won’t excite me until the next refresh spawns refurbs.

Except I won’t need a laptop. My attention will eventually turn to replacing the desktop and, even if the horizon is several years away, I assume I’ll be looking to build (what’s termed,) a Hackintosh–a DIY machine that leverages a plug-in BIOS advantaged by the open source underpinnings of OSX.

My brother and his family came to visit and I finally remembered to ask him to bring his camcorder. He did so and we were able to ‘beta test’ my concept for documenting demonstrations of squareONE experiential learning tools. He and I went to no lengths at all to make this slick. The video of Grab Bag is literally one single take filled with lots of flaws. Still, the test was a success and so I’ll soon be shooting more measured video.

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Post-partisan, global, unity sounds compiled by my music montage-making alter ego, Dub Collision,  available as an mp3 download over at nogutsnoglory, my music blog.

Sometime in the spring of 2002 my colleague and professional partner Judith hipped me to an interesting project. She knew a filmmaker who was hoping to commence a project about sports and experiential learning. ‘Would I be interested in talking over the experiential learning aspects with the filmmaker?’

Sure. And so Judith waved her finger across Starbucks and a lithe red haired woman approached our table and pitched her project. She told of a Sunday pick-up softball game played on a local diamond. This game has been going on for 15 years; anybody who showed up and wanted to play could join in; it’s duration was set by a noon ending irrespective of what inning it was.

I asked Laine, the filmmaker, what she thought the experiential learning hook was for her film. She told me some more intriguing things about the game. It attracted regular players from all over and, yet, most players didn’t know each other’s last names or what people did for a living. She described really good players who didn’t mind playing with the most green and inexperienced players. Although a score was tallied, she mentioned that a lot of times many of the players didn’t know the score.

“It’s not very competitive, even if there are some intense competitors.” She told me.

I certainly was intrigued. Laine suggested I check out the game myself. After all, ‘anybody can play, no matter how bad they are!’ (I must have chuckled to myself, knowing that somewhere at home lay a thirty-plus year old Wilson outfielder’s glove.)

“Laine, how did the game come about?” Then she blew my mind with her answer.

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“A professor at Weatherhead started the game up, first on campus and then it moved to Forest Hills. His name is David Kolb.”

“The David Kolb?!”

(Yes. David A. Kolb, author of Experiential Learning. Experience As the Source of Learning and Development. How important is this book to me? It would suffice to state that Dr. Kolb’s essential work then (1984) and to this day provides a cornerstone for my understanding of our field. His contribution is, for me, equal to the other cornerstones provided by the contributions of William James, Gregory Bateson, and Jack Mezirow.)

Yup, Kolb is one of my main guys, and Laine’s invitation to check out Kolb’s pick-up softball game pleasantly shocked me. As Judith said later, ‘I just wanted to see the look on your face!’

So it went. The film never got made or even started, yet I’ve played almost every Sunday since that fateful day at Starbucks. I’ve done so in accordance with one of the game’s ‘meta’ protocols: the seasons begins on the first Sunday after tax day and the season ends sometime in November when the weather suppresses the turnout below the minimum needed to play. Ha! We’ve been known to play with a minimum of six players.

That first season I planted myself in my old position, left field, and have stayed planted for seven seasons. I take the immense enjoyment I get for granted, except Dave’s wife Alice and he have collaborated on a research paper about the game and its learning ecology. Thus, last season I was invited to be interviewed–as were all the players–as part of their research. I went further, did some research of my own kind, and supplied ethnographic notes. Once I began to reflect and think about the game, about its rituals and routines, and about the way it binds participants to a shared construction of its distinctive ‘lifeworld,’ what had been taken–by me–for granted morphed into a much more fine grained regard of the complex social and developmental system that undergirded the game’s survival cum vitality for over twenty years. 

The paper, Learning to play, playing to learn, A case study of a ludic playing space, (Kolb & Kolb, Journal of Organizational Change Management; 2008) incorporates and cites some excerpts from my notes. Cool beans! It’s an excellent work of qualitative and phenomenological research. The Kolbs delineate a clear case using complex evidence in support of an (also) complex hypothesis. Basically, the informality of the softball game nevertheless supports complex processes, some formal, some tacit, that in turn support learning in, as the Kolbs write, intellectual, physical, spiritual, and moral realms. Given how embedded I am as participant/observer in the very praxis the paper investigates, it’s no complaint for me to note that this game-as-exemplar could infuse a more lengthy treatment–even make for a good film!

I’m holding the camera, and Dave, Tom, and Jim are on their way out of the park on November 9th, evidently the last day of this year’s season, and the first day since last year’s last day when not enough people showed up to be able to field two teams.

