Robin Sloan speaks for me: FISH

Today I learned about Tapestry, an online "one-way" story/essay creator with accompanying app (iPhone or iPad). Free.  I downloaded it and began with an essay called "Fish" by Robin Sloan.

You HAVE TO get this essay.  Not a story - a musing statement about the Internet, digital learning, thinking in the digital age.  I LOVE this essay.  When you have viewed it, you will understand what that love means.

Sloan has messaged brilliantly about something for which I have lacked the words. I believe and agree with him. Show the essay to your students. Lots to talk about here, including voice, tone, persuasive structure, idea flow (might be fun to map it).  It's also a meta-essay (form and content intertwined).

The power is also that students can message this way as well.  Tapestry is a new tool for creativity, analysis, and demonstration of learning.  Try it.  If you use Haiku Deck, you will appreciate its elegance.

Also, play Robin Sloan's game and follow the directions on the last page of "Fish." I did, and it lead me to two (or more) great works of short fiction and to a short novel that I am about to begin.

This is what I mean by the linear nature of the Internet - clinks lead you to an end - but the goal is to have this be a startling linearity.

This dead "Fish" may be the best metaphor yet for the Internet's role in learning.  Read Robin Sloan.