RIP Maxine Greene, a great mind that was focused on the power and potential of education. #imagination #dialectical
A Disappointing Update
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_O1hM-k3aUY
I have not been as active on this blog as I’ve meant to be, so I am entering a period of reflection.
To Be Seen in New York
Flashcards for training
Earlier this year we implemented a new staff-side training tool at the Gottesman Libraries: flashcards. That doesn’t sound progressive (it’s rote learning!), but we’re using a very cool tool developed by Teachers College alum Andrew Cohen: Brainscape.
Our library has a public knowledge base (FAQs), and a staff knowledge base that is more extensive, but with the variety of services we offer, it’s difficult to include nuances (even very important ones!) in these resources. So we use flashcards to extend and deepen staff knowledge of key services.
For example, the library hosts and supports the TC community blogging on Pressible, which is built on WordPress. There are a myriad of details that a library patron might want to know, especially if they are familiar with WordPress. Since our system includes many customizations, flashcards cover issues such as:
- Q: “How do I get an image on my bio page?” A: Pressible uses Gravatar.com — a tool built and run by the company that supports WordPress. If someone has a Gravatar, Pressible will use it automatically.
- Q: “Can anyone sign up as an author on Pressible?” A: No, only individuals with TC or CU emails can sign up. However, site administrators can manually add anyone (with any email) as an author using the “Add User” menu.
- Q: “Why is there a big empty gray bar across the top of my site?” A: This is automatically filled with links to posts when authors use Categories (displayed as Topics).
Knowing the answers to these kinds of questions has helped staff better understand our tools (we’ve confirmed this via various anonymous surveys). Anything that makes staff more confident in correctly answering questions is very helpful—more responsive staff means a better (more accurate and speedier) experience for our learning community.
We’ve already developed dozens of flashcards on a variety of topics to date, and our experience with Brainscape has given us the confidence to continue to develop flashcards as key staff training tools.
Talking About Online Privacy
Very interesting!
Seminar Workflow
This is a great technical run-down of how Wan, an EdLab video producer, has created 50+ event “longshots” (good-enough audio and video of 1.5-hour events).
Deconstruct this (Mr. President)
I appreciate my friend Chris Moffett’s commentary on Ravitch’s troubled past and future.
Our History Show, Now in Vinyl
Here’s a sneak peak of our upcoming TC History Show, as well as a quick visual tutorial on hanging vinyl text.
Design Thinking & IDEO
For a closer look at design thinking, EdLab is making a series of videos that show individual designers reflecting on its meaning. The first video features Annette Diefenthaler, a Senior Design Research Specialist & Project Lead at IDEO on creating and launching IDEO’s Design Thinking for Educators Toolkit.
Watch the video, and share your perspective on this resource!
A nice boost from Tim Brown:
Advice for a young designer
A friend of mine is wondering how to navigate undergraduate-level design classes (and perhaps ultimately a major or minor). More specifically, he is weighing the difference between “graphic design” and “web design”—and he asked for my thoughts.
Firstly, it matters what kind of work you imagine doing after college… but let’s say that you could do that work and have majored in either field.
Then it matters if you want to take one kind of class more than the others… but let’s say that you don’t have a preference.
Let’s say that what you’re asking is, “What will employer preferences be like when I graduate?” Then, perhaps the subtext here is, “What kind of career should I have?”
OK, so that’s too hard to answer. So let’s go back a step. (In fact, let’s say you don’t know what kind of career you want.)
That makes it a little easier for me to give the following advice: find the college instructors that will make you the very best design thinker.
What is a Design Thinker?
I’m not sure I know. Tim Brown might—he’s a major proponent of the… idea? theory?– I do know that “design thinking” represents an interesting set of related ideas about collaboration, problem-solving, and production. And it seems to apply widely to the way the people and organizations imagine doing good work.
Some characteristics and behaviors that have been useful to me personally (in my own experience and as observed in my collaborators) are:
- Being a generalist—having a little bit of knowledge about a lot of things (read widely! discuss!)
- Being a generative thinker—contributing a lot (be brave! drink coffee!)
- Being empathetic—with both your collaborators and end-users in mind (be observant! be generous!)
- Being creative—adding a point of view that isn’t already represented (be…um, creative…)
So: when you go to college—probably any college—find someone (or several people!) who can you help you become better at all of these things.
Then find meaningful internships. Those will give you useful fodder for job interviews.
Oh, and don’t take my advice. I wrote this pretty quickly. Get a second opinion! etc.
(And for an extra hundred bucks, and about a week of effort, you can pick up the specific skills you need to be a good-enough graphic designer or web designer.)