Information About The Course We have created a new course (based on the “Puzzle-Based Learning” book) that focuses on getting students to think about framing and solving unstructured problems. We believe that the course is based on the best traditions introduced by Gyorgy Polya and Martin Gardner during the last 60 years. The course can be offered as a full semester course or as a unit – part of an introductory course (e.g. Introduction to Engineering, or Introduction to Business). The course follows the text: each week in the semester (for a full semester course) or each single lecture (in the unit version of the course) corresponds to one chapter of the book. Thus during each of the first three lectures a single problem-solving rule is discussed. To enhance student engagement and participation, many of the assignments can be based on software versions of some puzzles and provided to students in the form of serious games. Finally, power-point slides and other teaching materials are available on request.
10 Ways History’s Finest Kept Their Focus at Work Post written by Albert van Zyl from the blog HeadSpace. The lives of great people give us interesting clues about how to organise our days. All of them attached great value to their daily routines. This is because they saw it as being part of ‘becoming who they are’, as Nietzsche puts it. For the same reason they were also highly individual in their routines. This is perhaps the first lesson that we can learn – that it takes courage and resolve to design and stick to a routine that suits you. There are at least 10 other lessons that the daily routines of the great can teach us: 1. Despite the modern obsession with physical presence at offices (also known as ‘presenteeism’), very few of the great worked long hours. Philosopher Michel Foucault would only work from 9am to 3pm. 2. Even during these short days, the great took plenty of breaks. Socrates would sometimes simply stop and hold completely still for several minutes. 3. 4. Churchill would even have a bath and dress for meals. 5. 6. 7.
The Pomodoro Technique (Francesco Cirillo) What is The Pomodoro Technique? EASY for anyone to use! Improves productivity IMMEDIATELY! FUN to do! Why Pomodoro? The Pomodoro Technique isn’t like any other time-management method on the market today. For many people, time is an enemy. Essential to the Pomodoro Technique is the notion that taking short, scheduled breaks while working eliminates the “running on fumes” feeling you get when you’ve pushed yourself too hard. Whether it’s a call, a Facebook message, or suddenly realizing you need to change the oil in your car, many distracting thoughts and events come up when you’re at work. Most of us are intimately acquainted with the guilt that comes from procrastinating. Who does the technique work for? These are all ways real folks use the Pomodoro Technique: Motivate yourself to write.Limit distractions.Keep track of how long you’re spending brainstorming / writing / revising.Reduce back and neck pain by walking around during Pomodoro breaks.Draft a book in three weeks. How It works
Toyota Production System A production system which is steeped in the philosophy of "the complete elimination of all waste" imbuing all aspects of production in pursuit of the most efficient methods.> Toyota Motor Corporation's vehicle production system is a way of "making things" that is sometimes referred to as a "lean manufacturing system" or a "Just-in-Time (JIT) system," and has come to be well known and studied worldwide.This production control system has been established based on many years of continuous improvements, with the objective of "making the vehicles ordered by customers in the quickest and most efficient way, in order to deliver the vehicles as quickly as possible." Based on the basic philosophies of jidoka and Just-in-Time, the TPS can efficiently and quickly produce vehicles of sound quality, one at a time, that fully satisfy customer requirements.
Technology and Building Sites Technology and Building Sites This page is one small part of Good Sites for Kids! Now with a Morse Code and Cryptology section! Look for to see what's been added lately! Some of the descriptions on this page are a bit long. 360° Panorama of London "The 320 gigapixel image - taken by expert photography firm 360Cities – comprises 48,640 individual frames which have been collated into a single panorama by a supercomputer." Actionbits "Action Bits is a series of in-depth technology skills classes developed by a team of professionals — experienced teachers & veterans of the high-tech industry — committed to teaching kids the computer skills they will need to excel in school...and beyond!" Activity TV This truly excellent site has at least a couple of hundred good instructional videos on subjects like paper airplanes, science projects, magic, making jewelry, crafts, origami, juggling, cheerleading, cooking (!) Anatomy of a Refrigerator "You likely have one, but do you know how it works?" EdHeads!
