Category Archives: creativity

21st century learning, creativity, Education, learning, teaching, Web 2.0

Siftables – the toy blocks that think

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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JP0w9lZoLwU]

David Merrill is the creative inventor of Siftables, small computer blocks that interact with each other, offering a myriad of learning possibilities using physical manipulation and play.

I’m so inspired by people like David, and by the way he talks just as much as what he does. His passionate explanation of his new discovery reveals  creative and innovative thinking. He says “I started to wonder… what if…?” And that’s the point where you  know something great is going to happen. ‘What if…?’ is something I think we should do more often.

So he thinks ‘What if, when we use computers, instead of having a single mouse cursor, we could reach with both hands and grasp information physically, arranging it the way we wanted it?’

David’s idea came from watching kids play with blocks, and understanding that through this physical play they were learning how to think and solve problems by understanding and manipulating spatial relationships.  He argues that spatial reasoning is deeply linked with how we understand the world around us.

From this idea, David, the computer scientist, came up with a concept and developed a new tool – Siftables; you could grab information physically and arrange it the way you wanted to. Siftables, according to David, are an example of a new ecosystem of tools for manipulating information, for exploring new and fun interaction styles. The blocks are somehow aware of each other, aware of the nuances of how we move them, and respond accordingly. The examples he showed were language and maths games, as well as musical composition, but he hinted that there were many more applications.

The game aspect is appealing. As David says, you don’t have to give kids many instructions – they work it out for themselves by playing around with the blocks. Discovery.

The music was my favourite example, and I immediately wanted to have a go.  The Siftables enabled you to inject sounds into a sequence that you could assemble into the pattern you wanted.

David says, ‘My passion is to make new human computer interfaces that are a better match to ways our brains and bodies work… we are on the cusp of a new generation of tools for interacting with digital media that is going to bring information into our world on our terms.’

A powerful statement.

I like the way he’s thinking about matching digital tools with our brains AND bodies. I often think about how traditional education, with its expectation that students sit still and listen for prolonged periods of time, or work on teacher-prescribed work which focuses on text, doesn’t match the way adolescents function, and definitely doesn’t take into account their need for physical activity.

Siftables may have been created for young children but I think there is much potential for adolescents too. This is an excellent example to underline something I’ve been saying for a while: technology is not an end in itself. Technological tools are just tools, but they can enhance learning, and with the learner in mind, and particularly with the learning aims in mind, they can enable creative and innovative activity.

 Thanks to @marciamarcia for this link.

21st century learning, author, creativity, Education, learning, Literature, networking, reading, Teacher librarians, technology, Web 2.0

Shakespeare on Facebook

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[scribd id=4907297 key=key-10nxnctst7rgc6yw9e62]

This made me laugh. Some of my favourite Hamlet statuses:

Hamlet wonders if he should continue to exist. Or not.
Hamlet added England to the Places I’ve been application.
Ophelia loves flowers. Flowers, flowers, flowers. Oh look, a river.

I wonder if other versions exist. This could be a creative writing idea. You actually do need to know about the play to be able to write the statuses.

Photo courtesy of Sakypaky on Flickr

 

Our Head English teacher is using Facebook in the hope that it will allow boys who don’t usually contribute in class to have a voice in front of their peers. How do you explain to cynics your choice of Facebook as a platform for learning?

Adolescents have moved to Facebook for networking and communication. I’ve become a Facebook addict myself. One of its offerings is a non-threatening form of communication with a potentially large group. Another is the satisfaction of belonging to a group. It’s more accepting and democratic than face-to-face interaction – it doesn’t judge you by your appearance, age or abilities. You can choose your own hours. You can stand back and observe, or you can jump in and lend your voice.

Transfer all this to a learning environment, and you have a potentially brilliant scenario. Those who are slower to respond to discussion will not be pushed out. There’s time to think, respond, edit. The teacher can set the stage and then creep back to give control to the students. Hopefully, students will feel more comfortable to ask questions, give suggestions.

