Links for 2012-03-28 [del.icio.us]

• Episodes | Sylvia's Super-Awesome Maker Show!

Baby Boomers and Technology | Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project: http://t.co/PYfRvatn #mscel #mscidel #lconnelly09

Baby Boomers and Technology | Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project: http://t.co/PYfRvatn #mscel #mscidel #lconnelly09

The server hosting the Holyrood Hub is down for planned maintenance today (9am-3pm) - so no access to Holyrood Hub just now. #mscel #mscidel

The server hosting the Holyrood Hub is down for planned maintenance today (9am-3pm) - so no access to Holyrood Hub just now. #mscel #mscidel

Links for 2012-03-27 [del.icio.us]

• Paul Cadden: The hyperrealist artist recreating photographs with pencil | Mail Online

RT @hamacleod: RT @lconnelly09: Call for Reviewers - Journal of Virtual Worlds Research: http://t.co/7ng53hRO #mscidel #mscel

RT @hamacleod: RT @lconnelly09: Call for Reviewers - Journal of Virtual Worlds Research: http://t.co/7ng53hRO #mscidel #mscel

RT @lconnelly09: Call for Reviewers - Journal of Virtual Worlds Research: http://t.co/7ng53hRO #mscidel #mscel

RT @lconnelly09: Call for Reviewers - Journal of Virtual Worlds Research: http://t.co/7ng53hRO #mscidel #mscel

Links for 2012-03-26 [del.icio.us]

• Game-Based Learning: new practices, new classrooms | eLearning
  Why should we implement games for learning? How should we do this? What games are appropriate for my needs? This new issue of eLearning Papers should help to find answers to such questions. The potential of Game Based Learning (GBL) is still underestimated. We firmly believe that GBL can play a major role in renewing learning as it is perceived by learners in all levels of education and training systems.
• Better Thinking for a Better Tomorrow - Associations Now Magazine - Resources - ASAE: The Center for Association Leadership
  The Synthesizing Mind: The Laser and the Searchlight While the disciplined mind exhibits a particular way of thinking--a navigational system for understanding information--the synthesizing mind is able to take the onslaught of information bombarding it, prune away that which is unnecessary, and hone in on what truly matters. It takes data from disparate sources and connects the dots. It ignores the static and hears the music. And according to Gardner, it will be the mind that most matters in the future. While the disciplined mind is characterized by what Gardner calls "laser intelligence" that probes deeply into a specific area and largely ignores opportunities for cross-pollination, the synthesizing mind, though disciplined as well, exhibits a "searchlight intelligence" that covers broader ground, brings together ideas from disparate sources, integrates them into a cohesive whole, and is able to present that cohesive whole cogently to others. Note: This is a description, basically, of the T thinkers design thinking creates
• A Class of Their Own: When Children Teach Children: Amazon.co.uk: Dennie Briggs: Books
  Seven million more children will enter our classrooms in the next decade while the number of adolescents will increase by 20%. We will require three million new teachers to instruct this expanding student population. Briggs proposes a program for training children to tutor younger students, thereby freeing up teachers to devote time to students who need more individualized attention and to teach analytic and human relations skills and imaginative uses of technology. Children are capable and need opportunities to participate in teaching as well as learning. Peer teachers improve their grasp of the subject and younger children learn from those who truly speak their language. The result is a mutually beneficial system for both teachers and children.
• Visible Thinking - LAST
  Looking for thinking in student work is new to many teachers. Teachers are often more accustomed to evaluating work, assessing it against established criteria, or focusing on the instruction of the lesson than looking for evidence of thinking. As a result, some teachers may initially feel like they don’t have enough information about the goals of instruction, how instruction unfolded, or the criteria by which to evaluating the success of the work. While this information can be useful in providing context, it is important not to let it become the focus of discussion but to focus on the thinking that seems to be present in the work itself.
• Jean Lave, Etienne Wenger and communities of practice
  It not so much that learners acquire structures or models to understand the world, but they participate in frameworks that that have structure. Learning involves participation in a community of practice. And that participation 'refers not just to local events of engagement in certain activities with certain people, but to a more encompassing process of being active participants in the practices of social communities and constructing identities in relation to these communities'
• DoingCL - Thinking Aloud Pair Problem Solving (TAPPS)
  Students are paired and given a series of problems. The two students are given specific roles that switch with each problem: Problem Solver and Listener. The problem solver reads the problem aloud and talks through the solution to the problem. The listener follows all of the problem solver's steps and catches any errors that occur. For the listener to be effective, he or she must also understand the reasoning process behind the steps. This may require the listener to ask questions if the problem solver's thought process becomes unclear. The questions asked, however, should not guide the problem solver to a solution nor should they explicitly highlight a specific error except to comment that an error has been made.

