While planning our final performance, MissArcher2, MSA322, rubikscube, and I, thought back to the beginning of this course and the challenge we were presented with of creating an open dialogue by allowing others to speak and accepting that others may say an idea we had first. We decided to lead an interactive exercise with the class that demonstrated this process.

In this exercise everyone closed their eyes and tried to count to 10 collectively as a group. If any two people spoke at the same time, the game wool start over again at 1. It was interesting to see what patterns arose from the exercise, and why people chose to call out numbers when they did or remain silent. Our group was surprised at how quickly the class was able to complete the exercise.

Like Merlin, I created my Portfolio online.  Thanks, for the idea, Merlin :)

Here is the link to my portfolio: thegistofspreston.tumblr.com/

For our end of the year presentation, our group decided to play Mafia, a game in which a "town" of people, including townspeople, mafia members, and an inspector, must vote on which townsperson committed the last murder (full rules belo We wanted to play this game to see how people gather their information.  Because their eyes are closed during the "murder," the townspeople must base their decision on information they gather through the town meetings - how can one separate lies from real information?  It was interesting to watch the class play this game because the first person to get killed was the inspector - the member who actually knew who a mafia member was!  The mafia members were able to convince the rest of the group that the inspector was very su

            For our final presentation, kgould, m.agazaarian, Oak, and I created a GIST version of the card game Apples to Apples that used, obviously, GIST-centered words. Each round, one of the players was chosen as a judge, usually by seating order, and randomly drew an adjective card. The other players would then look through their hands for the noun they felt best ‘matched up’ with the presented adjective, and put their chosen card in the middle. The judge then chose the noun they feel best ‘matched up’ with the adjective; the player who submitted the winning noun card got to keep the adjective.

Where were you when we began this process?

            My mind was a bit less broad and I think I had a better sense of the world.

Where are you now?

            I’m not terribly sure. The mind, like the universe, is ever expanding? That’s if there is a universe. That’s if I have a mind.

What’s been happening in between?

Kgould, Oak, J.Yoo, and I decided to do a version of Apples to Apples that we dubbed "GIST to GIST." We picked a game because we wanted something that would be interactive and fun that the whole class could participate in. Apples to Apples is composed of nouns and adjectives. Each round, a judge puts down an adjective. The other players anonymously submit nouns, and the judge picks the one that has the best association, whatever that means for them.

So naturally, we picked words that we've been using all semester long.

The most helpful thing to do when compiling them was for me to go through my class notes (all on the computer) and pick out words that either our professors used or that I used in commenting about something. A quick run of some nouns we used: