Category: creativity
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Lessons Gleaned from the Life of Joseph Priestley
Tremendous benefits await those who generously share their ideas with others. Leaders should not shy away from the challenges of developing professional expertise in multiple domains. Regular collaboration and networking over excellent food and drink can prepare the mind as a fertile field for the cultivation of life-changing thoughts. New technologies can present novel opportunities…
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Opening Tinkercad 3D Designs in Minecraft
I’m serving as a “Minecraft Consultant” to our 6th grade Social Studies teacher (Sara Zedlitz) and middle school librarian (Michaela Freeland) who are collaborating for a second year on an awesome 3D design and 3D printing project that is part of a study on ancient Rome and Roman structures. Yesterday I helped students who had designed…
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More Minecraft Learning: Enchantments and Desert Temples
Over our last snow day / ice day weekend I setup an older, inherited Mac laptop as a home Minecraft server and resurrected a collaborative survival world Rachel (our 7th grader) and I started a couple of years ago with our younger cousins over the Thanksgiving holidays. My own Minecraft learning curve had flattened out…
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Design Thinking Takeaways from Our #k12onlineconf Panel
Last Friday after school I had an opportunity to facilitate a 60 minute panel discussion about “design thinking” with Brad Ovenell-Carter (@Braddo) in Vancouver, BC, Canada and Brian Lockwood (@BrianLockwood) in Copenhagen, Denmark for the K12 Online Conference (@k12online). In this post, I’ll share some of my learning points and takeaways from the panel discussion.
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2 Great (and free) Ways to Learn About Design Thinking
The free K12 Online Conference (@k12online) is continuing this year with short “mini-conferences.” Last week John Spencer’s (@spencerideas) keynote for the “Design Thinking” strand was published. The video is just over 30 minutes long, and provides a practical introduction to both design thinking and how it can be used to transform learning in your classroom. I…
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Student Voice, YouTube, & Digital Citizenship: Rachel Fryer on the TEDx Stage
TEDxWallerMiddleSchool was one of only 22 TEDxYouth events hosted worldwide in 2016, and the only TEDxYouth event held to date in Oklahoma. This was the second time students and educators at Waller Middle School in Enid have hosted a TEDx event. Last year all the speakers were local, but this year a few outside speakers…
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Book Review: The Industries of the Future by Alec Ross
Alec Ross’ (@AlecJRoss) February 2016 book, “The Industries of the Future,” offers a prescient and extremely important glimpse into the future of the global labor market. We can likely agree we are living in rapidly changing times, but it’s challenging to understand from a 100,000 foot perspective how advances in technology, communication and media are reshaping our economy,…
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Shelly Fryer on Classroom 2.0 Live – Saturday October 15th
Update: This October 18th post by Shelly includes links to this webinar archive. Please join Shelly Fryer (@sfryer) online next weekend on Saturday, October 15, 2016 at 9:00am Pacific / 10:00am Mountain / 11:00am Central / 12:00pm Eastern on Classroom 2.0 Live! Shelly is the “featured teacher” for October on Classroom 2.0 Live, and will be sharing: how she…
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How Microsoft is Poised to Destroy MinecraftEDU
As an elementary STEM teacher turned technology director, I’m extremely enthusiastic about the positive potential for students and teachers to use MinecraftEDU software to create powerful learning experiences. I’m extremely disappointed and sad, however, to learn about the changes and price structure which Microsoft is making to the “MinecraftEDU School Edition” set for official release on…