Here in 60 Seconds

I have so much I would like to say about infographics, but I felt I needed to put this infographic on my blog ASAP. I have just returned home from ISTE 2011 and my head is spinning. I always hate going back to work the day after this conference, because I am in quite a daze (good daze, but a daze all the same). There are ideas, people, inspirations, future creations all running through my head, and I really need to sort them out. OK, with that, I have used 60 seconds to type these words, and in that same time, so much has happened! For better and for worse, the world is moving faster than ever, and educators need to teach to generations of children who are accustomed to moving at this pace.


Infographic by- Shanghai Web Designers

Design

I have begun reading Daniel Pink's book, A Whole New Mind and have started into Part 2; the six senses. The first of the senses described is Design. Pink says, "Design is a high-concept aptitude that is difficult to outsource or automate-and that increasingly confers a competitive advantage in business." (pg. 86)
What does Pink mean by this? I must admit that to me the answer is really nothing new, in fact he is just bringing us full circle to a time long ago...the Renaissance. Once upon a time, there were people who excelled in a multitude of areas, business, art, theology, science, architecture and much much more. These people were the premiere thinkers of their time, agents of change in a rather unchanging world. These men are now aptly dubbed Renaissance men (society was quite patriarchal then). Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Socrates, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson and the list goes on were these types of people, and yes, most of them facilitated change.
More recently (within the last century), skill specialization, along with a focus on what Pink calls L-directed thinkers put a premium on those that were number crunchers, business minded and the like. Those with Renaissance skill sets were less valued for those that could specialize in a highly touted skill. However, the world is now saturated with these specialized worker bees and many outside the US offer these skills at a cheaper rate than those in the US. More to my point, and to Pink's is that this L-directed thinking is no longer a commodity, so what is going to set those that will be agents of change apart from the crowd? One of the answers is Design.
I heartily agree with this point. Creativity was once seen as the things of dreamers, but as so many now understand, dreaming and making dreams come true are the things that we really do value. Apple's poster campaign "Think Different" is a perfect example of how this sense of "design" really is one of the qualities that will make our future brighter.
Pink's book gives some exercises to help develop and hone one's design sense. One of the ideas I was able to put right to action was reading design magazines. I do most of my reading online, and therefore I am going to share two sites that Pink shares. The first is Ambidextrous, a magazine put out by Stanford university. The second is Metropolis, with emphasis on construction and materials. I am always looking to increase my knowledge base.
With my renewed interest in developing my Renaissance persona, I will be adding Design to my repetoire of skills to infuse in my classes, lessons and professional development delivery. With all of the educational technology tools available, there should never be a shortage of creative design.

Teachers and Web 2.0

This great slideshow from Sacha Chua (www.livinganawesomelife.com) is a wonderfully simple way of looking at learning new technologies. She takes an easy look at some of the reasons teachers give for not learning the technology, and adds a retort that challenges their current paradigm. The bottom line that I took away from this is that teachers are the most important component and that we need to open ourselves up to learn and change!

A Teacher's Guide To Web 2.0 at School

View more documents from Sacha Chua.

Starting the New Year 2009 with failure?

How important is failing? This might seem like a strange question, but the reality is, if we don't fail, how will we know how to rebound when it does happen? In society today we are constantly insulating our children from failure. We have the "everyone wins" school of thought or the "winning is everything" mantra, but what happens when everyone does not win, or when a child does fail at something?

I am in the school of thought that children need to learn how to fail and how to recover and try again. I was reading a blog of one person in educational technology who points out that some of the fear in using technology is that people don't know what to do if it does not work, if it fails. Well, we need to try again! The greatest minds of our world rarely get the right answer or the life changing discovery on the first try. Rather it is how they have learned from their failures and were able to build upon them. The same blog referenced this video of Michael Jordan, and it is quite poetic.



Thinking ahead, I am looking forward to my failures as well as my successes and what may come of them both.