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Boundlessness
The limit is not in the sky . The limit is in the mind . A photo posted by Derek Hough (@derekhough) on Nov 11, 2014 at 9:58am PST
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Supporting Faculty to Teach Creatively & Teach For Creativity
[Context: This has been a challenging post to write. I had what I would call a creative-and-memory hangup. So long has lapsed since I started reading this book that I found myself asking, “Why did I underline these texts? Why the sticky notes?” But I’m going ahead to publish these thoughts anyway because this is what learning is all about — not easy at times. A toast to visible learning!] Wagner, T. (2012). Creating innovators: The making of young people who will change the world. New York: Scribner. [Purchased: February…
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Online Teaching and “Body Language”
Image description: A quotation by Jenifer Ringer, “Terry taught ballet as if it were very important and precious.” Vignette 1: “Terry taught ballet as if it were very important and precious.” – Jenifer Ringer, Dancing Through It: My Journey in the Ballet. Image Description: Feet clad in ballet shoes standing on pointe position A line in a book given to me during the early days of losing my parents; supposedly the heroine’s victory over her struggles would inspire me. A short sentence fraught with meaning and implications. I especially love…
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Help! I am teaching online
I thought about adding these 5 words (my blogpost title) to the trending hashtag in Twitter, #ScaryStoriesIn5Words. Those tweets made Halloween Day somewhat more Halloween for me, lots of drama and jokes. Scary? Not so much at the ALT Lab where I was stationed for livestreamed sessions from the Online Learning Consortium’s International Conference (OLC). Which is a good thing. The turnout wasn’t ideal but a real and urgent need of some faculty or future faculty members emerged from conversations with some attendees. Some major questions were: “I think I’m going to…
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Visual Language
A couple of weeks ago, a faculty member contacted us to ask for tips to help his students’ articulate their ideas in more creative ways. As I responded to the request by suggesting some resources, I realized that in an unplanned way, I’ve spent some time trying out software and documented my playtime in my blog. I was thus able to refer the faculty member to examples of software and activities I’ve tried out myself or learned from others. Here are some older blogposts I’ve written about my “serious play”…
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Thinking Like the Web
Anant Agarwal, CEO of EdX, describes MOOCs as the next-generation textbooks. As I was savoring Unit 3 of #CCourses, I tried to think about how students would respond to such a textbook. There’s a lot of information offered by the course, but we don’t have to cover all of them during these two weeks. When I first landed on the course, I was overwhelmed by the sheer volume of content and readings available. This week, I’ve learned to take it slowly, thanks to fellow #CCourses colleague, Tania Sheko, who blogged about…
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525600 minutes
[Note: Have you watched Rent, the Musical? That’s where the title of this blogpost comes from.] I returned to work this week. At one of our meetings, we discussed how we would measure the impact of our work and how we would report it. Traditionally, we think about impact in terms of productivity, time spent (number of consultations!), the importance of the project, and response to the effort. A whole field is devoted to systematically researching how we assess and measure employee productivity– human resource development and/or management, so I…
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MCOs of Learning and Instruction
[This is my first post for #ccourses!] One area of research learning scientists is concerned with is what Reigeluth and Merrill (1978; Reigeluth, 1983) call MCO variables in instruction; Methods (teaching strategies; manipulate-able by instructors and learning designers), Conditions (e.g. disciplinary goals, constraints, student characteristics; not manipulate-able) and (desired) Outcomes. One of Unit 1‘s readings by Randy Bass (2012) reminded me of MCOs and the what and how to improve learning in these times. He put forth some changes instructors and institutions would need to make in light of the current learning and instructional…
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Dancing in the Rain
Reentering blogosphere with a happy song and a feel-good story about the impact of YouTube. Bethany Mota was a victim of cyberbullying as a younger teen (she’s 18 now!). Instead of moping, she turned to YouTube to find her voice. Bethany is now a social media star with nearly 7.5 million subscribers to her channel, and dances with talented dance pro, Derek Hough, on Dancing with the Stars. Last night, she shared these stories in her Most Memorable Year of Her Life dance. To the tune of Colbie Caillat‘s Try,…
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The Interlude
Last blog-post: June 12. Last tweet: June 19. Between June 18 to June 20, I fulfilled a wish that had long been on my mind since 2001 — to learn Graphic Recording and Facilitation skills from the pioneers, The Grove Consultants. Since the late 1990s, I had delved into visual thinking, mindmapping, and graphic recording. I loved doodling, thinking and writing. Graphic recording/facilitation allows me to combine all 3 loves in an interesting way. While at the lovely Grove office at the Presidio, San Francisco, I received news on June…
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Thought Vectors: How a Thinkaholic Feels
Hi, my name is Yin and I’m a thinkaholic. (Check out concept and picture by Leah of Dharma Comics.) This chronic malady has its side effects. I’ve thought and blogged about its “collateral damage” quite a bit some 7 years ago. Here’s a paragraph from the post, Inner vs. Outside World, December 12, 2007 (on a private blog) about solo fantasy thinking: Quite often–, my inner world is more exciting than the outside world as my mind races through a myriad of topics and imagine the possibilities for adventure. I…
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Thought Vectors Self-Portrait
I know, I know. My apologies for another introductory post for a MOOC. I will try to make this short and sharp. Greetings to my fellow MOOCers from Richmond, Virginia! For those who are just reading this blog, I wrote an earlier introductory blogpost which is more visual using a Life Story album cover and a Life Story playlist. That was for a Creativity MOOC by Tina Selig which I successfully completed for the second time! Yay! The trail that led to this post began with a legendary tale about…
