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on September 1, 2010 at 8:09:51 am
 

 

Listen to the Walls Talking

A Graffiti Project

 

 

Participating: Saša Sirk (TŠC Nova Gorica, Slovenia), Rita Zeinstejer (Rosario, Argentina), Ronaldo Lima Jr (Brasília, Brazil),  Barbara Dieu (São Paulo, Brazil), Carla Arena (Brasília, Brazil) Evelyn Izquierdo (Caracas,Venezuela), Nataša Božić Grojić (Belgrade, Serbia), Doris Molero (Maracaibo, Venezuela), Jennifer Verschoor (Buenos Aires, Argentina), Vida Zorko (Ljubljana, Slovenia), Nina Lyulkun (Khmelnitskiy, Ukraine), Nives Čotar (SETŠ Nova Gorica, Slovenia), Ángeles Trujillo (Estado de México, México), Peter Skillen (YMCA Academy, Toronto, Ontario, Canada), Robin Boston and Alex Shynkarenko, Students at the YMCA Academy, Toronto, Ontario, Canada), Kay Raplenovich (Slovenia and USA), Hooria Ali (Bahrain), Dina Gromova (iEARN Russia), Julia Didkivska (iEARN Ukraine), Rohan Perera  (iEARN Sri Lanka), Vicky Saumell (Buenos Aires, Argentina), Lorena Mihelac (SC Novo mesto, Srednja sola Metlika) Add Your Name (Saša: request access this wiki by clicking the edit tab, so you can add your name and share your ideas)

 

please tag online stuff related to this project  wallstalking and backlink to this wiki or to the project page.

 

Creative Commons License

Contents on this site is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 Slovenia License.

 

 

Description:

The idea is to 'listen' to the graffiti talk around us (on our walls, doors, desks, chairs, floors, T-shirts, schoolbags, etc.), and to record and share interesting finds.

If other interested teachers, students, people spread across the cyberspace respond by posting graffiti photos and related info, this could turn into a nice project of the wall/s/talking in our schools, streets, towns, countries, world. Sketches, squiggles, doodles and other more sophisticated street art around us is the part of public spaces usually walked by, unnoticed by most people. 

Collecting graffiti from our walls, desks chairs and sharing them could provide us with a picturesque collection of expressions of wisdom/boredom/enthusiasm/dissatisfaction etc. from different places. This could perhaps be revealing in quite unexpected ways and could provide us with many interesting possibilities for further interpretations, explorations and manipulations.

This project was started by Saša who then discovered Carla had been thinking along the same lines months earlier.  The project is open to anyone interested, and will run for as long as there is interest. Anyone is invited to join in (individuals, teachers, classes, students...) and/or help spread the word.

 

Check out: 

 


 

News

September 2010:

New school year is starting in many places of the world. iEARN discussion forum devoted to this project has been swept clean and is now ready for this year's action. iEARNers - old and new, you are warmly welcome to post there and invite your students.

August 2010:

Students from Argentina have been particularly active with some great Buenos Aires photographs - check them out here  and invite your class to drop some nice comments - they deserve them!

July 2010:

Peter included Walls Talking in his presentation at the 2010 iEARN Conference in Barrie, Canada.

More Walls Talking slideshows posted here - this time Flickr slideshow options have been explored. Slideshows feature faces, opinions, tags, cities, school life, love, weaknesses, world events, freedom, angels, crisis, environmental responsibility, etc...

June 2010:

School year is winding up in Europe and many other parts of the world - check out student contributions from Ukraine, Russian Federation, Venezuela, Slovenia, Croatia, Germany, Romania, Spain and Sri Lanka and drop some nice comments - they deserve them!

Walls Talking is featured in the iEARN June Newsletter.

May 2010:

Saša is working on organizing thematically numerous contributions in Diigo here. The list can also be viewed as a slideshow (you can adjust the default 10 s transition time or use the buttons to move slides)

February 10: 

Saša presented the Walls Talking project at the SDUTSJ conference. 

December 09: 

Peter shared his experiment here.

November 09:

20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlinn wall is celebrated in Berlin - check out Berlin wall graffiti posted by a Slovene student pm in May here

October 09
E-Twinning graffiti project is launched, titled Kontrowersje w kulturze,literaturze i stuce (Controversy in Culture) which includes graffiti exploration. It's a shame that eTwinning project pages aren't public. :-( The project website and newspaper are :-). 

September 09:

Miha added a Deep Zoom composition to the project site (requires Silverlight).

