In my last post I described the game we are wanting to create. But I didn’t tell you the why. MEQOQO is a Sotho term that means conversations and it is how people of color traditionally tell who they are from generation to generation. An elder shares insight to the younger generation and it keeps going. We are still a culture that tells stories orally, but with technology being at the forefront it is especially important we document and save the stories that are only known to those who have had the advantage of sitting at the feet of someone much older than them. The question arises, “How can we co-create an AR experience to help the creation of tools to foster social connection, technological literacy and learning, and economic development?” and “What does collaboration and inclusion between the new age and tradition of African storytelling look like?”

What is the scope of our creation.

Meqoqo (the game) is the idea that many things can be learned through conversations not just reading a book or being taught by a teacher.

We are focusing on authentically capturing and preserving our stories so that others within our country, continent and global community can know who we are through our own words. Most of Black history, Africa and otherwise is rarely told by those it is written about–and that in itself is problematic.

What are the learning objectives? (this is still a work in progress)

• Define the following terms in English in a way that is accurate: meerkat, eland, hunting, collecting, veld, fire, ostrich, eggshell, jewelry, San
• Identify and distinguish between these terms when they are mixed together or with other words
• Demonstrate through answering questions correctly that they understand the content

Why authentic storytelling?

As stated before…I believe in authentic storytelling. So, connecting with the Kuru Art Project in Botswana was crucial for the type of storytelling I see myself doing. The curator Maude recommended that we look through the art within their gallery to see if there was anything already present that could represent the stories we wanted to tell. Magic!

I do not think anyone else draws like this…it is reminiscent of the cave art but much more modern.

Many children and people for that matter will not have the luxury of seeing one of these in person and I like the idea of integrating the new and the old to make that happen.

What worked well? What did not work at all? The decision tree was really difficult for us collectively. I struggled to sew the things together. As second language speakers they struggled to know what to do with all the information…so essentially the same as me. 🙂 The ideation technique with the post its worked really well for us. It was fun and we came up with so many ideas. There were even some funny ones like a lime cellphone, a flying washing machine, eating an orange couch. As an English teacher in another country, I would use this activity to help students write sentences.

The branching idea was a little hard when we were looking at ostrich eggshell jewelry …I wonder if it’s because of how they are still learning the language.

What branching ideas do I have in mind? I have five in mind, that cover the artwork above: meerkats, eland and hunting, collecting in the veld, firestory (traditional story), and making jewelry and crafts.

I will be uploading work soon to this space.

Peer Feedback and what to make of it?

There were more questions than suggestions. One wanted to know if this type of project could be duplicated elsewhere…this made me smile because that is the WHOLE idea…to have a network of students in various places in the world connecting on one platform learning from each other through conversations (Meqoqo).

Twine is a platform that combines games AND stories…I’ll be diving more into this throughout the week.

Last week, we headed to Bridge Books Johannesburg to look for some traditional stories from the San. Griffin pointed us to a book by Katrina Esau and another by Nicolaas Martiz. But we wanted more, so we headed to Africanstorybook.org -it is a great place to look for indigenous stories or just other stories in African languages.

After a week of trial and error… Here is what we ended up with and I am rather proud of this collaboration between myself, my students, and the local artists to create a new way of storytelling in this digital age.

Meqoqo: a journey to the past by PenielLearning (itch.io)