Kimberly Hirsh

🎵 I’m listening to the full album of Lady Gaga’s BORN THIS WAY for the first time, and I’m a little embarrassed by coming to her this late, given her status as the spiritual successor to Madonna, whom I have adored since 1984.

Fighting with the VPN so I can have off-campus library access. Academia, how I’ve missed you. :) (I’m re-instituting emoticons instead of some emoji because I like remembering the old Internet.)

I start working remotely for the Connected Learning Lab tomorrow and while a lot of people are excited for me, most of them don’t actually understand what I’m going to be doing. So I’m writing a blog series that I hope will explain that somewhat, and this is the first post. If you’ve read my comps chapter on Connected Learning or seen my Connected Learning and the IndieWeb talk, some of this will be familiar.

Connected learning can be conceived of in three ways: as a type of learning experience that occurs spontaneously, as an empirically-derived framework for describing that type of experience, and as a research and design agenda aimed at expanding access to that type of learning experience. My brother-in-law, P., is actually a phenomenal example of a Connected Learner.

In high school and college, P. was interested in playing guitar. He started hanging out at a local guitar shop, connecting with a community there of peers and mentors. Through the connections he made, he was offered the opportunity to be lead guitarist for a tribute band, and that job took him all over the world. He has since embarked on a different but related career, working in media law. This area of law might not have been of interest to him if he hadn’t had experience working in the music industry.

That’s an example of a spontaneously occurring connected learning experience. From experiences like this, scholars have created a model to describe connected learning. This model includes three elements of connected learning: interests, relationships, and opportunities. P. was interested in music, built relationships at the guitar shop, and it led him to opportunities to perform as part of a working band and become a lawyer.

Image Source: The Connected Learning Alliance

This type of experience is easier to access with more financial and temporal support; the research and design agenda surrounding connected learning is an equity agenda that aims to broaden the availability of this kind of experience, making it possible for nondominant youth who might require additional support to access connected learning. One way to do that is to bring this kind of experience into public spaces serving nondominant youth - public spaces like libraries.

The work I’m doing with the Connected Learning Lab is part of a grant funded by the Institute of Museum and Library Services examining key needs for teen services in libraries:

(1) the challenges library staff face in designing and implementing CL programming for underserved teens and the means for overcoming these challenges, (2) ways library staff can use evaluative approaches to understand youth needs in CL programming, and (3) the means of demonstrating the value of CL programs and building stakeholder support for increasing their scope and scale, particularly to serve equity goals.

The products of this research will include

training modules, guidebooks, mentoring supports, case studies, videos, practice briefs, topical papers, and blogs.

These are some of my favorite kinds of things to create, so I’m extra excited.

My next post in this series will talk about how Connected Learning is already happening in libraries, with some examples from actual libraries.

Somebody wrote a post on Micro.blog with the title “Everybody should blog” in the past couple days and I can’t find it now. If you know where it is, would you kindly point me to it?

🔖 Read True gender-neutral clothing must go beyond fancy sweatpants.

I love the idea of a shop where clothing is arranged by type (shirts here, dresses there) and silhouette (narrow shoulders over here, broad hips over there).

10 TV Shows to Know Me 📺

• The Muppet Show
• Punky Brewster
• Star Trek: The Next Generation
• The Kids In the Hall
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer
• Firefly
• 30 Rock
• How I Met Your Mother
• You’re the Worst
• GLOW

10 Video Games to Know Me 🎮

• Final Fantasy
• Final Fantasy VII
• Street Fighter Alpha 3
• Rhapsody: A Musical Adventure
• Chrono Cross
• Golden Sun
• Final Fantasy X-2
• Theatrhythm Final Fantasy
• Dragon Age Inquisition
• Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night

New rule: Especially on days when my kid is home from school, it’s okay if my routines don’t go as planned. Extra okay if it’s also a high pain day.

New bio! “Big sister, little mother, perpetual learner. I love books AND computers.”

1/3/22 plan: Wake up at normal time, hang out with kid, eat wholesome food, clean bedroom, prep for week ahead

1/3/22 reality: Wake up 1 hr late & in pain, eat easy version of wholesome food, watch kid play tablet games all day

Finished reading: Truly Devious: A Mystery by Maureen Johnson 📚

I don’t want to write a full review of Truly Devious but I want to share a couple things.

First: it goes back and forth between details of a cold case from 1936 and the present. I love the way it weaves these two related stories together.

