I am not sure how it all began but I do remember it was one of the nights this week when the Night Owl PLN got together on Twitter. I decided to switch up the conversation. One of our group members sent me an absolutely, beautiful landscape photograph she took while driving in Pennsylvania. The photo just begged for a poem to accompany the image and I was ready to design my global winter gallery of artistic designs, Winter Wonderland. The stillness, the serenity, the lightly tread upon road all called out for more so I proposed a collaborative poem.
I set up a Google Doc and invited those interested to join the writing fun activity, afterall it was different way of having a conversation. Oops! Did I say fun? I think I moved a few of my Twitter friends out of their comfort zone as I placed some ideas on the Google doc. When I realized that ideas coming in were evolving into a poem in verse I thought, "But isn't that what I said was out of my comfort zone? "
"When a group of colleagues step out of their comfort zone to collaborate and create, they are the risk takers that their students need to stand before them."
-Carol Varsalona
And so we began the process of adding ideas, making comments, and having others take a peek at our collaborative poem based on Spiri's photo. We were going public, putting ourselves out there for critiquing. We were vulnerable and yet there was pleasure in the creation process. (You can take a look at our Google Doc here.)
I worked over the course of several days to edit, revise, and word weave (the process I designed to move words in and out, creating a designed effect during the revision process). Then, I moved from Google Docs to Buncee to create a digital poem. The end product is below but you can see a larger version at my Buncee dashboard.
This image poem will be added to my Twitter repository, #WinterWonderland18, as I prepare to organize and design my winter gallery. Stay tuned for more on when the gallery will be unveiled.
I thank the following members of my Night Owl PLN who chose to step out of their comfort zone and write alongside me:
Melissa Chouinard-Jahant
Steve Kelley
Faige Meller
Chris Quinn
Valerie Tilton
and to Spiri Howard for her fine photography skills
Collaboration Counts!
I celebrate collaboration today.
"Individual commitment to a group effort - that is what makes a team work, a company work, a society work, a civilization work."
-Vince Lombardi
Ruth Ayres has a wonderful story of friendship and the power of one word
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