August 09:

Walls Talking project has been included in the iEARN project base

description: http://media.iearn.org/projects/wallstalking

forum: http://foro.iearn.org/iearnforums/wallstalking/

 

Sharing Ideas and Follow-up Activities

 

Saša's poster idea - Things that matter - say it with a poster!

Creating motivational posters (with graffiti) that tell about things that matter (or should matter) in life. 

Short description:
Within this project students create, share and discuss motivational posters which remind the world of the things that matter in life and those that seem to matter too much or not enough. They create posters  using:

A student or group of Ss creates one or more BHL Motivator posters using WT images/their own photos / appropriate graffiti photos from the web and add proverbs/sayings/messages of their choice to them (in English or native language+ English translation) . They post their motivational posters to the project site at wallstalking.org  and are encouraged to comment there 2 works shared by others.  An interesting follow up could be to vote for the best/most humorous/most striking posters and weave discussions around intersting poster topics (teacher moderated if necessary), as described in the previously posted activity below.

The main idea is to share with the world things that students  believe truly matter in life and thus create powerful visual set of messages, a wake up call to stop a bit and think about our ways of life.

ICT:
Photo editor (PaintNET or some other) for adding photo credits to images (author + country + wallstalking.org in case of WT images), Walls Talking Flickr group pool for browsing for graffiti photos or students own photos or other appropriately licensed graffiti photos from the net, Big Huge Labs Motivator application for creating posters. 

 


[1] Walls Talking students and educators have collected a huge collection of photos from many countries of the world. They are licensed under a CC license which allows reuse. Re-using these photos in motivational posters would nicely build upon the work of others, promote the spirit of sharing and make the style of motivational posters look more united while at the same time allowing the students to choose from a wide range of topics or upload and share graffiti of their own with the Walls Talking community (which is and always will be open to everyone with good intentions, for more info see http://wallstalking.org/Home.mvc/About). If we use photos of other walls talking contributors in our motivational posters, we should credit them by a discretely written author's name + country of origin + wallstalking.org on the chosen image (text can simply be added to photos using PaintNet or some other image editor before uploading the image to the Big Huge Labs Motivator application or after downloading the final poster from the Big Huge Labs Motivator to our computer. The credits should be there when sharing your final poster on the Walls Talking site if you are using other contributor's photo in your poster.

Example:

(I used a Walls Talking photo contribution by a Slovenian student nicknamed Alice here) 

Image hosted @ bighugelabs.com 

 

Walls Talking discussion topics - do chime in!

Here are som discussion topics based on Walls Talking contributions at http://wallstalking.org .Choose one of the topics below (also feel free to add yours) and express your opinion about it in a few sentences in the comment area below the photo.

Why are our graffiti in English?

What makes a 'primorc' 'primorc'? 

Is watching TV good for us?

Do violent music and PC games  encourage violent behavior?

Graffi - art or vandalism (via Carla) - Saša's class talked about this here

PC - peace? (do you think that technological advancements we have been facing in the recent years contribute to promotion of peace around us and within us?)

Why don't we have more Lady Presidents and First Gentlemen?

Students forever - only in Venezuela and Slovenia?

How important for you are good looks?

Football - why does it attract so many fans? What's the situation in your country?

The best things in life are free... are they?

National memorial or political fades?

What was your favorite cartoon when you were a child?

 

Saša's Collaborative video idea

(Inspired by Webheads' Multicultural Uniqueness project.)

Let's create a collaborative Animoto video by reusing graffiti contributions from the Walls Talking Flickr group. In few words or a very short sentence answer the question What do graffiti tell us about the world around us and support this with 3 photo urls from the flickr group. It may be helpful to first check some thematic flickr slideshows from the Flickr group here. Post your answers in the following google form and check out contributed suggestions here.


 



Peter's Interactive Whiteboard Idea

(Peter Skillen)

I have wanted an electronic graffiti board in my school (small school - 50 kids) for a while. I have a Smart Board. It was my plan for teachers to use it in the curricular areas in their classes, but that doesn't happen so easily.  :-)

So I have decided to set it up in a public place in the school as a graffiti board. There will be technical issues - like the board or projector getting out of alignment, bulb-on time, and so on - but there will be students who will be happy to look after that...and manage it effectively.

