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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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Listening with Care
One of my work duties involves observations of learning interactions in an experimental classroom, the Learning Studio. Until I completed the Listening Differently assignment in the Creativity MOOC, I hadn’t realized how I had seen the Learning Studio with my eyes, but hadn’t captured a lot of other interactions with my ears. The scope of my observation had been limiting and limited. Julian Treasure’s video is a fabulous resource to review (Thanks again, Tina Seelig!). He is right; “we are losing our listening.” When novelty ceases to be so, we…
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Desiring to Learn is Not Enough by Itself
I’ve enrolled in numerous MOOCs and finished just one — so far. I think I may have found another that I will complete: UQx: Think 101x The Science of Everyday Thinking. Up to 80,000 people are taking part in this MOOC run by the University of Queensland.It’s Week 2 — the instructors organize the units into Episodes — and I’ve completed all assignments (except one) in Episode 2, on the very day it was made available. I’m astounded by my effort. What is it about this MOOC that has me…
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TyRuben Ellingson: Digital Pragmata Brown Bag
TyRuben Ellingson delivered an outstanding talk today at the Academic Learning Commons 4100. I took some sketchnotes for reflection. Two major throughlines for this presentation, as I see it, are: How do you become really good at doing something? What fosters creativity? I read and think about deep learning and effective learning — constantly. TyRuben’s talk adds to that mashup of ideas from print and nonprint resources. I see a pattern in learning that is necessary for one to become an exquisite and consummate artist (or an expert in any…
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Border Crossing: In a Constant State of Negotiation
In my “new” workplace, I’m quite often told a few things that are “normal” in my former environment. As these comments became more of an occurrence, I began to reflect on them a little more as self-checks.1. I have animated facial expressions. In the hearing world, I’m considered expressive because I include facial expressions to enhance communication. I have acquired this ability through learning sign language. It has become automatized in my mind; I don’t think about whether I’m doing it. Yet, in the Deaf world, I’m not sufficiently expressive.…