Those of you who’ve been reading my blog will know that I believe we should use technology and social media in creative ways to facilitate learning and engage students. Not for its own sake, and never without good reason. Recently my webpage on the school library intranet has evolved into a blog ‘What’s new in fiction?’ I’m so over people saying things like ‘Oooh, a blog! You’re really into all that technology stuff!. Well, no… I’m not. I’m not into it. I’m just looking at what possibilities it has for engaged and creative learning and teaching. Here is a list of things I appreciate about the fiction blog when talking to classes about books and reading:

It evolves nicely; each post introduces a new book, author, series, etc.
I can use casual, relaxed language, with even some humour
I can include pictures (book covers, author photos, etc.) and videos (book or film trailers, interviews, etc.)
Colour, font size, layout make a difference
I can include links to author and series websites, transcripts, extracts, maps, etc.
There is choice in what the students read, how much, when, etc. Compare that to a teacher’s talk;
Authors become real people as students link to interviews, blogs that reveal everyday chat or writing processes, weaknesses, personality, background, musical tastes, etc.

(OK, the above points are not unique to blogs)
Here come the blog-specific points:

The students read and write comments, ranging from the non-threatening two-word comment, to the more elaborate or passionate response;

Reading peer comments is more satisfying than listening to teachers’ views (hence Facebook idea);

Other people in the school community can write a post or book review, eg. non-librarians (leading the students to the realisation that it’s not just librarians who read, and that reading is ipso facto not solely a librarian’s past-time;

These other people could be students of all ages, teachers, teachers who wouldn’t normally be associated with reading by students (don’t take offense, but I’m thinking sport teachers, science and maths teachers, male teachers…)

The combination of different readers, each with their own reading preferences, their own way of writing, provides students with a kaleidoscopic view of what’s interesting to read;

Students take ownership of the blog by writing or commenting, by suggesting content, and the school community becomes involved in what was previously a librarian’s domain.

Reading is actually discussing, arguing, agreeing and disagreeing, thinking, wondering, escaping; and you know all this because of the discussion;

Reading becomes collective, cool, broader (you realise that tastes vary greatly and it’s okay to have your preferences; reading can be student-directed and even fun.

What I regret is that my fiction blog is a closed blog on the school intranet. It serves its purpose, but misses out on further possibilities and connections.

What are your views about using Web 2.0 tools like blogs and Facebook in teaching and learning?

art, creativity, flickr, photos, teaching, Web 2.0

Flickr – take a closer look

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I use Flickr to upload my photos, when I need images, and to share photos and the stories behind these photos in groups.

Today I went for a walk around other parts of Flickr. Here’s what I saw.

I scrolled down to the bottom of the Flickr homepage and clicked on ‘Explore’. Here’s what I found.

This photo is from M_Jose’s photostream, and comes with a caption:

Sometimes (always), we “need” (no must) to stop and look inside (it is an option not an obligation)

Flickr explains the ‘explore’ option:

Flickr labs have been hard at work creating a way to show you some of the most awesome content on Flickr.

We like to call it interestingness.

What’s ‘interestingness’?

There are lots of elements that make something ‘interesting’ (or not) on Flickr. Where the clickthroughs are coming from; who comments on it and when; who marks it as a favorite; its tags and many more things which are constantly changing. Interestingness changes over time, as more and more fantastic content and stories are added to Flickr.

To explore, you can choose a month of selected flickr photos; here’s an example:

calendarflickr

When you click on one of these photos, you get to see more interesting photos for this day

jan1calendar2

 

You can also explore many geo-tagged photos, for example, I chose Manchu Pichu, Peru

geotagged

I picked Machu Picchu terraces from Stut’s photostream

An amazing photo of extraordinary detail. The rest of the photostream turned out to be just as impressive. Some people are very talented, not to mention lucky to be able to travel.

There are tutorials on how to explore, how to geotag your own photostream, or you can do a location search on geotagged photos.

Why not explore the map of the world? I entered ‘mosaic’ in the search box of the map of the world and got this

mosaicworldmap1

Great find for art classes! There were so many interesting results. Here’s one of them:

It’s from Nir Toba’s photostream. Fascinating to read about the photo.