 

I think I plan to let the kids use the wall in a free form manner...and see what happens.  I don't want to 'curricularize' it.  They get enough of that in their schooling!  :-)  However, if a kid, or kids, want to use it to do a classroom project - then I will honour and encourage that.  Our kids are between 14 and 20.  As I said, it is a small school.  The kids are pretty well-behaved for the most part!  LOL  We encourage an atmosphere of trust and respect...and we have very little trouble in that way.  Soooo, I'll see what happens.

I have a Polycom videoconferencing suite as well...so I was thinking maybe of using that to connect with others...or just to leave it 'live' and see who connects if we tweet out the IP.  Oooohh a dangerous proposition!  Live on the edge.  Or do a webcam feed out.  Not sure yet.

 

Saša: I love this idea. I wonder what the kids will come up with. :-) The webcam feed and videoconferencing options sound so cool!

We have 3 smart boards at our school too, but I'm not sure how long they would last if set up publicly... Your smartboard idea made me think of the possibility of setting up an online graffiti board - Google search led me to Graffiti Playdo - which seems to support collaborative or individual creations and does not require any registration. When done, you simply make a screenshot if you want to save your creation.  Another low-tech option could perhaps simply be to furnish some walls in public places with blank jumbo size  posters - I'm sure they wouldn't remain blank long (if they remained on those walls)... ;-)   Thanks a lot for sharing your idea here, Peter.

 

Peter's Video Idea

 (Peter Skillen)

As part of the Adobe Youth Voices project (in coordination with iEARN), my students produced some videos.  One, in particular, deals with graffiti.  It is called "Hidden" by a young man named Robin Boston.  He also wrote the rap and the music.

Robin has expressed interest in making more videos of this type within the context of this project when he comes back to school in September.

Thoughts appreciated.

 

Saša: Yaay - I'm very happy to hear about Robin's interest - he's a very creative and talented young man. He's most welcome to come and play :-).

 

Saša's Explore the country idea

(Inspired by the blogosphere 5(+) things about you meme)

  • Go to the project site, choose 1 of the contributing countries from the countries cloud.
  • (Before checking the contributions from that country) list 5 (or more/fewer) typical things you associate with this country (without checking any resources, just the things you typically think of in connection with that country). Try also to comment/support your points
    • e.g. In Australia there are many indiginous species of animals, such as coalas and kangoroos. The reason for this is that this continent was isolated from the rest of the world for a long time, so these species evolved without coming in contact with the rest of the world.
  • Once happy with your list, check the Walls Talking site and see, if you can say anything else about the country from the information you get there (click on the name of the country you have chosen in the countries cloud, read the entries and comments to them and record your observations).
    • e.g. In Melbourne they seem to many artistical graffiti embellishing their streets. One of them shows a man who's lost his equilibrium, car keys and pride - perhaps the author was trying to point out the problems you can run into, not necessarily because of your fault. Or - perhaps the author was trying to show what alcohol/drug abuse can lead to. In our town there are also...
  • Post your notes and observations on your blog/website and invite people from that country to comment them and give their opinion on what you recognize as the 5 typical things about their coutry. Hopefully they respond and then it should be interesting to see the difference between their 5 things about them and your 5 things about them. Perhaps they will choose to do this same task also for your country and ask you to give them feedback.

I think it should be pretty funny also if you choose a country you know noting about - this forces you to be creative and make things up. :-) Also it is always interesting to see the difference between how you see yourself and how others see you.

 

Walls Talking posts on Saša's class blog

Not quite sticking to the guidelines above, my class and I produced the following Walls Talking posts on our class blog:

Walls Talking posts on Saša's personal blog

Rita's Students Follow-up Activity

 

These are the next steps to follow to complete our Graffiti project (posted to our Sharing Learning 2009 blog HERE)

* Go to the Graffiti page HERE

* Choose ONE graffiti that appeals to you (uploaded by somebody from another country)

* Make a comment and invite the person to join your blog page

* On your blog page, exchange views on the choice of graffiti and on reasons for the choice, and compare cultural situations

* Get to know more about the person's background

* Get ready to meet this person online, synchronously

 

April 16

 

My students are enthusiastic about the project and I want to make the most of this zest. One chose Bee's graffiti and asked about her email address. Others would like to meet Sasha and her students, and have been motivated by Sasha's description of Argentina --in one of her postings in our classblog-- so they browsed the web for more information on Slovenia and we brainstormed findings in class. They will now work collaborative on a Google site I opened at http://sites.google.com/site/caeb2009group/ , where they will post their findings, together with some photos and queries on the Slovenian lifestyle, mainly in connection with people their age.

