Pedagogy is about the techniques, methods and strategies teachers use to facilitate learning for their students. Pedagogical Documentation is about documenting in order to do just that: facilitate learning for our students. Heutagogy is centered around self-motivated and self-directed learning. Heutagogical Documentation is about documentation in order to become more self-aware and to fuel our motivation to learn as well as support us in making decision of what we want/need to learn next.
My work and research centers around documentation OF, FOR and AS learning. I believe when we make documentation part of our learning process, we become more aware of details and nuances, we reflect deeper, we learn more about ourselves as learners and make thinking and learning visible that otherwise would have been hidden under the surface. This is not done as an add-on, but becomes deeply ingrained in the learning process.
I would like to invite you to the 1-DayBlue Photo Challenge, a challenge to become meta cognitively aware of the process of documentation and how it changes the way you view your surroundings, look more in detail at contrasts, similarities, meanings, changes, trends, groupings, status quo, the proverbial box, creativity, etc.
Here is how it works:
- Choose one specific day for the challenge (24 hours)
- Take time to look for and notice all of the blue in the world around you.
- Take (capture) as many photographs as you like, but remember that you can only post one photograph that you believe best defines blue in your world. (Be aware of how often you you think about the color blue? How you take into consideration that you will have other people seeing your “Photo of Blue”? How is the photograph and the color blue connected to your life?,etc.)
- By the end of your day, upload and share your photograph to Twitter or Instagram, using the hashtag #documenting4learningblue
- Add a comment to the post that explains why this representation of blue is important to you. Reflect how participating in the challenge made you more aware of blue and in what way.
- Optional: Extend and amplify your experience by writing a blog post, reflecting on your experience of noticing blue, taking images of blue, filtering all images of blue and then selecting the ONE image you shared on social media. How can you relate your experience with documenting AS learning? How did the thinking of “documenting all things blue” as you were looking for and photographing blue deepen your understanding of blue and what it means in connection to your life? (Please leave the link to your blog post in the comment section below)
cross posted at langwitches.org/blog
Silvia Tolisano is a Curriculum21 faculty member, author of the book Digital Storytelling Tools for Educators and founder of the Around the World with 80 Schools project. Read more at http://langwitches.org/blog.