Innovation and the Bell Labs Miracle But we idealize America’s present culture of innovation too much. In fact, our trailblazing digital firms may not be the hothouse environments for creativity we might think. I find myself arriving at these doubts after spending five years looking at the innovative process at Bell Labs, the onetime research and development organization of the country’s formerly monopolistic telephone company, AT&T. Why study Bell Labs? Indeed, in the search for innovative models to address seemingly intractable problems like climate change, we would do well to consider Bell Labs’ example — an effort that rivals the Apollo program and the Manhattan Project in size, scope and expense. In his recent letter to potential shareholders of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg noted that one of his firm’s mottoes was “move fast and break things.” Consider what Bell Labs achieved. Bell Labs produced a startling array of other innovations, too. And these are just a few of the practical technologies. Still another method Mr.
Where do you start when you set a fee for your services? (Going Solo, ComMetrics' blog) Going Solo Live, Having a session on billing, how do you get projects paid for – billing – hourly or per project or comingation, find out and read on. I keep blogging about this #GoingSolo, @Suw @dahowlett, @StowBoyd We have already posted these stories about Going Solo Live here: Going Solo – @Pistachio – how to use Twitter smartly NOT Going Solo – it started Suw Charmann moderated a session entitled Setting Rates and Negotiating with clients Martin Roell, Stowe Boyd, Dennis Howlett. - set your rates according to type of client, type of project, different risks, different pay-offs, etc - often it depends on what you are doing – people compare your rates to other people’s rates; - what is the job worth to your client; Whatever you do it will depend upon: - type of project - size of corporation – Fortune 500 companies are used to paying certain rates Bottom Line Very much about billing is based on comparing your price – while this might imply your services are commoditized – it is reality.
Jidoka Automation with a human touch The term jidoka used in the TPS (Toyota Production System) can be defined as "automation with a human touch." The word jidoka traces its roots to the invention of the automatic loom by Sakichi Toyoda, Founder of the Toyota Group. The automatic loom is a machine that spins thread for cloth and weaves textiles automatically.Before automated devices were commonplace, back-strap looms, ground looms, and high-warp looms were used to manually weave cloth. In 1896, Sakichi Toyoda invented Japan's first self-powered loom called the "Toyoda Power Loom." Subsequently, he incorporated numerous revolutionary inventions into his looms, including the weft-breakage automatic stopping device (which automatically stopped the loom when a thread breakage was detected), the warp supply device and the automatic shuttle changer. Type-G Toyoda Automatic Loom, the origin of jidoka Concept of jidoka Jidoka and Visual Control Visual Control using Andon
Bloom’s Taxonomy: The 21st Century Version So much have been written about Bloom’s taxonomy; one click in a search engine will flood your page with hundreds of articles all of which revolve around this taxonomy. Only few are those who have tried to customize it to fit in the 21st century educational paradigm. As a fan of Bloom’s pedagogy and being a classroom practitioner, I always look for new ways to improve my learning and teaching, and honestly speaking , if you are a teacher/ educator and still do not understand Bloom’s taxonomy then you are missing out on a great educational resource. The following article is a summary and a fruit of my long painstaking research in the field of Bloom’s taxonomy. The purpose is to help teachers grow professionally and provide them with a solid informational background on how to better understand and apply Bloom’s taxonomy in classrooms in the light of the new technological advances and innovations. 1 – The cognitive : The intellectual or knowledge based domain consisted of 6 levels .
John Cleese on the 5 Factors to Make Your Life More Creative by Maria Popova “Creativity is not a talent. It is a way of operating.” Much has been said about how creativity works, its secrets, its origins, and what we can do to optimize ourselves for it. In this excerpt from his fantastic 1991 lecture, John Cleese offers a recipe for creativity, delivered with his signature blend of cultural insight and comedic genius. Specifically, Cleese outlines “the 5 factors that you can arrange to make your lives more creative”: The lecture is worth a watch in its entirety, below, if only to get a full grasp of Cleese’s model for creativity as the interplay of two modes of operating — open, where we take a wide-angle, abstract view of the problem and allow the mind to ponder possible solutions, and closed, where we zoom in on implementing a specific solution with narrow precision. A few more quotable nuggets of insight excerpted below the video. Creativity is not a talent. We need to be in the open mode when pondering a problem — but! Thanks, Simon
Rachota -- a portable application for timetracking different projects