Bringing the Campfire to #eci831

Digital Storytelling
Giulia Forsythe’s Digital Campfire

Tibetan song jam by Bryanjack

Last night I sat in on Alec CourosEC&I 831: Social Media and Open Education session with Richard Schwier, where the lively conversation centered around learning and collaborating in (online) communities and contained a rabid chat thread brimming with links and extensions on Richard’s points.

As is becoming customary in these sessions, Leslie Lindballe was thinking of sharing a song toward the end of the session, and we shot a few private chats back and forth plotting a digital campfire singalong of sorts. Having tried jamming in real time with friends over the #ds106radio airwaves on a number of different occasions, I shared a Google Doc with the lyrics of Sweet Cascadia‘s “Me & my Bike,” and performed the song (on my ukulele) with the hopes that people in the session might be able to sing along from home.

Following this little experiment in all things digitally Kumbaya, Leslie sang a Tibetan song (accompanied by her uke) that I recorded in real time by setting my phone to record while sitting on the counter next to my speakers, and playing along in the same room (I can hear Leslie, but she can’t hear me, making the moment where she announces, “I can hear Bryan soloing,” all the more magical).