5 innovative tools to spice up your presentations. Constructing Creativity in the Classroom. I just finished reading a stimulating article by Laura Seargeant Richardson, The Kaleidoscope Mind: Some Easy Ways to Teach Creativity, published in The Atlantic magazine.
Richardson’s article was a breath of fresh air, focusing on the ability to train the mind to view the world not just in a different way, but in many different ways. She writes The term kaleidoscope is Greek and is loosely interpreted as “an observer of beautiful forms.” So what, then, is a kaleidoscope mind? The Hans family would say it’s “a type of mind that is agile, flexible, self-aware, and informed by a diversity of experiences.”
I agree as well. Originally, I thought kids either “had it” or didn’t when this type of thinking was involved. So how is it done? What is it? Take an ordinary, everyday object, such as a CD, and pass it around. Things that _____. In this exercise, you provide a word, and students brainstorm for different ways to use the word. Have you noticed that these are natural instincts for a child? 9 Handy Tips for Effective E-Learning Slideshows. In the past we have spent time talking about how the fatal flaw of many E-Learning PowerPoints is found not with the audience, but with the presentation itself.
They are boring! And boredom my dear friends is NOT an effective teaching technique! So today we are going to take things one step further. Instead of looking at what makes PowerPoint bad, we are going to spend our time learning about what we can do to make it good. And we are going to do that by taking a closer look at Gange’s Nine Steps of Instructional Design. Never heard of it? 1. The first step to crafting an effective slideshow is to grab the attention of your audience.
Think about it this way. Demo an activityStorytellingOffer a problemIllustrate how not to do something These types of activities are known as “interest devices”. 2. Once you have their attention, now its time to get to the meat of the issue. The idea behind this tip is to stay on target. 3. Or….don’t spend all your time covering old ground. 4. 5. 6. 7.
New iPad App Lets Any Teacher Be Like Sal Khan. Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ve by now heard of Sal Khan and his growing collection of YouTube video lessons covering a dizzying array of subjects. Khan’s popularity has sparked a debate among educators about the effectiveness of his methods and the role of online video lessons in education. As educators debate, students appear to be voting with their eyeballs, as traffic to Khan Academy is exploding. Are tomorrow’s students destined to learn all their math lessons from the prolific Mr. Khan? Not so fast, according to the founders of Educreations . “Khan has provided a powerful example of what’s possible,” says Educreations CEO Wade Roberts. Quick & Simple It’s an ambitious goal. Just Released The Educreations iPad app, which launched this week as a free download in the App Store ( iTunes link ), transforms the tablet into an interactive whiteboard that records a teacher’s voice and handwriting as they explain a concept or work through an example problem.
How It’s Different.