During the first class we took some time getting to know one another. Icebreakers are always a fun way to get people talking to one another. After our traditional meet and greet (name, program, hometown) we experimented with an in class Youtube storytelling session inspired by an NPR story I’d heard in which a person shared a favorite song that held a personal association and memory. (If I can find the story, I’ll try to link to it.)

Anyway, the results were a fun example of how new media (the massive warehouse of Youtube) intersect and evoke memories. I asked the group to play around with Twitter, and tweet their choices before we officially met. It was fun to see the choices and then get the story behind them live in class. Here’s the playlist from our first session with a couple of impressions that have stuck with me since we last met:

Abby : Pearl Jam’s “Black” (MTV unplugged) surfaced memories of the Grunge rock scene in Kathmandu!
Bob: Jerry Garcia’s “How Sweet it is” was sung at his wedding by some friends
Faraaz: “Maria” by Blondie brought us to a memory of the midnight streets of New York city with a good friend
Kailin: Andrew Bird’s “Imitosis” took us to Los Angeles during some difficult times
KC: Old Crow Medicine Show’s “Wagon Wheel (Live)” stirred memories of live concerts with friends in the Bay area
Rawan’s: “ya ghali” by the band Guitara evoked memories of hanging out with friends in Kuwait
Sumaya: Phoenix Lisztomania “brat pack mashup” is a mashup that remixes classic Gen X movies from the 80’s, high school nostalgia, and a great song

You can learn a little more about this semester’s group by reading their profiles above under “Agents of Change.”

Next we moved around as we reviewed results from a short Google Survey given before the class started. My hope was that the survey would help us learn more about technical skills and experience that each person brought to the class. I then took the compiled results and used them as conversation starters about technology, digital media, and participating in web 2.0 culture.  Here’s an aggregate of results from the group I generated by importing the Google docs data into Mac’s version of Excel, called “Numbers.”

Purple indicates opportunities for growth, and green a higher degree of experience.  I hope we’ll be able to use this data as a touchstone to reflect on progress we’ve made in developing our individual and shared understanding of digital tools and how they can be used to affect change around issues that we care about.

More on the DM4change community intersection project next week!