Check out this insightful discussion of creative work from Rj Andrews at Info We Trust. It’s an interview with Fernando G. Baptista about his recent (and wonderful) giraffe illustration for National Geographic.
I particularly appreciate how Baptista discusses the team collaboration around this project. For anyone interested in creating beautiful educational content, this is a useful peek into one team’s process.
From the from the book review of “Anticapitalist, antiracism”:
Here’s an interesting discussion of open educational resources (OER): Framing the Open Conversation – Branded Content & Fair Use
Rolin, the author and Assistant Professor & Director of EdTech & Media at Seattle Pacific University, believes content should be remixable rather than merely accessible. (Rolin goes further to discuss “openwashing” of content, which offers an interesting comparison of content makers.) With decades of web content available, it’s helpful to keep this ideal of remix in mind when choosing or creating OER.
Free access to educational materials is important for many learners, but educators can potentially do more with content that does not foreclose possibilities of remix.
From an evolutionary perspective, there is a clear reason why animals would seek out information: it can be vital to their survival and reproduction… Another possibility is that evolutionary pressures have made information intrinsically rewarding. – From HuffPost
For educators with an interest in enhancing the truthiness of society, the present is a good time for reflection on gaps between our shared myths and the truth. I’m particularly worried about the negative effects of a myth close to the heart of educators: the idea that humans are naturally curious.
Curiosity is certainly valuable. The article Curiosity is Fleeting, but Teachable by Bryan Goodwin is a nice overview of the relevance of a discussion about curiosity to educators. He summarizes recent research:
A recent meta-analysis concluded that together, effort and curiosity have as much influence on student success as intelligence does (von Stumm, Hell, & Chamorro-Premuzic, 2011). Other studies have linked curiosity to better job performance (Reio & Wiswell, 2000); greater life satisfaction and meaning (Kashdan & Steger, 2007); and even longer lives (Swan & Carmelli, 1996).
But perhaps more troublingly:
The longer children stay in school, the less curiosity they tend to demonstrate (Englehard & Monsaas, 1988).
Psychological research suggests that while humans start life as seemingly curious, environmental influences can diminish it. I think this suggests that we are minimally curious, which should be thought of as closer to information-seeking rather than knowledge-seeking. Information-seeking behavior seems highly related to or plodding around the globe with a focus on survival and reproduction, and may have become part of our nature through the process of natural selection. More information, more survival. Can the same be said for curiosity?
If there is nothing natural about curiosity, then it is a mistake to think that children (or people of any age) are going to be motivated by it. Students might ask about understanding and knowledge: what’s in it for us?
I think the answer has to be, “better tools.” Curiosity, imagination, and understanding are closely linked in the history of tool-making. Approaching curiosity as a learned behavior is a good step toward designing pedagogy to inspire imagination and motivate the process of understanding.
We designed the Mars Mission experience for participants to experience:
With this video, we hope to share how our team thinks about our creative process in the work of creating educational experiences. We learned a lot about integrating several disciplines into one project. Kim was a great leader for our team!
On Monday, POTUS followed a familiar pattern. Upon his apparent exoneration of accusations of treason, he accused his accusers of “treasonous” actions.
President Trump went on the offensive on Monday a day after the special counsel investigation reported no conspiracy with Russia, suggesting that critics who pursued such suspicions were “treasonous,” guilty of “evil things” and should be investigated themselves. – NYT
This action follows his long-standing behavior of accusing his political opponents of having the same deficiencies they attribute to him. In other, the President’s retort is often the schoolyard taunt “no I’m not, but you are.” Is it any wonder he is often accused of behaving like a child?
This “strongman” behavior lacks civility, rationality, and charm while appealing to our cognitive biases—or what we might call our “reflexive pettiness.” Here’s a few examples:
Though subtle, the battery of accusations that flows from the President often lands its intended affect. This seems especially true of his “base,” who generally support his worldview.
To ameliorate these effects of cognitive biases, we can reflect on the motivations behind our perspectives, judgments, and accusations. Are we being fair, just, and unbiased? (Or are we just piling on?)
Sure, video games are immersive, but are they educational? Only to a very small extent. Educators have been pursuing the connections between immersive media like gaming and education for decades, but I want to offer another perspective: learners have to be suspended between being gamers and game-makers. Here’s a brief reflection on how that can happen…
Put Away the Video Games
Games are really only interesting in small doses. So if you’re going to use them for broader educational purpose, keep it short. This same advice applies to many other activities as well: hooks, icebreakers, brainstorms, research, and perhaps even reading. When it comes to ambitious learning goals, how long does it take until we get bored? Are all engaging educational experiences short in duration? (And is this a feature rather than a bug?)