Links for 2012-03-24 [del.icio.us]

• Speed and Retention — Are e-Readers Slower and More Forgetful? « The Scholarly Kitchen
  Human short-term memory is extremely volatile and weak. That’s why there’s a huge benefit from being able to glance [across a page or two] and see [everything] simultaneously. Even though the eye can only see one thing at a time, it moves so fast that for all practical purposes, it can see [the pages] and can interrelate the material and understand it more.
• swissmiss | Cable Guys
• swissmiss | Lavabo Mons
• quirky - The Space Bar Desk Organizer
• swissmiss | The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces
  Small fragment of William H. Whyte’s witty and original film about the open spaces of cities and why some of them work for people while others do not.
• If the world's population lived in one city...
• Flyvberg research on the importance of context for learning, and becoming "virtuosos"
  This article examines five common misunderstandings about case-study research: (a) theoretical knowledge is more valuable than practical knowledge
• About TED « Textiles Environment Design
  Over the last ten years TED has been developing a set of practice-based sustainable design strategies that assist designers in creating textiles that have a reduced impact on the environment.
• SNOOK - Service Design for Social Change, we are based in Glasgow, inspiring social innovation in Scotland and beyond Service Design for Fashion - Snook | Snook
• oro.open.ac.uk/32823/1/
  Learning to learn is vital, especially the tricky skill of managing the link between innovation and continuity, or as Roger Martin would put it: validity vs reliability

Links for 2012-03-23 [del.icio.us]

• Enduring Ideas: The strategic control map - McKinsey Quarterly - Strategy - Strategy in Practice
  Horizon one represents those core businesses most readily identified with the company name and those that provide the greatest profits and cash flow. Here the focus is on improving performance to maximize the remaining value. Horizon two encompasses emerging opportunities, including rising entrepreneurial ventures likely to generate substantial profits in the future but that could require considerable investment. Horizon three contains ideas for profitable growth down the road—for instance, small ventures such as research projects, pilot programs, or minority stakes in new businesses.
• Three Horizons | International Futures Forum
  The model offers a simple way into a conversation about: the dominant system and the challenges to its sustainability into the future, ie the case for change (horizon 1) the desirable future state, the ideal system we desire and of which we can identify elements in the present that give us encouragement (horizon 3) the nature of the tensions and dilemmas between vision and reality, and the distinction between innovations that serve to prolong the status quo and those that serve to bring the third horizon vision closer to reality (horizon 2) a mature perspective that accepts the need both to address the challenges in the first horizon and foster the seeds of the third. This is not an either/or, good/bad discussion. We need to ‘keep the lights on’ today, and think about how to keep them on a generation from now in very different circumstances. IFF calls this the gentle art of ‘redesigning the plane whilst flying it’.
• World Game: Download | International Futures Forum
  Firstly, the game helps generate innovative ideas to contribute to sustainability and resilience. Secondly it helps a group of people develop foresight through a common understanding of global challenges.
• When the Going Gets Tough
  Van Yperen believes it is possible to influence achievement orientation. Generally, one's environment will shape these choices. For example, work settings with a compensation system that identifies and rewards individual performance will encourage a performance orientation. One that rewards groups of people equitably encourages a mastery orientation. Managers' comments drawing attention to the task encourage mastery. Comments comparing individuals encourage a performance orientation. Managers who display their own pleasure when performing the same tasks as their people, encourage mastery. Those who don't, encourage a performance orientation. Hard working, effective employees are a valuable asset we'd like to preserve. Helping them be satisfied in their work by encouraging a mastery achievement orientation is one way to do it.
• Community Playthings - Nursery school furniture
  Lovely secret and group spaces

Teaching is demanding: Fatigued and Dissatisfied or Fatigued But Satisfied?