 

They will also work in pairs in our Multimedia Laboratory to create movies using Animoto, where they will upload different examples of graffiti. There will be a classroom discussion and preparation time prior to the making of the video.

 

April 18

 

HERE is the page my CAE  students are buiding on Slovenian culture. They love the idea of learning about this country. Here is the recording of the Skype interview CAE students did with Saša in May.  

 

May

Here are two videos produced by CAE students - the first one by Sofi is about Rosario, the town where they all go to school, and the second, shorter one by Diego is about Slovenia. :-)

Find more videos like this on Sharing Learning 2009

Find more videos like this on Sharing Learning 2009

 

 

Saša's presentation slides of April 2009

for April 25 presentation for the Integrating Technology Ning community:

 

 

Interesting graffiti sites and resources

 

Eco Graffiti and Rice Murals

Ways of Working by Chris Betcher; 2009 K12Online presentation - It's an explanation and example of how numerous digital storytelling tools can bring happenings alive, in Chris's case an outdoor public art exhibit at one of Sydney's beaches. via Vance Stevens 

Graffiti Nation (via Nik Peachy)

Art Crimes: The Writing on the Wall graffiti from different countries...

The Graffiti Creator you can create your graffiti here

Graffiti Playdo a collaborative online graffiti board

Found Magazine (via peter skills); a website edevoted collecting found stuff: love letters, birthday cards, kids' homework, to-do lists, ticket stubs, poetry on napkins, doodles-- anything that gives a glimpse into someone else's life. Anything goes.

http://www.blublu.org/; graffiti, animations, videos via Elizabeth Anne

 

Pfizer's graffiti ad via Teresa

Banksy is one of the renowned graffiti artists from UK - some of his controversial works are featured on his website http://www.banksy.co.uk/ via Elizabeth Anne (also recommends his book 'Wall and Piece')

An interesting BBC article on graffiti  shared by Diane Midness, iearn

The Wooster Collective was founded in 2001. This site is dedicated to showcasing and celebrating ephemeral art placed on streets in cities around the world. via worldgraffiti

 

 

 

 

Useful Tips:

 

Rita: You can use a very simple tool available HERE, called Recordpad, then save it as a wav or mp3 file. You can send the file as an attachment as well. Saša: looks interesting for audio explorations, Thanks, Rita!

 

Improving the project site:

September 09: Miha added a Deep Zoom composition to the project site (requires Silverlight).

- adding some makeup

- automatic notification about comments if authors leave email

- add option for including tags

- aggregate distribuited posts tagged 'wallstalking' (Technorati, Google alerts...) add flickr group feed

   

Joining the project

 

So... are there any graffiti out there around you that you like, messages that you perhaps find meaningful or simply want to share? Do you have a cellphone with a camera or a camera to take the photo? Want to join in?

Here's how:

 

1. Take a photo of your graffitti,

 

2. Record the following graffiti info

  • Posted by: (your name)
  • Graffitti message: (write out the message as seen)
  • Date: (e.g. March 09),
  • Place: (e.g. street wall)
  • Town: (e.g.Nova Gorica)
  • Country: (e.g. Slovenia)
  • Translation in English (if applicable) and/or comment why you find the message meaningful/worth sharing

 

 

3. Upload your photos and related information here or send it to the Walls Talking Flickr group and have a look at what others have contributed here or in the Flickr groupMiha kindly created a simple to use form which publicly aggregates the contributed photos and allows comments and sorting according to countries. The site upload option was added because we wanted everybody to be able to join in, also wall stalkers who are not flickr users. The collected photos by non-flickr users are then added to the Walls Talking flickr group and appear in the wallstalking.org photo stream.

 

Flickr users are invited to post the photo to the Flickr under cc attribution-noncommercial-sharealike license, tag it wallstalking, add the graffiti info in the photo description section or tags (see example here), join the Walls Talking Flickr group and send the photo to the group (by clicking the 'send to group' option just above your photo). 

 

Another option for non-flickr users is to  send the photo to time70house at photos.flickr.com - this way it will be included in the wallstalking.org photo stream, automatically licensed and tagged. Don't forget to include the above Graffiti info in the body of your message so we can give you proper credit.

 

Just testing - September 8th 2009 - Barbara Dieu

 

thank you, Bee - it now works ok this end too!

 

 

 

 

Please refrain from posting offensive materials. 

Everyone is welcome to join in and/or help spread the word - the more the merrier ;-).

 

 

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