First, Melinda and Chris talked through some ideas about encouraging creativity:
Suggested resource:
,
Amazon.com: A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future (9781594481710): Daniel H. Pink: Books
Jon has been a Tech Director at SCIS and is know a Head of School. He had a conversation about how best to convince administrators about the benefits of technology in the classroom. His advice – don’t justify by a direct link but one of a number of initiatives the have a positive influence on student learning.
Somer resources:
The Fifth Discipline: The Art & Practice of the Learning Organization [Paperback]
Peter M. Senge
Visible Learning: A Synthesis of Over 800 Meta-Analyses Relating to Achievement [Paperback]
John Hattie 
LimeSurvey.org – THE Survey software – free and open source!
Activities:
10 questions about….. (a toothbrush – Where was it made? Why are the bristles white?
Thing in a jar: what is in there? What is the worst thing that could be in there? What would be the best? [ambiguous task]
Gavin Johnson (Home – ITGS at SWA)
Give kids the issue – student go out and find different sources. Otherwise they just focus on the one source.
Collaborative discussion using – EtherPad: Realtime Collaborative Text Editing
Society and Technology movies:
Ways to encourage discussion:
GLOBAL ISSUES SOURCES:
www.bbc.com (go to specific technology or health or location pages)
Global Issues Network (EARCOS conference one a year in Asia)
avert.com (statistics)
United Nations page (can subscribe for daily networks on Wire)
NPR podcasts (www.npr.org), ex: This American Life
Nova the world in balance. I think www.nova.com?
Ideas:
1. Have them research different sides of the issue before they debate/converse.
2. Have them research different sides and don’t tell them which side they will debate until they arrive in class.
3. Forums (Moodle?) – have the comment and discuss and they can’t repeat ideas that other students said
4. Have them discuss a future global issue that might happen in 5 years
5. In a TOK class they were on an “island of knowledge” and they rotated around to different island of the different types of knowledge, you can 5 people at each island and they have to rotate around each island and discuss their topic. (I think I wrote this down correctly – please correct if needed J )
6. Give students a role to play, ex: Director of Greenpeace, to discuss. They have to learn about different stakeholders.
7. Discuss without talking: using big pieces of paper, quote in the middle (provocative). They have a conversation with written words, then switch papers and comment on other discussion, then post around the room and walk around with pens and make them comment.
8. Jerry Springer talk-show with class – pick a host, audience members can ask questions
9. Quickfire Challenges (from Chef show) – give them a time limit, given a topic and they have to make a storyboard to make (they will then pass on their storyboard to a different group but don’t tell them first), then pass on the boards and the next groups uses flipcams to record 3 pieces of the storyboard and then later discuss. The video might only be 30 seconds. Brings up communication discussion. Good activity to do in the beginning of the year.
10. How to take discussions to writing papers – model low, medium, high level examples, have them grade them, teach them about the rubrics, etc peer grading, give them a timed period to write about it and then have them in groups grade the responses with a rubric. Do it again and again so they get used to format and you can give them the say question so they can write about it again and improve. Have to work with them over and over.
Topics:
– AIDS
– Elections in Afghanistan
Here I am at the Learning 2.010 conference. I’ve signed , up to the ‘Fostering a Culture of Learning and Creativity’ Cohort lead by Melinda Alford & Chris Betcher. What’s the aim?
All kids have these things, but sometimes it just feels like “school” is designed to suppress, rather than encourage, them. These things are messy, and don’t always fit neatly into our nice neat model of teaching and learning.
As educators, how do we ensure that we are nurturing these important traits in our students? What strategies can we use to tap into these important qualities? In particular, how can technology be used to amplify our students’ sense of wonder about the world, and how can it help us connect, communicate and collaborate in richly engaging ways that helps them truly live up to the idea of being a “lifelong learner”?
In this cohort we hope to investigate a wide range of ways that we can continue to bring out the best in our students, and support their natural creativity and innate curiosity.
First good resource of the day came in the first 5 minutes: http://www.boxoftricks.net Paul from Hong Kong mentioned that he tells his students to go to the resources page and just explore! The students are engaged and curiosity leads them to new places.
Video of plan with wing falling off:
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