Links for 2012-03-22 [del.icio.us]

• Parramatta Marist first Australian school to join US PBL New Tech Network
  ‘PBL creates a new type of student ready to engage with the unknown,’ said Tim. ‘Preparing the next generation of global citizens who will compete with their counterparts on real world projects. Content mastery is not enough, we need well rounded students.’ ‘In the US the data is very encouraging with twice the national average for Year 2 and 3 in university persistence,’ he said. While still early days the implementation of PBL at Parramatta Marist is already showing positive results with over 75 per cent of the schools 2011 Year 12 students being offered university places.
• Transmedia: Conspiracy For Good (Wired UK)
  CFG is a participatory drama that will play out this summer, with a cast of more than 400 spread over five countries. The plot centres around a secret society whose aim is to change the world; the society has decided to go public and CFG is the recruitment campaign. The narrative will be played out over web videos, interactive puzzles (including clues hidden inside real MP3s such as tracks on the White Album by The Beatles), mobile apps and real-life events. The project is sponsored by Nokia, and a website went live on May 17. This features a video from Tim Kring, who asks visitors to participate in a movement to drive real-world change through interactive storytelling. The creative team at The company P, Sandberg's transmedia production business, staged several tests last winter and spring. The Stockholm event ironed out kinks in the mobile technology used. More importantly, it honed the team's storytelling. "We learned how to spread people out so as to have the sense of being at the mercy of a big adventure." Not only does CFG stage live events as part of the story, it has an actual impact on the world. The project is funding Room To Read, an education charity, to build schools in Zambia. But a British oil company, Blackwell Briggs, threatens their construction. The oil firm is not obviously a fake: Karl Rove is following its Twitter account. "Everything is designed so you don't believe us when we say it's fake,"
• Q&A: Frank Rose on digital storytelling and media immersion | Econsultancy
  To take advantage of this a new grammar of storytelling has to emerge, just as a grammar of cinema had to be invented 100 years ago. That grammar has not yet been fully defined, any more than the grammar of cinema was clearly defined in 1912 - but clearly it's going to be nonlinear, it's going to be participatory, and it's going to be immersive.
• (54) Minecraft: What are the best things that have been made in Minecraft? - Quora

Call for Reviewers - Journal of Virtual Worlds Research: http://t.co/V9SLsP8y #mscidel #mscel

Call for Reviewers - Journal of Virtual Worlds Research: http://t.co/V9SLsP8y #mscidel #mscel

Funded PhD at Glasgow Caledonian "Work and learning at the boundaries of knowledge" #mscidel http://t.co/4g4BUop1

Funded PhD at Glasgow Caledonian "Work and learning at the boundaries of knowledge" #mscidel http://t.co/4g4BUop1

Links for 2012-03-21 [del.icio.us]

• instaGrok | A new way to learn
  I like this for the immersion phase of design thinking, when seeking out which areas to explore within a theme.
• An update on the use of e-readers in Africa | A World Bank Blog on ICT use in Education

Links for 2012-03-20 [del.icio.us]

• NHS trust to use iPads for real-time access to patient records
• Design's Next Frontier: Nudging Consumers Into Making Better Life Choices | Co.Design: business + innovation + design
  So as a designer in the 21st century are armed with powerful knowledge of our human bias and frailties, you have several choices: Ignore what you know--and as a result potentially shape behavior in a completely arbitrary and unplanned way.

