Today is the first day of spring in the Northern Hemisphere. For students at the University of Colorado-Denver, tomorrow is the first (official) day of spring break. A perfect time to get away from school work and rest the mind. At the same time, students at several major universities will be thinking of their schools in the downtime as their basketball teams compete in the NCAA basketball tournament. The men’s team of my alma mater, the University of Wisconsin-Madison, will be playing Xavier University tonight, so I’ll be heading to a sports bar later to cheer the Badgers on to victory!
So it’s fair to say right now that my mind is not occupied with my studies, but I did want to mention something about my Learning With Digital Stories (INTE 5340) class. This past week, I explored a unique digital storytelling cite called StoryCorps. If you’re an avid listener of NPR, you’ve probably heard these personal stories from time to time. Many of them involve people discussing how an adverse event or situation has changed their lives. In my previous blog post, I wrote a critique of a moving digital story entitled “1st Squad, 3rd Platoon.” With StoryCorps, I was amazed how much emotional detail can come from an audio recording of a person. This gives me some ideas of what I might be able to accomplish when I create my own digital story later in this semester for this class. I’m glad Lori, our instructor, gave us some flexibility in submitting future assignments. Routine can dull the mind.
So now it’s time to sit back and relax. Granted, I won’t be going to a beach in Cozumel, but at least I’ll have time to get outside and enjoy the (mostly) sunny terrain of Colorado and cheer my team in the Big Dance. Go Badgers!