Online Icebreaker: A Life Story Album Cover

Yin's Album Cover A

Yin's Album Cover B

Yin's Playlist

As an online introduction, Tina Seelig invited us -- participants in her MOOC -- to design an album cover of our lives to construct a narrative of who we are. Add to that the creation of a 10-song playlist, fictional or actual songs, and we'll get some bonus points. I created two album covers.  Which one do you think I submitted? A or B? 

I think these ideas are excellent as icebreakers in online teaching. They afford students multiple means to participate in course conversations. It helped me to reflect, synthesize my life experiences and use a succinct title to capture a bit of the essence of who I am. As Tina says, "Never miss an opportunity to be fabulous!" 

April 14, 2014: Although my playlist is in JPEG format, participants were given a space with a text editor to type in text if they do not wish to represent their knowledge in the way I did. 

April 19, 2014: I realized that my visuals are not accessible to screen-readers. So here's a description of each: 

Album Cover A: It has a picture of me seated in a cafe and in a pensive mood. The title of the album is Meditations in Z Minor. 

Album Cover B: It has a main picture of me surrounded by an L-shaped collage of 11 other smaller pictures. Each picture shows a different side of me. The title of the album is Facets. 

My 10-song playlist describes my listening choices at the time of submission. The 10 songs are:

1. No Frontiers (Mary Black)

2. The Rainbow Connection (Sarah McLachlan)

3. Change (Carrie Underwood)

4. Reflection (Soundtrack, Lea Salonga)

5. 天冷就回家 (Come home in the winter)

6. The Fool on the Hill (Beatles)

7. 你的倒影 (Your Reflection)

8. Beneath Your Beautiful (Labrinth ft. Emelie Sande)

9. La Solitudine (Laura Pausini)

10. Rambling Man (Laura Marling)