Conducting qualitative research in virtual worlds: Jonathan Richter & Janet Salmon 21Mar 1pmSLT http://t.co/h3D8mdn8 #mscel #mscidel

Conducting qualitative research in virtual worlds: Jonathan Richter & Janet Salmon 21Mar 1pmSLT http://t.co/h3D8mdn8 #mscel #mscidel

Links for 2012-03-19 [del.icio.us]

• BBC News - Raise teacher status to improve schools, says OECD
  People who see themselves as knowledge workers are not attracted by schools organised like an assembly line, with teachers working as interchangeable widgets” Andreas Schleicher OECD
• Build Your Own Blocks (BYOB)
  BYOB (Build Your Own Blocks), an advanced offshoot of Scratch, a visual programming language primarily for kids from the Lifelong Kindergarten Group at the MIT Media Lab. This version, developed by Jens Mönig with design input and documentation from Brian Harvey, is an attempt to extend the brilliant accessibility of Scratch to somewhat older users—in particular, non-CS-major computer science students
• IDEO’s Ten Tips For Creating a 21st–Century Classroom Experience | Metropolis Magazine
  In recent years, IDEO has spent a lot of time and effort thinking about education. The firm’s work with Ormondale Elementary School, in Portola Valley, California, helped pioneer a special “investigative-learning” curriculum that inspires students to be seekers of knowledge. We spoke to Sandy Speicher, who heads the Design for Learning efforts at IDEO. Her insights provide powerful lessons for architects and designers creating the schools of tomorrow:

Links for 2012-03-17 [del.icio.us]

• Instagram Portraits of the Yankees Shot Inside a Bathroom-Turned-Studio
• Humanitarian Design vs. Design Imperialism: Debate Summary: Change Observer: Design Observer
• Design Thinking for Social Innovation | Stanford Social Innovation Review

Links for 2012-03-16 [del.icio.us]

• Twitter for Musicians and Artists | Twitter Developers
  Guide for musos (and kids, teachers, Government...)

Links for 2012-03-15 [del.icio.us]

• About « LearnPlay Foundation
  LearnPlay Foundation was established as a not for profit company with charitable & social objectives in early 2007 in order to continue and further develop the previous five year’s work pioneered by our founding directors in supporting engagement into education, personal & soft skills development & augmentation and community cohesion through carefully customised programmes using games and games based technologies.

RT @sbayne: Curation-Over-Creation Trend Fuelling Pinterest http://t.co/3acolbvF #mscel #mscidel

RT @sbayne: Curation-Over-Creation Trend Fuelling Pinterest http://t.co/3acolbvF #mscel #mscidel

Curation-Over-Creation Trend Fuelling Pinterest http://t.co/3acolbvF #mscel #mscidel

Curation-Over-Creation Trend Fuelling Pinterest http://t.co/3acolbvF #mscel #mscidel

Links for 2012-03-14 [del.icio.us]

• Lego Space Shuttle - YouTube
  My name is Raul Oaida (from Romania) and this is my LEGO tribute to the end of the space shuttle era. Proving that although retired, this machine can still fly, albeit in toy form. The launch took place from central Germany (easy flight clearance) and reached a max altitude of 35000m. A 1600g meteo balloon filled with helium was used alongside a GoPro Hero, Spot GPS and of course Lego Space Shuttle model 3367. We launched it on the 31st of December 2011, the equipment was recovered via GPS tracking 240 km S-E from a remote area. I wish to thank Steve Sammartino for the opportunity to do this project and the german airtraffic control for the understanding.
• Design and the Social Sector: An Annotated Bibliography: Change Observer: Design Observer
• Future Work Skills 2020
  In researching this topic, Apollo Research Institute drew upon foundational forecasts made by the Institute for the Future in areas as diverse as education, technology, demographics, work, and health. This content was enriched and vetted at a workshop that brought together experts from a wide range of disciplines and professional backgrounds. During this workshop we engaged experts in a number of group exercises to think through key drivers of change and how these will impact workplace skill requirements.
• Design Thinking - Harvard Business Review
  Design thinking is a lineal descendant of that tradition. Put simply, it is a discipline that uses the designer’s sensibility and methods to match people’s needs with what is technologically feasible and what a viable business strategy can convert into customer value and market opportunity. Like Edison’s painstaking innovation process, it often entails a great deal of perspiration.
• The psychological experience of prototyping 10.1016/j.destud.2011.06.005 : Design Studies | ScienceDirect.com
  While scholars have studied what design practices accomplish, few have considered how people feel when enacting these practices. An eighteen-month ethnographic study of a high-tech firm examined the psychological experience of engaging in the practice of low-fidelity prototyping. The study finds that the production and rapid visualization of multiple ideas through low-fidelity prototyping allows practitioners to reframe failure as an opportunity for learning, supports a sense of forward progress, and strengthens beliefs about creative ability. Results suggest how design work practices can be designed to help employees manage in uncertain conditions.
• Design Thinking: A Useful Myth - Core77
  But note that we have had breakthrough ideas and creative thinking throughout recorded history, long before designers entered the scene. When we examine the process in detail, what is being labeled as "design thinking" is what creative people in all disciplines have always done. Breakthroughs in all fields—science and engineering, literature and art, music and history, law and medicine—all come about when people find fresh insights, new points of view and propagate them. There is no shortage of creative people in this world, people with great ideas that defy conventional wisdom. These people do not need to claim they have special modes of thinking, they just do what comes naturally to them: break the rules, go outside the existing paradigms, and think afresh. Yes, designers can be creative, but the point is that they are hardly unique. Are design consultancies especially good at this effort? Are they somehow mystically endowed with greater creativity than the people employed in their client companies? Nope. But they have one virtue that helps them: they are outsiders
• Design Thinking Is A Failed Experiment. So What's Next? | Co.Design: business + innovation + design
  From the beginning, the process of Design Thinking was a scaffolding for the real deliverable: creativity. But in order to appeal to the business culture of process, it was denuded of the mess, the conflict, failure, emotions, and looping circularity that is part and parcel of the creative process. In a few companies, CEOs and managers accepted that mess along with the process and real innovation took place. In most others, it did not.

