Todd, that is just you!

I love the act of reflection. My favorite part of my day, or one of them, is my walk to work. Nothing to do but observe and ponder. Lowers my heart-rate, keeps my legs in shape, gives me good reason to buy fancy new clothes, and I get to wonder about what might work, at work.

I am absolutely certain that if I ever get any good ideas, they come from time reflecting. Walking. Running. Wherever. It is not wonder, to me, that in the experiential learning world, reflection is mandatory. Of course, the real work is taking the reflections and doing them. In the real world. In the job. In the class. In life. I carry that into my work, too.

While it is wonderful and informative to read and hear the thoughts of our colleagues here, I think that equally, if not even more important, is the quiet time they spend thinking about what participants will write and the time they spend putting those thoughts into sentences.

Some years ago, I created this video of things I had been lucky enough to capture with students and I had this dream of using it in something that would be a “portfolio” of my work. It was a working draft in progress. Spelling errors and all. But the idea expressed is sound 😊

I am sharing a presentation early next month about “community.” Particularly those in academic settings. All I can do is share my experiences, so that is what I am going to do. But I know that others have different ideas and experiences, so I am asking people in the communities I have been in to create an expression of their understandings of “community.”

To that end, I challenge you to create a short video and place it on YouTube to be a part of this endeavor.

I dare you.

1. Upload the video to YouTube.
2. Click here and then click the blue “continue.”
3. You can then add your video to the playlist just as you would to any of your playlists.

You can see who has added to the playlist below.