If we contrast active and exciting learning experiences with more conventional lecture-style information delivery, let’s say the best experiences are the short ones. (Even traditional teacher-led experiences collapse after about 50 minutes, though there is evidence that more interaction is perceived as better.) Is formal education—educational experience that spirals and requires significant exposure to achieve significant recall—ever likely to permanently achieve the velocity to escape boredom for most students most of the time? It seems unlikely, but what if the answer was that it could…
Dynamic Interventions
Teaching often begins with a presentation or a group activity—activities that help individuals explore new ideas while confronting factual information from experts or authoritative sources. A part of our jobs as “producers” in the Learning Theater is to bridge events (and our event partners) from the present into a better-designed-built-environment future.
In the past two years at EdLab, we have begun experimenting with what I will call “dynamic interventions.” These are generally small multimedia gestures that connect classroom activities: a soundtrack, a light cue, an introductory video for an activity, or a background image. The Learning Theater has enabled us to manipulate the built environment in both subtle and dramatic ways during a face-to-face learning experiences. Using light, sound, video, props, and furnishings, we have built many multimedia experiences to enhance what began as more ordinary learning scenarios.
Adding multimedia to an educational experience is not always the right thing. (As in all design, sometimes simple is better.) But increasingly we’re seeing the blending of “simple” and “multimedia” moments as creating the optimal conditions for sustaining learning over the course of an hour, an afternoon, a day, or longer.
Recent events have given us more confidence to steer our partners toward building dynamic interventions into their plans, and I’m excited to see where these efforts lead. But it won’t just be a matter of adding “fun” and “exciting” multimedia moments into lectures that optimizes learning. The learners are going to be active participants in the process of design and execution.
Immersion
I think “immersion” is a helpful word to describe this enhanced educational experience. Often used in language learning to describe a situation where learner can’t help but be confronted with educationally rich experience, it also comes to us with a sense that the learner is sustained in a state of flow. How can that happen?
Only learners can ultimately tell us what they need. Do they need a break? Do they need a boost of energy? Do they need time to reflect and write? Or time to talk together? Involving learners in the ebb and flow of educational experience with dynamic interventions will raise the stakes. Educators can offer learners an environment, but learners will need to activate it.
Collaboration is a key element of dynamic interventions we’ve made so far. (Learning is often more fun together!) With respect to collaborative activities, learners are really asked to be both participants and educators—taking an active role in their colleagues’ learning. Dynamic interventions can help support learners in both their roles by giving their work new contexts as an activity unfolds—and in a highly aesthetic way. Ultimately, I imagine that the suspension of learners between these different orientations can best sustain a flow experience. Time will tell…
Alas, we are just beginning to explore the possibilities of this exciting—and I think somewhat novel, or at least technologically-heightened—nexus of knowledge, creativity, and learning.
What are ways do you think we can further (or best) support the development and sharing of these ideas and our toolset?
How do the stories we read, hear, or come to know make us who we are?
What if we could track and annotate how these stories constitute our identity and behavior? (Or perhaps rather our rational deliberations?)
If we had a map of that similar to the mapping of genomes, could that be a useful educational tool? Or a tool for better understanding others?
I think we’d want to know and highlight the biggest influences and to see “storied” context of why they are our biggest influences—why they are meaningful to us.
The resulting map would constitute a different “story genome” for each person. It would be a quantified self tool that would require constant updating and revising. I think we could learn a lot about ourselves and others.
Disgust with criminals and their crimes is still possible, even in the case of three-star generals:
The judge was not upset only about Mr. Flynn’s sneaky prevarication. He said he felt “disgust” at Mr. Flynn’s offenses, that a retired three-star general would lie to the F.B.I. “while on the physical premises of the White House,” and, acting as an unregistered agent of a foreign country, Turkey, while he was an adviser to Mr. Trump (to which he admitted but was not charged). It was a bracing reminder of the brazenness of his misdeeds and of the standards the public should be able to expect of those who serve them. – The New York Times
What if the change you wanted to see in the world could only be brought about by liars and thieves? What kind of feedback would that be?
Vote for Democratic Congresspersons to provide a much-needed check on the Executive Branch’s power.