Building on this post:

I have a workflow for my synchronous Zoom sessions. It’s very much like a cinematic workflow–or at least the analogy is illuminating for me:

1. pre-production, in which I scout and gather the material, assemble my storyboards (my PPT slides), which in this case are also kind of a “script,” though I don’t write out what I’m going to say,
2. production, the live-in-the-studio synchronous session, with my PPT slides as a set of storyboards and my own riffing as what a director might do on location on the day of the shoot, guided by the storyboards
3. post-production, in which I take the Zoom recording, the “storyboards,” and the Zoom chat transcript and prepare them for “release,” i.e., posting to the LMS (yes, this part does involve an LMS, at least for now).

It occurred to me today, in large part because I read Jon Udell’s marvelous and re-inspiring back-to-the-future post, that when I do that post-production, it’s a little like what happens when a director and cast and crew look at what what used to be called “the dailies” or “the rushes,” the footage shot that day (or the prior day, back in photochemical times). It’s the raw footage that accumulates from a day’s work. It’s a way to assess what you’ve got, what you might need to redo, what you should plan to do next.

When I edit the Zoom sessions, then, and amass and prepare the associated materials for upload, I’m reviewing the “dailies’ from the day’s class meetings. And when I do that, I’m creating and encountering a massive feedback loop for myself, as I’m reviewing and revisiting the day’s teaching as well as the chat backchannel (sometimes so lively I can’t track it in real time) as well as all the things I thought I was going to do when I was in pre-production. As all that happens, I’m also casting my thoughts ahead to the next class, and already in my mind I’m drafting the continuity as well as the new materials for that next session.

It’s a much more mindful and continuous process than I can recall from pre-pandemic times, to the extent I can actually recall those times (it’s getting harder, as this article helps me understand). It’s a more immersive process. I also find that each day’s classes become more inspiring to prepare and also more exhausting to experience, though when I’m in the live session the adrenaline kicks in–and when the chat lights up during the session, I get very excited indeed. (The chat often responds to my excitement by becoming even more energetic–I love that.)

In sum, more of a ramble today, for which my apologies. But I wanted to get some of these ideas down, even in rough shape. (My blog posts are also “dailies” of a kind, I guess.) I recall Alan Kay’s maxim that we shape our tools, and then our tools shape us. I find the cinematic stages of my own experiments in online teaching have begun to do the same to me. It doesn’t feel like a rut at all–at least, not yet. Instead, it feels like I’m comprehending my own efforts better than I have to now. At the same time, I’m using my comprehension immersively, in a strange but rewarding loop, inhabiting my own cognition and creativity in a deeper and more extensive way.

All very meta, and sometimes more than a little exhausting. Also, exciting. Now showing on the Gardo Cinematech: Thought Vectors In Concept Space: A Teaching-Learning Odyssey. Now In Imax.