Sep
11
Sep
11
Sep
10
“Now, God be praised, that to believing souls gives light in darkness, comfort in despair.”
~William Shakespeare
Photo By Richard Nesbit
Used with permission from Richard Nesbit
Sep
9
Already out of ideas for school lunches? Here are nutritious and simple ideas from Martha Stewart.
Sep
8
Like our ancestors, we look up at the heavens and wonder. What is the structure of the universe? How significant are we? Are we alone? To commemorate the acquisition of The Seth MacFarlane Collection of the Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan Archive, the Library of Congress presents an exploration of these questions across the breadth of its collections and offers a first glimpse into Carl Sagan’s papers. This is a wonderfully comprehensive repository of primary source research documents.
Link: http://www.loc.gov/collection/finding-our-place-in-the-cosmos-with-carl-sagan/about-this-collection/
Sep
7
Brown and Katz offer 3 criteria for successful idea generation in Change by Design (p.18).
These are:
1. Desirability
2. Viability
3. Feasibility
In a significant semantic emphasis, they write that Designers “resolve” these criteria to solve problems. In contrast, Design Thinkers “navigate among” these criteria in more of a process orientation (p.21). Further, they write that Design Thinkers shift their thinking from problem to project.
Which describes your methodology?
In Chapter 2, the Brown and Katz list 3 Elements of Successful Design:
1. Observation
2. Empathy
3. InsightCreated with IdeaSketch App
The Innovator’s DNA (Dyer, Gregersen, and Christensen profiled Scott Cook, founder of Intuit. Cook credits the design of his software titles Quicken and QuickBooks to his penchant for observation.
The authors summarize observation as the result of two main attributes (p. 96):
1. Watching people at work to see what they really what to accomplish
2. Watching for interchangeable solutions among different people, groups, or processes
I wonder, are these elements deserving of equal attention or does one or two nudge out the others in importance?
Thoughts?
References
Brown, T., & Kātz, B. (2009). Change by design: How design thinking transforms organizations and inspires innovation. New York: Harper Business.
Dyer, J., Gregersen, H. B., & Christensen, C. M. (2011). The Innovator’s DNA: Mastering the five skills of disruptive innovators. Boston, Mass: Harvard Business Press.
Sep
6
“…there is a world of difference between what computers can do and what society will choose to do with them.
Society has many ways to resist fundamental and threatening change.” Seymour Papert, Mindstorms, 1980, Introduction
~~~
Sep
5
Last Sunday I read this story on a post on LinkedIn. It is the story of the caterpillar and the butterfly. It suddenly struck me, that it was just the same with learners.
The story goes, some school children were watching a butterfly emerging from its cocoon. They felt sorry for it as it struggled and struggled to extract itself through the tiny hole it had made. Eventually it succeeded and lay there, exhausted. Eventually, slowly, it opened its wings, and finally flew away.
The children saw the same process happening with another cocoon, and not wanting to see this poor butterfly suffer, they cut open the cocoon and freed the butterfly. The bedraggled creature lay on the surface for a while, and then died. The children were sad.
The teacher explained, that the struggle to get out of the cocoon was part of the process. The process of struggling forced fluids up the narrow network of tubes within the wings, and this allowed the wings to unfold and become rigid, so that the butterfly could fly away. When the children helped the 2nd one, the fluids did not get pumped into the wings, and so they did not expand and unfold, it could not fly away, and so died.
Get the analogy?
Sep
4
Versal is an open publishing platform for anyone to create interactive online courses – no coding required. Versal is an engaging LCMS for building interactive courses just by dragging and dropping widgets and configuring content.
Versal brings interactivity to online learning through customizable exercises called “gadgets.” Drag and drop gadgets – simulations, charts and so much more – right into your course. Teachers can use Versal for homework and classroom exercises, independent study, and content delivery.
Outside the classroom, Versal would integrate well to product tutorials, corporate training, and project management timelining.
Versal is flexible, powerful, and open to everyone.
Did I mention no coding required?
Image Source: Versal
Sep
3
remember, every perfect production has outtakes…
This blog registered on Edubloggers Directory.
....
