The Maker Issue | SLJ 2015. Developing Critical and Creative Thinking Skills with Students. MakerKids. Fc-creativity-session-xl.jpg (JPEG Image, 3000 × 656 pixels) - Scaled (34%) Maker Space In Education Series… 10 More Sites….Making With Technology. Welcome back and I sure hope you enjoyed the last article of 20 Reasons for Maker Space in Education and also 10 Sites To Help You Start Making In The Classroom. In this post I highlight 10 additional sites that can promote making with an emphasis on some tech tools. I encourage you to send me information and resources you think help with this idea, as I am also Making time to learn. First, to ensure you do not miss one of these valuable posts or other resources covering PBL, Digital Curriculum, Web 2.0, STEM, 21st century learning, and technology integration please sign up for 21centuryedtech by email or RSS.
As always, I invite you to follow me on twitter (@mjgormans). Please give this post a retweet and pass it on. Have a great week – Michael Gorman (21centuryedtech) Booking Info – Time to think about your new school year needs. Maker Space In Education Series… 10 More Sites….Making With Technology – Michael Gorman ( Like this: Like Loading... Create a Maker Club, Start a Movement - The Power of Starting Small. Creating with Cardboard The maker movement has been a hot topic for the past year or so but a lot of times, the focus is how to create makerspaces or completely revamp your curriculum to integrate these new approaches.
School change is often something that needs to move slowly and in incremental steps. If changing your entire school seems overwhelming, try starting a bit smaller and try starting with your youngest students. If we truly want to help students grow up with a maker mindset and sustain the innate curiosity and wonder that they have for discovery, learning, and creating, then I think we need to start supporting making in early childhood. In order to find out first-hand how students as young as kindergarten can engage with making and STEAM projects, I have been running a DIY Makers Club for a small group of K-2nd grade students after school each week. Designing a parachute to experiment with air resistance Science Technology Engineering Student-designed Club Logo Art Math. Does Our Current Education System Support Innovation? Flickr:Flickingerbrad By Aran Levasseur Innovation is the currency of progress.
In our world of seismic changes, innovation has become a holy grail that promises to shepherd us through these uncertain and challenging times. And there isn’t a more visible symbol of innovation than the iPad. In education it’s been widely hailed as a revolutionary device, promising to transform education as we know it. The profusion of digital technology at work, home and everywhere in between is evident to even the most causal observer.
We can’t just buy iPads (or any device), add water, and hope that strategy will usher schools to the leading edge of 21st century education. In light of this dynamic, two critical questions need to be asked and provisionally answered when integrating technology into education. The second question is equally important and often more elusive: “Do the current systems and processes support the integrative and innovative goals?” Adapting Teaching To Technology. The Periodic Table Of How Kids Play. It used to be that play was just play. There wasn’t a whole lot to say about it. Kids climbed trees, hit balls, and did experiments on insects. But by the mid-20th century, children’s play was being extensively studied, classified, and taxonomied by pioneering psychologists such as Melanie Klein and D.W.
Winnicott. Laura Richardson, who spent 10 years at Frog Design, has boiled it all down into one playful infographic: The Periodic Table of 21st Century Play. There are 11 play categories, from morphing to questing and from stretching to creating, and subsets of activities in each. In an era of soul-crushing standardized testing of younger and younger kids, it's critical to import the notion that play helps kids find their inner creativity and become curious and analytical beings. Each column in the graphic is topped with a plus sign, symbolizing that the chart is ever-evolving, and that kids and parents alike should feel free to add their own ideas. [Image: Toys via Shutterstock] 14 | 8 Of Google's Craziest Offices. While most of us 9-to-5ers hunch over in boxy, fluorescent-lit cubicles, feeling lucky if our office has a snack machine, the Google employees of the world are zooming around on scooters, slipping down tube slides, playing on their indoor putting greens, and gloating about the awesomeness of their offices.
If they can even be called offices--the designs of these nerd playgrounds so outclass your average corral of homogenous desks that we had to round them all up in a grand, jealousy (and sometimes eye-roll)-inducing slide show, on the occasion of Google unveiling its new Mexico headquarters. As one Google spokesperson told the New York Times, designers of Google offices have but one goal: “to create the happiest, most productive workplace in the world.” Marvel at the most over-the-top workspaces of Google’s big happy techie family and lament not being better at computer science.
New York City Amsterdam, The Netherlands Dublin, Ireland Tel Aviv, Israel London, England Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The 15-Minute Daily Habit That Will Change Your Career. Growing up in rural Circleville, Ohio, in the '80s and '90s, Austin Kleon couldn't have known how the social networks of the future would enable him to easily connect to the writers and artists who were his heroes at the time. But the artist, recent SXSW keynote speaker, and author of Show Your Work!