All the photos in one layout.
It took about 15 hours, in 2 sessions, and every letter had about
30-50 takes until i got i right (and lot’s of gasoline!).

This is a part of my portfolio for graphic design school,
& if you we’re wondering: yes, these are real photos, not photoshop… 🙂

I also looked at the church of St George, Oplenac, Serbia by Katarina 2353

Interesting to note that the photo belongs to several photo sets that are also worth exploring (it never stops!): Serbia(Belgrade), religion and mythology, Balkans, and architecture. I love the information that’s included with the photo:

The church of St. George and the mausoleum of the Karađorđević dynasty was built at the top of Mali Oplenac (Little Oplenac). King Petar I decided to build a church and a mausoleum for both his ancestors and descendants to fulfil a wish of his parents buried in Vienna.
The church is covered with white marble from nearby Venčac mine. Interior is covered in mosaics, with more than 6 million pieces.

What’s also interesting is the interpretation of ‘mosaic’. This lends itself easily to various possibilities in art or English lessons. Compare the previous images for ‘mosaic’ to this one by Lucy Nieto

This belongs to a set ‘mosaicos de fotos’ which is an amazing page of colour and design

mosaicosdefotos

Here’s yet another interpretation of ‘mosaic’ by Katarina 2353

I could go on forever, but the trouble with that would be that forever is a very long time. And the Flickr site is always changing. Every time I reload a page, a different photo is showing. I think the post is getting too long, so I’ll hurry up my last observations. Other ways of exploring include popular tags, flickr blog, most recent uploads, and more. The camera finder  page checks out the most popular brands of cameras used.

camerafinder1

Why not look at the sitemap to get a comprehensive view of what’s out there. I know that I haven’t explored every aspect of Flickr, but I’m tired now, so I’ll leave the rest of the exploration to you.

Don’t forget to let me know what you find.

21st century learning, creativity, Education, flickr, photos, teaching

Images4Education

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I’ve joined the Images4Education group on flickr.

images4education

 

Like all photo groups, the collaboration and community is fantastic, but there’s the added focus on education. There’s something satisfying about using images that have a story or explanation, images that come from real people that we can communicate with. It’s easy to check permission and always possible to contact people for permission of use when you’ve added them as a flickr contact.

What’s even better is the NING supporting Images4Education.

One of the administators of this group, Carla Arena, offers 3 supportive offshoots:

a NING group

a wiki

a flickr-related discussion for the group

Shame that I’ve been too busy to participate in the 6-week online workshop focussing on using images in education.

In this six-week online workshop offered through the Electronic Village Online, participants will be introduced to various online image manipulation tools and will learn how to effectively incorporate these resources into their teaching practices. They will explore how images can be used in educational settings for photo sharing, storytelling, slideshows and comics creation, as well as understand how Creative Commons licensing can be beneficial for classroom use.  By the end of the workshop, participants will have the chance to develop a plan to begin incorporating digital production into their lesson plans.

All is not lost, as browsing through the NING will attest to. Blog posts, discussions, photos and videos are some of the treats in store for you here.

Currently the focus is on digital storytelling.  Members share their stories and links to their presentations. Sometimes a favourite book is recommended, for example, 99 ways to tell a story, and sometimes favourite tools will be reviewed or showcased, such as Capzles or other tools.

What may seem like a trivial theme always turns out to be a fascinating learning experience. A good example is ‘What’s on your table. A gastronomic view of our group’.  Scroll through this page and you’ll learn about cultures and customs through colourful photos of food and get-togethers.

moldovancabbagerolls

 Some of the images are clickable and take you to a page with information about the picture.

Here’s a photo with everything on my plate (yes, I know! I’ll have to exercise the whole month after this gastronomic orgy!). We put the Feijoada over the white rice, eat the oranges and the collard greens. Some put the fried plantains with the rice and beans.On this photo, you cannot see the fried yuca and the cassava flour which are also very traditional side dishes to the Feijoada. You have to try it! It’s irresistible. Even better with cold beer or Caipirinhas, our national drink made of lime. 

