I’m super excited to be involved in something called #MYFest22 (Mid-year festival) this June, July and August. It is a choose-your-own-adventure festival of virtual professional development that is trying to build an emergent, creative, caring community that embodies the ethos of intentionally equitable hospitality. The #MYFest22 organizers (full disclosure: I am one) are folks I consider friends, colleagues, and all around lovely human beings.
The #MYFest At a Glance site is a great place to begin your exploration of what’s offered at MYFest22, although since sessions are being added regularly to the schedule, the more updated session list is available through the Google Calendar or Google Sheet monthly schedule (both of which are available once you register for #MYFest22). The most up-to-date version of the schedule will also be available in the weekly emails, which you’ll also receive once a week when you register.
Speaking of registration, #MYFest22 registration has many options: All-access buffet (pick and choose what you want to go to throughout all three months; $250 USD) or Monthly all-access buffet (pick and choose what you want to go to throughout the month you’ve registered for; $100 USD). You can immediately get 50% any of the prices with no questions asked. Or you can write us directly at Contact Us on the #MYFest site or through a DM in the Slack channel for #MYFest22 (which you can also join by request via Contact Us) and request a code to access #MYFest22 for free. It’s a pay-what-you-can, attend-what-you-want kind of model with no FOMO (fear of missing out) – there are absolutely no overlapping sessions and if a session is not at a good time, you can request that it be repeated at a different time in August (more info to come).
You can also donate to #MYFest22 at any time.
When you find a session you’d like to attend, you’ll need to Zoom register for that session as well, even though you already registered for #MYFest22. This has been a bit of a point of confusion, but it’s intended to make sure those folks in the Zoom room are the ones who want to be there.
I’m, of course, running or helping co-facilitate several sessions and a track. The track is on ungrading as emancipation, and I hope it’s an emergent experience tailored to the interests of those who participate. I’m also co-facilitating two workshops with my sister, Christy Albright: Storying Our Grief through Hope, Efficacy, Resilience, and Optimism and Rest and Rejuvenation for Learners of All Ages. George Station and I are also co-facilitating a couple of conversations about Emancipatory Pedagogies
Several folks have created blogs, videos, podcasts, etc. to explain what #MYFest22 is and to help answer any questions in advance. Here is a partial listing in no particular order (that I may add to):
#ds106 Daily Create: Today’s challenge is based on the concept of #MYFest22 as choose your own path, and offers an interpretation for what you might make happen in one scene from one of the early forms of this game, Zork (of course the idea long precedes computers) [wording by Alan Levine]
A podcast by Brenna Clarke Gray on #MYFest22:
A video by Mia Zamora, Laura Gibbs, and Alan Levine on #MYFest22 FAQs:
We also have an Instagram account, which will be a place of curation and information about #MYFest22 as well:
https://www.instagram.com/myfest22/
And that’s just some of what’s going on, y’all.
You too can embed your blog in the #MYFest22 curation feed by filling out a Google form through The Writer’s Room. As an FYI, all asynchronous components of #MYFest22 – The Writer’s Room, The Reader’s Room, and The Music Room – are free and available to all, so join us in whatever way you can.