Second: it ends on a cliffhanger, which left me wanting to scream “ARE YOU KIDDING ME?” and also simultaneously flail with delight, so well done Maureen Johnson, I guess.

Recommended if you like mysteries, especially dark academia.

Welp, my corkboard is now mostly a collage of tarot and oracle cards. The mermaids are very concerned about research ethics.

Closing out the year with a couple of runs in Hades 🎮 followed by some Star Trek: The Next Generation 🖖🏻. Here’s to staying on-brand in 2022.

🔖 Read 6 ways to deal with anxiety and uncertainty this winter.

One way to embrace radical uncertainty is to develop coping mechanisms. This NPR piece suggests some possibilities.

Happy New Year from the hair I just cut off in a literal and symbolic act of lightening my load.

Selfies to come after a shower and hair air drying.

💬 “We are being asked to no longer abandon ourselves, to embrace and make space for all parts of ourselves to come alive and be honored.” Lindsay Mack’s Monthly Medicine for January 2022

New (Year) hair before and after brushing. (Better-lit photos coming soon.)

Here are a couple of earlier year-in-review posts:

• 2020
• 2019
• 2018

This one’s going to be a little different. I will write up my catalogue of great stuff that happened but I want to give some space to the hard stuff first.

My family has definitely been playing the pandemic on easy mode, as it were, but I have hit a wall of not hopelessness exactly, but grim resignation. Resignation specifically to the fact that things will keep shifting, that it will probably get worse before it gets better, that making plans based on timing of perceived lowered risk (for example, When-My-Kid-Is-Vaccinated) is more likely to lead to disappointment than not. Resignation to the extreme unknown.

Anticipating a year of shifts, the only goal I set was for the first quarter off 2021: to complete and defend my dissertation. I did it! Goal achieved! Setting such a straightforward goal means I can feel good about how I spent my time this year.

I only set a word for the first quarter, which was PLAY and I have no idea how I did with that.

I did some great stuff in addition to defending my dissertation this year:

• I made extensive use of the public library. My kid actually bumped up against the checkout limit.
• I got vaccinated and boosted.
• I got my thyroid managed and hit my target lab results for the first time in the 10 years since my Hashimoto’s diagnosis.
• I consulted for Quirkos and developed content for their blog.
• I organized a FanLIS panel for the Fan Studies Network North America conference.
• I got and swam in a mermaid tail.
• I had a pool party for my 40th birthday.
• I presented at MIRA, Micro Camp, ALISE, and World View.
• I took M to swim lessons.
• I embraced my Trekkie nature.
• I applied for, was offered, and accepted my dream postdoc.

I couldn’t have done these things without immense help:

• from my advisor & committee.
• from W’s mom, who provided me with time for both work and rest.
• from W, who provided for my basic material needs, kept the house clean, continued to be an awesome dad, and made me feel good about myself.

If there was a theme for this year, it was Star Trek. The Next Generation was a balm in the weeks after my grandmother’s death. Lower Decks, Discovery, and Prodigy revitalized my love of Trek. Discovery, in particular, helped me remain hopeful and trust in my values as a guide for living.

(My core values, by the way, are curiosity, creativity, and care.)

I’m doing a New Year New Moon retreat with Katy Peplin on January 2nd, so I will probably dig into my dreams and plans for 2022 then.

For now, I’ll say my word of the year for 2022 is MEND. My goal is to keep going.

My only resolution for 2022: Embrace [radical uncertainty] (https://www.johnkay.com/2020/02/12/radical-uncertainty/).

🔖 Read What the Aztecs can teach us about happiness and the good life.

This is an excellent way to think about how to live.

Me, watching STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION and seeing a newborn in a glass bassinet in sickbay with the birthing parent nowhere in sight: “What, in the 24th century there’s no rooming in?” (Rooming in wasn’t common in 1990 but it was a thing by 1994.) 📺🖖🏻

I just finished the midseason finale of #StarTrekDiscovery and I thought it was beautifully done. Space family talking through problems is my fave. This is SOCIAL science fiction. ❤️ Replies may contain spoilers. 📺🖖🏻

🔖 Read There Is No “Best of” List From Me This Year. 📚

Beautiful writing from Kelly Jensen: how books impacted her this year; where she is in her journey as a writer, book blogger, reader. I’ll revisit this as I think about how I want to engage with & around books in 2022.

I just watched the SHORT TREKS episode “Q & A” and it has me really excited for STRANGE NEW WORLDS. 📺💻🖖🏻