10 Ways to Share Your Creativity and Get Discovered, was still eager for ways to interact with those worlds. At 13, he wrote to punk collage artist Winston Smith, who responded with a 14-page letter, the first exchange in years of correspondence. Last year, Smith was doing an open studio in San Francisco, and the two met in person--this time as peers. "The best thing about putting your work out in the world is that sometimes you get lucky and get to meet your heroes," says Kleon.
The punk scene of which Smith was a part has influenced Kleon's work in other ways. "The technology is really important, and we all have tools that turn us into media producers now," he says. Collaboration Central. Nine Tenets of Passion-Based Learning. Fuel Creativity in the Classroom with Divergent Thinking. Recently, I showed a group of students in my high school art class a film called Ma Vie En Rose (My Life in Pink), about a seven-year-old boy named Ludovic who identifies as female.
Ludovic has an active imagination, but is bullied by both adults and other kids who are unnerved by his desire to wear dresses and play with dolls. The film challenged my students to broaden their understanding of gender and identity and led to a discussion about ways in which our imaginations are limited when we are forced to be who we are not. It also reminded me of other examples in which character is forced to choose an identity, such as the movie Divergent, based on the popular trilogy of novels by Veronica Roth. In Divergent, a dystopian future society has been divided into five factions based on perceived virtues.
Young people are forced to choose a faction as a rite of passage to becoming an adult. Defining Divergent Thinking In the Classroom: Strategies Strategy #2: Let the Music Play. MakerKids | Non-profit workshop space (makerspace) for kids in Roncesvalles village, Toronto. 3D printing, electronics, woodworking, sewing, crafting, hacking, tinkering and making of all kinds! Co-Creative Processes in Education: The Small Things That Make a Big Difference. Posted by core jr | 10 Mar 2014 | Comments (0) This is the third article in an ongoing series about working with kids by Copenhagen-based architect/designer/educator Moa Dickmark. Her last article was on the Future of Learning Environments. There are a few things that one should think about when it comes to working on a project using co-creative processes. There are the basics, such as how you develop and structure them, and then there's the small things that make the process go more smoothly.
The Necessities Start the process with a few meetings with the headmaster and school leadership, where you can decide on a common goal and make sure that you are on the same page. Develop spaces that students and teachers feel comfortable in and that can be used in various ways depending on subject and the individual students needs. Involvement 1.) 2.) Click image to view full version [PDF] All on the Same Level / Experts in Their Own Right Overview Language There's no Right or Wrong Teams. Are We Wringing the Creativity Out of Kids? Do you think you’re creative?”
Ask this question of a group of second-graders, and about 95 percent of them will answer “Yes.” Three years later, when the kids are in fifth grade, that proportion will drop to 50 percent—and by the time they’re seniors in high school, it’s down to 5 percent. Author Jonah Lehrer recently discussed the implications of these sobering statistics for education in his new book, Imagine: How Creativity Works. In a talk and question-and-answer session he participated in at the Commonwealth Club in Palo Alto, California, last month, Lehrer talked about why children lose their playful sense of creativity as they get older, and how we can help them hang on to it.
Lehrer began by quoting Picasso: “Every child is born an artist. The problems begin once we start to grow up.” “Right now we are grooming our kids to think in a very particular way, which assumes that the right way to be thinking is to be attentive, to stare straight ahead.” Related. Co-Creative Processes in Education: The Small Things That Make a Big Difference. What to do when Genius Hour fails… A teacher I work with asked me last week, “How do we deal with those students who aren’t doing anything with Genius Hour? I feel like I’ve helped and helped…but they don’t seem to care at all.” Maybe you’ve had this same experience with a student (or group of students) while running a Genius Hour or 20% Project in your class. Maybe it is something that worries you about starting this type of learning project where students get to choose their learning path, and delve into their interests and passions. While inquiry-based learning may be scary (and exciting) for many students, it can also be difficult for a teacher to manage..especially when the freedom you’ve given students is used to do “nothing”.
Freedom Comes with Responsibility First, let me set the context a bit. Second, this question is not a new one. Yet, it is a difficult position for a teacher to be in. Don’t Blame the Student When this happened in my class my first thought was to blame the student. Genius Hour Never Fails Awesome! Creativity Becomes an Academic Discipline. Photo IT BOTHERS MATTHEW LAHUE and it surely bothers you: enter a public restroom and the stall lock is broken.
Fortunately, Mr. Lahue has a solution. It’s called the Bathroom Bodyguard. Standing before his Buffalo State College classmates and professor, Cyndi Burnett, Mr. The world may be full of problems, but students presenting projects for Introduction to Creative Studies have uncovered a bunch you probably haven’t thought of. “I don’t expect them to be the next Steve Jobs or invent the flying car,” Dr. Once considered the product of genius or divine inspiration, creativity — the ability to spot problems and devise smart solutions — is being recast as a prized and teachable skill. “The reality is that to survive in a fast-changing world you need to be creative,” says Gerard J. “That is why you are seeing more attention to creativity at universities,” he says. Critical thinking has long been regarded as the essential skill for success, but it’s not enough, says Dr.
