Category: creativity
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Learning should be an invitation, not a mandate
Marc Prensky, in his recent article in the Feb/Mar issue of EduTopia, “Programming: The New Literacy,” makes a persuasive case for helping learners of ALL ages master a key element of the new literacies of the 21st century: Programming. The following paragraph near the end of his piece really caught my attention: Our machines are…
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Technical troubleshooting and tinkering are essential skills
Like it or not, technologies are a part of our lives today and show no signs of completely going away. While I resonate with those advocating for more time spent outdoors in unstructured environments, dream of working for hours in my own garden someday, and often have new-Luddite sentiments about a variety of topics relating…
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The Future is Unwritten by Miguel Guhlin
These are my notes from Miguel Guhlin’s OTA 2008 keynote, “The Future is Unwritten.” In my free time, I serve as instructional technology director for San Antonio ISD All resources from today’s session: http://snipurl.com/ota2008 My core values #1 share more In New Zealand last year, Jenny Litchfield – has a face that tells a story…
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We Are The Revolutionaries
These are my notes from a presentation titled “We Are The Revolutionaries” on February 2, 2008, at the Oklahoma 2008 State Superintendent’s Social Studies and Fine Arts Conference. The theme of this year’s conference is, “Revolutionary Matters.” This presentation by Beth Howard and her students from Mark Twain Elementary School in Tulsa Public Schools has…
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Podcast216: Conversations about Classroom Blogging, Instructional Change, and Schooliness by Clay Burell and Ken Carroll
This podcast features excerpts of the conversation during an unconference session facilitated by Will Richardson at the Learning 2.0 Conference in Shanghai, China, in September 2007. Although there were many more participants, the only ones whose permission I was able to obtain to share their comments were Clay Burell and Ken Carroll. For that reason,…
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Lessons learned about podcasting microphones
It is true we often learn more from failures rather than successes, and my experiences with podcasting microphones provide several cases in point. The first 100+ podcasts I made were created using just the built-in microphone in my (then) iBook and (now) MacBook laptop. After making so many podcasts, at some point I realized I…
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Understanding the way forward for copyright reformers
Dr. Lawrence (Larry) Lessig was the first professor I ever encountered online who blogs regularly. As a result of his work I read online, I not only learned about Creative Commons, I also ended up learning a great deal about the history of the Internet and our current state of affairs with regard to intellectual…
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Novelty and curiosity essential for engagement and learning
Dr. Elizabeth Zelinski of USC was recently interviewed about an extensive memory study of older adults by the authors of the SharpBrains blog. In the interview, Zelinski stated: The physical fitness analogy is a good one, in that cognitive enhancement requires the engagement in a variety of activities, those activities must be novel, adaptive and…
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Wrestling with website registration limits
We had an important and thought provoking conversation this evening at home regarding digital ethics. For his 10th birthday, thanks to the generosity of my in-laws who were willing to negotiate a “trade” for their old titanium G4 Powerbook, my wife and I were able to give our 10 year old son his own laptop…