The NING has excellent groups such as one dealing with everything you need to know about using flickr, or everything you need to know about Creative Commons.

There’s a slideshows group, a Moodle tools group (which I’m yet to investigate), and a lesson plans group.

I usually zoom in on the discussion forum for ideas and links.

forumimages4

The best way to discover what else is available is to have a look for yourself. Images really are a wonderful way to engage learners and use creative teaching methods. There’s more to it than meets the eye!

21st century learning, creativity, Education, learning, technology, Web 2.0

I’m not good at maths but I could be

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googleearthlessons

 

As I’ve said already, I’m not good at maths but I think I could be. I get the feeling that my learning style wasn’t catered for in the maths classroom. Something like Real World Math might have done the trick.

What a great way to take maths out of the textbook and into the real wide world. Google Earth’s satellite views of the earth and the interactive 3D environment allow users to add placemarks, annotations, photos and models, as well as measure distances and draw paths.

Within this site you will find lesson ideas, examples, and downloads for mathematics that embrace active learning, constructivism, and project-based learning while remaining true to the standards.  The initial focus will be for grades 5 and up, but teachers of younger students may be able to find some uses or inspiration from the site.  Higher level thinking skills, such as analysis, synthesis, and creativity are encouraged as well as technology skills and social learning.  The scope of this site is mathematics, but many lessons lend themselves to interdisciplinary activities also. 

 Higher level thinking skills, creativity, technology, social learning, and potential for interdisciplinary activities! Just what we need for our students today.

The site has separate areas: the Lessons page; the Community page; the Update page; and the Resource page.

The Lessons are grouped into 4 categories: Concept Lessons, Project-Based Learning, Exploratory, and Measurement.

The Community page is a strong point enabling collaboration and communication amongst users. In my opinion, that’s the drawcard of technology in education.

The other two pages are self-explanatory.

Thomas J. Petra, the author of the site, says this:

Math teachers are always searching for meaningful, practical math lessons that engage their students.  I hope this site is useful to you and that your students learn real world math.computingwithscientificnotation

 An example of a lesson is ‘Computing with scientific notation’; here’s an extract of the instructions:

 

How long would it take to walk across Australia?  This lesson enables students to jump, walk, and crawl around the world without breaking a sweat.  The featured concept of this lesson is computing with scientific notation, but it also involves the distance formula, and measurement. 

In the left-hand navigation, you’ll see concepts used and grade level, eg.

Concepts used: Scientific Notation, Measurement, Rates, Algebra, Distance formula, Problem Solving

Grade level: Grades 7-9

When I clicked on the Community page I discovered it had been moved out onto a blog due to technical difficulties. The RealWorldMath Community blog provides a place for commenting, suggestions, feedback and lesson submissions.

I’m impressed with Real World Math and think it’s a rich educational resource for mathematics. If this was on the agenda in the Maths classroom, I might even give Maths another go.


 

21st century learning, creativity, flickr, photos

Shahi – A visual dictionary

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Have you noticed that the world is becoming increasingly visual? Well, that’s OK with me because I actually understand things better when text is accompanied with images. I’m sure I’m not the only one. In the learning realm, images – either still or moving – aid and enhance textual presentation: photos, maps, film, video clip, images on websites, visual search engines – and now a visual dictionary: Shahi.

Shahi is a visual dictionary that combines Wiktionary content with Flickr images, and more!

What I like about Shahi is the different perspectives you get from the same word. Let’s take the example ‘racism’. Here is one of the results; I like the humour and originality:

The word ‘dangerous’ yielded these results amongst others:

and this:

Definitely not what I expected!

Thought I’d try a verb – collaborate:

Never know what you’ll find.

As a teacher librarian I’m thinking of collecting images to go with fiction genres. Here’s fantasy:

What about crime?

A metaphorical meaning: photography is not a crime

Classroom possibilities beg to be discovered! Comparison of different interpretations of the same picture, guessing games, inspiration for students’ own images to accompany words, springboard for creative writing, collaborative slide presentations on a theme or message, and so on.

