Lots of research suggests that the school timetable needs to be constructed around boimetric patterns. To support the existing research, I propose policy makers and time-tablers might like to take the following graph into account…
<br />moar funny picturesI love this – tweeted by @shellterrell. A great way to explain the power of collaboration in the world of Web 2.0. The big question..how do we support our learners to be able to maximise their own digital participation and potential alongside that of the web?
I’m working on an educational set of cards following the same pattern as these IDEO cards. This, however, is the place where I acknowledge (and publicly thank) my original inspiration for what I am now working on. I hope they’ll be useful to teachers in supporting creative thinking. I’ve created some ‘Joker’ cards to add to the pack. More to follow when the project is complete.
Here are the original cards. I bought the complete set of these cards after I saw them on the IDEO website. Tim Brown, CEO of IDEO does some great work around stimulating creative thinking (watch him on www.TED.com talking about (1) SERIOUS PLAY and (2) SMALL DESIGN) and I had them sent to me from San Francisco. This PDF version demonstrates the simplicity of the way in which they work. Categorised under four suites, (Learn; Look; Ask; Try) these design thinking playing cards are a superb tool to use with students and teachers when:
The list goes on! I really recommend purchasing teh cards and checking out www.IDEO.com for some great ideas, philosophies and apporaches to developing solutions. They’ve also got some great videos on iTunesU.
Please let me know if you find this post useful.
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This fabulous illustration was doing the rounds a few weeks ago on Twitter. Again, I saw it tweeted by number of people, so I can’t attribute it to a specific person…just my WHOLE Personal Learning Network who I continually thank for a wealth of amazing for ideas, resources and tools.
Although it was created with ‘Technology Adoption’ in mind, it really does a good job to illustrate the potential barriers and opportunities you will encounter when leading any kind of cultural change.Found this reference to it and with it, a great blog! Have a look at www.miriamtanti.com/?p=41 and then explore the rest of this blog.
My quest this year (as it has been for the past few years, in fact) is to make greater links between the ‘bubbles’ that we tend to inhabit. In a rapidly inter-connecting world, the skill for learners and educators is to connect, adapt and develop relevant and engaging learning opportunities together. I read and look out for ideas and thinking beyond the world of education to make sure that my own work is relevant and enriched by the great minds of others.
I love using visuals in my work. When teaching, I’m never far from a board & marker pen to illustrate the concepts and ideas that I’m explaining. When I taught A Level Philosophy, I created a series of cartoon-based text books for students to support their understanding of different philosophical concepts. I guess I should dig them out and see if they could be digitalised in some way…a project for the new year, I think. Anyway, I now use keynote when I’m training, presenting and giving talks. It’s far more intuitive than PowerPoint and encourages lots of simple pictures, easily embedded clips and audio – oh, it’s a joy!
BUT…I have now come across the RSA’s Animate series…and I want to start doing things a bit like this! Check this out for a fantastic, engaging and informative way to present information. I’m off to get started now! The content itself isn’t half bad, either!
Thank you, RSA and Professor Stein Ringen (Professior of Sociology and Social Policy at the University of Oxford)
Much of my work around creativity concentrates on building the confidence of teachers to be creative. One thing I do is use a very simple activity called the ’30 Circles’ challenge which I picked up from Tim Brown (CEO of IDEO.com). It involves asking teachers to adapt a template of 30 circles in just one minute in whatever way they want to. Time and time again, I watch groups undertake this challenge and I am constantly amazed by the hesitation of the adults to begin the challenge. Of particular note is one group of senior leaders I worked with who used up 23 seconds before one brave member of the group made the first move to put pen to paper. During that 23 seconds, the of the group stared nervously at their own paper, at their neighbours’ paper and around the room, to see what others were doing before they would have a go themselves. When I do the same activity with young people, however, they attack it with enthusiasm and almost reckless glee from the minute I say ‘go!’. (It is worth noting that I did this recently with a group of primary teachers after we had invested the first part of the session building a strong learning community and they were much much more eager to get started!)
My day with the wonderful staff in Lewisham was great. A really enthusiastic group of educators. I showed them the SKR TED talk from 2006 and they loved it. I am still amazed at the relevance and insight this talk provides…always worth a revisit.
This list, in its original format was tweeted to by @sheconsulting…the original list can be found at:
http://www.att.net/s/editorial.dll?eetype=Article&eeid=7020757&render=y&Table=&ch=ne&
I’m always on the lookout for evidence of creative thinking. This helps me define what is meant by creative thinking, and why it is so important to shoe what it looks like and how it can help us understand ourselves, our world and our futures. It is possibly one of the most important mindsets to develop in young people if we are really going to support their journeys into an unknown world.
I’ve made a few selections from the original list in an effort to emphasise the importance of creative thinking…the need to make connections and the obligation we all have to foster curiosity about the world in all aspect of learning.
I hope you enjoy!
I’m travelling to London tomorrow ahead of delivering training on Monday to two Primary Schools in Lewisham. I’ll let you know how it goes. I’m taking along selected activities and ideas from the book I’m writing this year, so it’ll be good to see how they all respond to it.
It should be a really good day.
Full On Learning 