Just like it was with left field, when Dave delegated me to make out the line-ups every Sunday, calling me from then on ‘the handicapper’, I planted myself in the role. Earlier this year, Tom, a longtime player and our oldest player (70 years young,) said to me, “How come you always put Kolb on your team?” 

Well, it’s like slotting yourself in to be Chuck Yeager’s co-pilot!

***

(Sometime soon, I’ll have comments on another recent publication by Alice and David Kolb, The Learning Way. Meta-cognitive Aspects of Experiential Learning; Oct.2008; Simulation Gaming)

Although I will pour over the satisfying demographic breakdowns in the coming days, the one that jumps out this morning showcases Barack Obama’s victory in every age group except the over-65 one. A new era has dawned. The future trend lines are clear too: doctrinaire conservatism is headed toward hard times as the U.S. heads toward becoming a more tolerant, more diverse society.

Yesterday I voted at 10am and then three hours later headed for the Shaker Square campaign office. I have to admit my election day activity represents my total concrete work output on behalf of Barack Obama, Oh, I gave a modest sum of money, more than I ever gave before. However, it was a great day and I spent some precious minutes in the company and most excellent vibes of many who had labored intensely for many weeks and months.

My day was a bit of a saga too. When I arrived at Shaker Square, they were buried in volunteers. They sent me over to the Broadway Avenue office to canvass. However, the last canvassing packet was distributed to the person in front of me in the sign up line. 

(The Broadway Avenue Obama office) I was told to go to an address on Miles Road, a ‘canvassing dispersion point,’ to canvass. However nobody was there and so I started to drive back to Shaker Square, while I called various Ohio campaign offices to find out if I had gotten the Miles address wrong. Reaching the state office by cell, it was suggested that I check out the Lee Road office. I turned around.

There I found my home base! Debbie, fourth from the left, was the Red Team leader. She matched me with Kenny and directed us to a polling place at Emile DeSauze Elementary School, deep in the heart of a African-American working class community. Our job was to manage the anticipated lines. Although those lines never developed–the early vote and absentee vote took care of much of the load–I spent the next four hours in Kenny and Liz, (a voting rights volunteer,) generous company. More to the point, I was on the front lines of the most historic political day of my life.

The voter service was excellent at the polling place. Two high school seniors directed voters to the right ward voting booths from the front steps. Needless to say, the voters here were enthusiastic and most understood their history making role.

Kenny, sixty-three, is somebody I won’t ever forget. We talked about political seasons in the past. And, we exchanged something of our hopes for the future. It was a blessed day on the front lines of our 225 year democratic experiment. The high point was rubbing elbows with the committed, and the hopeful.

It’s been a long time-a comin’.

. . .of much needed change.

We started our journey to the Barack Obama and his family, and Bruce Springsteen, rally at 1:00pm at the third most easterly stop on RTA’s Blue Line. The gates were to open at 2:00pm and it usually takes 30 minutes to get downtown if you get on the train right away. However, the train was at least 45 minutes late and our total wait was an hour-and-a-quarter. So it was that the crowd at the RTA stop grew from twenty to–probably–well over a hundred. A bus was sent to take some downtown. We waited. The train was crowded and full of joyous ’socialists!’

Our full train let out its passengers at Tower City where we all joined the growing crowd. Making our way across Public Square, we found a friend and joined her in the line leading to the two outdoor malls where the rally was to take place. It became clear at this point that this was going to be a rally of uncertain but very large size. Soon enough we were directed away from the line headed to the main, prime site. In other words joined the overflow. In this picture you can see the huge Obama puppet.

It’s impossible to show the true size of the crowd from within its midst. We situated ourselves on the south side of Lakeside, about 150 yards from the podium.

I took these shots by holding the camera at arm’s length above my head.

Where we stood (for three hours) ‘our’ people mostly seemed to be 30-60 years of age, and there were lots of young kids.

Although almost an hour passed between when the first round of speakers spoke and the appearance of Bruce Springsteen, the jovial mood of the crowd and its growing size inspired my patience. I had not been a member of a political crowd this size since the round of peace marches in Washington in 1971.

The Boss is so much the bearer of the flame of Woody Guthrie–he is our Woody Guthrie. Amidst the jejune rhetoric expressed in the rightward fear of socialism, it was a highpoint for me to hear Springsteen’s freedom songs. He nailed it.

I don’t know how Barack Obama will face down the problems of our time. But, I strongly value intelligence, the ability to develop a robust and accurate view of the system (or problem) at hand, and, above all, the ability to smartly criticize one’s own perspectives and analysis. It is in fact rare that a candidate for President is so smart and so sophisticated.

My simple wish is that he roll back the Constitution’s slide and be the greatest President since FDR.

My second closest friend Holly and Susan, my closest friend and better half.

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This Soup To Nutz comic provides an excellent, subtle, version of an old teaching story.