Thanks to Amanda for sharing this.

By the way, this reminds me of a post from a while ago,  A picture’s worth a thousand words.

21st century learning, creativity, flickr, media, Teacher librarians

Sharing commonstuff

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Two things worth mentioning today, not new things but things that made me think about the happy movement towards sharing and collaboration.

Larry Lessig’s TED talk isn’t new but I had another look at it and it’s a very clever presentation in favour of rethinking laws that prevent creative remixing of existing material on the web. It would probably sway even those who are resistant to changing copyright laws. Lessig’s instinctive talent for minimalist presentation accompanying logical argument which takes a surprising perspective, reveals  the absudity of copyright laws as we know them. What is he saying? Young people are using digital technologies to say things differently, and these tools of creativity are becoming tools of speech because this is how young people speak.  Larry’s point is that the law hasn’t reacted positively to these new developments, that the law is strangling creativity. He speaks out on copyright issues with a vision for reconciling creative freedom with marketplace competiton.

The talk is quite long but worth sticking with.

[youtube=http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=7Q25-S7jzgs]

The second thing: looking through Flickr, I noticed information about The Commons which was promoted as

Your opportunity to contribute to describing the world’s public photo collections.

The key goals of The Commons on Flickr are to firstly show you hidden treasures in the world’s public photography archives, and secondly to show how your input and knowledge can help make these collections even richer.

You’re invited to help describe the photographs you discover in The Commons on Flickr, either by adding tags or leaving comments.

Here’s an example of what you will see on The Commons.

Children riding a horse to school, Glass House Mountains
from State Library of Queensland, Australia

The organisations involved include The Library of Congress, Powerhouse Museum, Smithsonian Institution, National Media Museum, State Library of New South Wales, Australian War Memorial, New York Library, State Library of Queensland, and many other institutions from Australia and overseas.

The program has two main objectives:

  1. To increase access to publicly-held photography collections, and
  2. To provide a way for the general public to contribute information and knowledge. (Then watch what happens when they do!)

Some people are sceptical and scared of the new democratic collection of collaborative knowledge and creativity. Personally, I’m excited by it. You only have to look at projects such as this to see the magnitude of data compiled by people all over the place. Frightened people have insisted on ‘peer-reviewed’ information only. But wait – isn’t this peer-reviewed too? The collective controls the accuracy of incoming data? We have to think elastically – information is shape-shifting, and if we have new technology and creative ways to collect it and remix it, then we’ll also find new ways of ensuring its credibility. It’s like the librarians’ favourite – information literacy. Well, let’s not get stuck  following the letter of the law without understanding its essence. If information literacy is the ability to manage information, then we need to keep up with the new ways information is presenting itself. And as educators we need to prepare students for the new types of literacy. Let’s embrace the new explosion of creativity demonstrated by young people now. As Larry Lessig says, it’s not stealing, it’s a new take on what’s there. It’s like a composer taking a well-known theme and reworking it, taking it into different directions.

art, creativity, technology

From George Washington to Barack Obama

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It would be remiss of me not to post something about Barack Obama’s inauguration. Not for the first time, I’ve shirked a difficult synopsis of a complex event by opting for a video.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QYrZZ68zhSs&eurl=http://www.google.com/reader/view/?utm_campaign=en&utm_source=en-ha-ww-ww-bk&utm_medium=ha&utm_term=google+r&feature=player_embedded]

Theresa McGee posted this video in her post on the The Teaching Palette. It’s an interesting visual journey through the line of American presidents.

There is a similar morphing video in one of my earlier posts.

creativity, media, music

The Herd 2020 and Mike Daly – power of creative media

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I found this on Boing Boing, and enjoyed it so much on so many levels that I had to share it with you. Try not to dance to this. Inspirational as political message, visual feast, creative production, political springboard for discussion, power of media.

It’s a music video of the song 2020 by the Australia-based band, The Herd,  and it’s directed by Mike Daly.  Mike recently won the award ‘Australian Music Video of the Year’ at the 2008 J Awards for this video.

[youtube=http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=n65x_cSHSHE]