Links for 2012-03-12 [del.icio.us]

• Learner Evolution ~ Chris Harte: Going SOLO - assessing undertanding of language concepts
  SOLO (Structure of Observed Learning Outcomes [Biggs and Collis 1982])is a taxonomy which measures a learner's understanding of a concept by dividing understanding into five levels.
• SOLO taxonomy
  The SOLO taxonomy stands for: Structure of Observed Learning Outcomes It was developed by Biggs and Collis (1982), and is well described in Biggs and Tang (2007) It describes level of increasing complexity in a student's understanding of a subject, through five stages, and it is claimed to be applicable to any subject area. Not all students get through all five stages, of course, and indeed not all teaching (and even less "training" is designed to take them all the way).
• CAPS - EduVision
  Overview of the Center for Advanced Professional Studies (CAPS) program - a high school in Blue Valley.
• Evernote in the classroom - RCFLearning
  Working at the hard bits: how to give constructive feedback: On the whole, there were few reflections dealing with failure to complete a task or to reflect on why they got a question wrong etc. This needs to be addressed in taught sessions.
• #fail - RCFLearning
  This week the children were asked to prepare to teach the rest of the class what they had learned through doing the investigation. It was at this point that a few of the groups realised that their findings were incomplete, or didn't answer the question, or were invalid. This gave rise to a dream scenario where we could discuss the importance of failure and learning by our mistakes.
• Smaller school classes leads to better student outcomes and higher wages
  Students who were in a small class in grades 4 to 6 had better school achievement and higher wages as adults than those who were in large classes. This is shown in research done at IFAU, the Institute for Evaluation of Labor Market and Education Policy, in Sweden. Smaller classes are also found to be profitable to society.
• www.lvc.org/docs/files/LanguageFuturesPilotProjectReportSept2011.pdf
• www.lvc.org/docs/files/LanguageFuturesReportUpdatePhase2Nov2011.pdf
• A Rare Look Inside Pixar Studios - Video Library - The New York Times
  Some secret spaces in here...
• FLIP Languages Model on Vimeo
  we decided that the only way to get some truly independent language learning was to get rid of 1/3 of our content. Excessive content is the enemy of effective learning so we decided to make 1 out of 3 lessons a fortnight content free but learning rich!

@OsbertL see something similar on this programme at http://t.co/XMyHcKIz "Forget Powerpointhttp://t.co/5BKLV7MV" #mscidel

@OsbertL see something similar on this programme at http://t.co/XMyHcKIz "Forget Powerpointhttp://t.co/5BKLV7MV" #mscidel