Dr. Jack V. Dr. Creativity Now!:Assessing Creativity. 8 Mistakes in Making Mistakes. Photo by: zettberlin | Source: photocase.com The past year seems to have yielded various waves of content celebrating making mistakes. Advancing the “failure at the heart of innovation” theme seems to have become a cause célèbre for the creativity and innovation set. Celebrating mistakes as part of innovation was the topic of a July Innochat on Twitter on innovation failure and, most recently, a Wall Street Journal article on “Better Ideas through Failure.” I grew up with a clear perfectionist streak (or whatever term you would use to suggest whatever is deeper, wide, and more permanent than a “streak”), I wrestle with a gleeful attitude toward failure. Yet between Kathryn Schulz’s TED talk “On Being Wrong” and recognition of my own experiences where learning from something that did not succeed as planned has led to much better future results, openness to errors clearly has its place in creativity and innovation.
Being Bad at Making Mistakes Getting Good at Making Mistakes. Genius Hour. Matthew Schuler | Why Creative People Sometimes Make No Sense. Photo by Sophia. I’ve been having an insightful shuffle through Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s book Creativity: The Work and Lives of 91 Eminent People. Mihaly is a seminal professor of Psychology and Management, and is the Founding Co-Director of the Quality of Life Research Center at Claremont. He writes: “I have devoted 30 years of research to how creative people live and work, to make more understandable the mysterious process by which they come up with new ideas and new things. If I had to express in one word what makes their personalities different from others, it’s complexity. They show tendencies of thought and action that in most people are segregated. They contain contradictory extremes; instead of being an individual, each of them is a multitude.”
Nine out of the ten people in me strongly agree with that statement. Mihaly describes 9 contradictory traits that are frequently present in creative people: Most creative people tend to be smart and naive at the same time. Three Creativity Challenges from IDEO's Leaders - Tom Kelley and David Kelley. By Tom Kelley and David Kelley | 8:00 AM November 8, 2013 People often ask us how they can become more creative. Through our work at the global design and innovation firm IDEO and David’s work at Stanford University’s d.school, we’ve helped thousands of executives and students develop breakthrough ideas and products, from Apple’s first computer mouse to next-generation surgical tools for Medtronic to fresh brand strategies for the North Face in China.
This 2012 HBR article outlines some of the approaches we use, as does our new book, Creative Confidence: Unleashing the Creative Potential Within Us All. One of our top recommendations? Practice being creative. The more you do it, the easier it gets. Of course, exercising your mind can sometimes feel more daunting than exercising your muscles. TOOL: Mindmap PARTICIPANTS: Usually a solo activity TIME: 15–60 minutes SUPPLIES: Paper (the bigger the better) and pen We learned this 30 Circles exercise from David’s mentor, Bob McKim.
TOOL: 30 Circles. Why Genius Hour | Nowa Techie. A fun, creative, messy, engaging, and active hour! This is a time for your students to research, learn, and construct what they are interested in. It’s an amazing time for all. Students are put in charge of their own learning experience for the hour. The teacher stands back and watches the students go! There are many resources to find out how to get started. The shift to Common Core Standards invites creativity, freedom, and deeper thinking and understanding. The first week was more of an explanation of what Genius Hour is. One Friday before school, there was a small group of students in the classroom. If you’re not sure you should (or want) to start this in your classroom, just do it! Like this: Like Loading...
Maker Faire. Why Emily Organized a Mini Maker Faire (and How You Can Too) Draw online - shapes in clouds - cloud #48. Cultivating Imagination. Designing a School Makerspace. How to Close the Achievement Gap: Arts Education. 6 Elements Of Play: The Spectrum Of A Relaxed Mind. 20-Time In Education Inspire. Create. Innovate. ReMaking Education: Designing Classroom Makerspaces for Transformative Learning. Play, passion, purpose: Tony Wagner at TEDxNYED. Maya Angelou and other luminaries – including Ray. 20-Time In Education Inspire. Create. Innovate. Carlton Cuse: 6 talks that help me create | TED Playlists.
To encourage creativity, Mr Gove, you must first understand what it is | Ken Robinson | Comment is free. Ken Robinson: How to escape education's death valley. Sugata Mitra: Build a School in the Cloud. Designing Creative Confidence. The Classroom Might Remain Relevant. Timothy Goodman’s Posters for the Institute of Play. Culture of Innovation. Six Simple Rules For Doing Better With Less. A Great Creativity Poster for Teachers. 5 Outstanding TED Talks about Creativity. Innovation Is About Arguing, Not Brainstorming. Here's How To Argue Productively.