EdVentures in Technology
teaching, learning and change
March 22, 2008 at 12:30 pm · Filed under Diigo Links
USTREAM.TV Shows: Free LIVE VIDEO, Webcam & Video Chat Rooms, Streaming Broadcast, Stream Video Clips, Internet Radio Cams, Web News Events, Watch .TV
tags: streaming-video, ustream, webvideo
A vision of the mobile, connected college experience – Today in Abilene, Texas » Moving at the Speed of Creativity Annotated
tags: college, edtech, higher-ed, iphone, university
The video is a carefully formatted and scripted production, but still quite impressive as a vision for utilizing mobile technologies in transformative ways for learning. I was particularly interested in the comments made by ACU instructors in the video. Students were provided with choices right in class, which they responded to as polls on their iPhone right away. Students self-selected a hybrid version of a class which included both online discussions and face-to-face meetings, or a more traditional seminar-style class that met entirely face-to-face. Students were encouraged to use their iPhone as a digital voice recorder to conduct interviews, as well as take photographs for a class project. I especially picked up on the comment, by one of the students, that most of the course lectures were provided in advance of class so the face-to-face time could be utilized for discussions and interaction. This is a vision of
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21st century blended learning
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, powered by ubiquitous student access to iPhones as well as professors adapting their pedagogic approaches to instruction in ways which appropriately leverage the transformative learning potential of mobile devices.
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Top News – Schools respond to iPhone’s popularity Annotated
tags: college, edtech, higher-ed, iphone, university
Campus officials roll out programs to take advantage of the iPhone’s potential as a converged, mobile learning device
February 10, 2007 at 11:51 am · Filed under Random Thoughts
February 23, 2006 at 3:41 am · Filed under Creativity
Kathy Sierra is perhaps one of my greatest inspirations, next to my wife and children of course!
For those of you who are not familiar, Kathy Sierra is the author of a number of Head First books from O’Reilly Press but what really impresses me is her blog, Creating Passionate Users. I’ve referenced a number of her posts in my Web Expressions course and have tried to incorporate her learning and teaching philosophies into my own practice. Her latest entries as of this post are: Mediocrity by "areas of improvement", a fresh look at re-engineering the dreaded performance review, and Brain death by dull cubicle – her take on new developments in brain theory as they apply to our work environments.
These are a few of my favorite Kathy Sierra posts:
Crafting a user experience
Keeping users engaged
Blowing your own mind
Think sexy
The importance of seduction and curiosity
Creating a passionate…You
The user’s journey
Transparency v. seduction
and perhaps my own guiding text,
Ten tips for new trainers/teachers
Thanks for the inspiration Kathy and keep up the great work!
technorati tags: kathy, sierra, creating, passionate, users, passion, creativity, inspiration, wow
February 9, 2006 at 10:10 pm · Filed under Web Expressions
Classroom environment: Let’s begin by rearranging the room again. No walls, no rows. Let’s spread ourselves into a semi-circle.
Review last class
- Feed reader -There were some problems with IE, so everyone should try downloading Firefox and using that process.
- Blog entries – Is everyone caught up?
- I’m experimenting with recording this class and turning it into a podcast. We’ll see how it goes.
(Due to equipment issues, this didn’t occur. After today’s conversation I truly wish we had. The level of excitement and engagement was second only to the quality and depth of what came out in our exercises. Particularly when we were discussing how artists convey mood through color, tone, design and sound. The example of the soundtrack to horror films (the classic ones particularly) sticks in my mind.)
My philosophy of this class and our roles for one another:
Discuss: Creativity in the context of this class is dependent upon what? Think about the title of this class and what that means to us.
- Hint – In our last seminar session, we spoke of creativity as both intimately personal and socially dependent?
Exercise: Small groups, brainstorm how humans have communicated from the dawn of our time. Back together lets air our findings and I’ll write them down. Let’s create a timeline (why?) and discuss how this impacts the delivery of our messages.
Discuss: In our last seminar session, we discussed the role that emotions, passions and feelings play in how we view and interpret creativity. How do we communicate these ideas, these intangibles?
Exercise: In the same small groups, think about an idea or concept that can be challenging to convey and talk about how you might try to communicate that to others. Create a mock-up of this and present to the class.
Classroom environment: Let’s take some time to put the chairs back for those who follow.
Homework: Blog entry – In class today we talked about our philosophies and roles as members of the classroom community. Post an entry about your philosophy, what you hope to get out of this course and how you view your role in this community. Be insightful and
Assignment: Project – Begin to brainstorm topics that you might employ as the basis of your class project.
My blog entry for today: Process – Use Meredith Farkas’ post on her book “…lessons learned so far“
February 9, 2006 at 9:55 pm · Filed under Web Expressions
Rearrange the room – I hate walls and rows – neither is conducive to a creative environment so at the beginning of each class, we’ll spread ourselves into a semi-circle and at the end of each class, we need to put the chairs back for those who follow.Review last class
- What did you learn about me, take a few minutes to get together in small groups and work up a bio and provide a forensic overview of your process.
- Let’s talk about how creative your process is or could be, pretend you are an FBI profiler – work me up.
This class is not about me, it is about you. I find that people learn more from one another than they will from me. It’s all about the math, folks. The sum of the knowledge contained within a group will always be greater than that possessed by any one individual.
This course is not about lectures and stasis. It is about dynamic interaction. For those of you who have read my profile, you know that I am a rock climber. Any others out there? For the purposes of this course, we are climbing partners to one another. This course is not unlike a multi-pitch climb – in order to achieve the goal set before us, we will need to rely upon one another to reach the summit. Sometimes we lead, sometimes we follow. Belaying each other…, through the crux…And that crux differs for each of us.
Creativity is an adventure of the mind. When you think about it, we are gods within the worlds of our mind.
Discuss: What does it mean to be creative? What does creative look like? How can we/how do we express our creative thoughts.
- Develop a recipe for your creativity
Discuss: How do our emotions, passions, feelings affect what we see as creative and in turn how do they affect our own creativity?
Discuss: Creativity is at once intimately personal and socially dependent?
Homework: Blog reading
I will be posting an article on blog and creativity resources. Please follow and read these links and provide a responsive summary as a comment to my post.
Homework: Activity
For the next class, I would like for you to create a profile of yourself. Who you are, what you hope to get out of this class (other than a passing grade), and anything that would help us to know and understand you better. Create a profile for yourself and post it to your blog. Start early, experiment with the tools and be creative!
What is your philosophy?
February 2, 2006 at 4:16 am · Filed under Creativity, Learning Theory, Random Thoughts
This was originally posted to the blog of the undergraduate course I teach at Plymouth State University called Web Expressions. After my last post about my 5-year old philosopher, I thought I would cross-post it here.Out of the mouths of babes
I am sitting at my desk working up the curriculum for this class when my 5-year old son Hunter asks me, "Dad, what are you doing?" In my best fatherly tone I explain to him that I am preparing to teach this [Web Expressions] course in the fall. Without any hesitation he asks me the question that weighs on all little boys’ minds, "Dad, do big kids play too?" Being an adult and not too swift by 5-year old standards, it took me a minute to realize that the "kids" he was talking about were the students in my class.
Well that innocent little question stuck in my head (like one of those cheesy ad jingles or the Muppet "Mahna-mahna" song) and got me to thinking. At the time, I was trying to find a way to "teach" creativity and was frustrated by my lack of progress. Creativity is a rather abstract concept and it’s very nature is fluid and boundless. How do you neatly package something like that?
Well, if Hunter is right, the answer just might be in how we play.
When we play, whether it is building towers with blocks, creating an imaginary friend or skiing a backcountry bowl, we are expanding our minds, testing and pushing our perceived limits and developing new experiences upon which to build our future selves. Watch any child at play and you can see them grow, evolve.
How we play changes as we get older, as we explore new opportunities. Some of us lose touch with the ability to play with the unencumbered freedom of our youth. We find it difficult to "be creative" because we have for so long struggled with trying to fit in, trying to satisfy the expectations of others.
Get out and play, be a kid, who cares who’s watching? You just might learn a thing or two about yourself.
technorati tags: play, learning, teaching, creativity, knowledge, philosophy
Start Slide Show with PicLens Lite 
November 10, 2005 at 6:27 pm · Filed under Creativity
After my last post on the brilliance of the 5-year old mind, came a post from Kathy Sierra’s Creating Passionate Users blog on a similar topic. Even twenty-somethings have trouble with expressing their creativity having stifled it for so long in middle and high school. So here are the first five techniques Kathy recommends for kick-starting one’s creative juices (for the rest, read her blog!):
- Shuffle your music
- Have kids (if that is out of the question, rent or borrow some!)
- Go to a toy store
- Make something
- Go to a live show
Read this blog entry or the entry title Blow Your Own Mind and you will find more tidbits and springboards that might serve to loosen up your pucker factor. Creativity is everywhere, you just need to learn how to see it.
November 10, 2005 at 6:25 pm · Filed under Creativity
I was sitting at my desk working up the curriculum for this class when my 5-year old son Hunter asks me, “Dad, what are you doing?” In my best fatherly tone I explained to him that I was preparing to teach this [Web Expressions] course in the fall. Without any hesitation he asked me the question that weighs on all little boys’ minds, “Dad, do big kids play too?” Being an adult and not too swift by 5-year old standards, it took me a minute to realize that the “kids” he was talking about were the students in my class.
Well, that innocent little question stuck in my head (like one of those cheesy ad jingles or the Muppet “Mahna-mahna” song) and got me to thinking. At the time, I was trying to find a way to “teach” creativity and was frustrated by my lack of progress. Creativity is a rather abstract concept and it’s very nature is fluid and boundless. How do you neatly package something like that?
Well, if Hunter is right, the answer just might be in how we play.
When we play, whether it is building towers with blocks, creating an imaginary friend or skiing a backcountry bowl, we are expanding our minds, testing and pushing our perceived limits and developing new experiences upon which to build our future selves. Watch any child at play and you can see them grow, evolve.
How we play changes as we get older, as we explore new opportunities. Some of us lose touch with the ability to play with the unencumbered freedom of our youth. We find it difficult to “be creative” because we have for so long struggled with trying to fit in, trying to satisfy the expectations of others.
Get out and play, be a kid, who cares who’s watching? You just might learn a thing or two about yourself.
Start Slide Show with PicLens Lite
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