Can We Cultivate Creativity?

Yes we can!

This week's #MeaningfulMonday is all about breaking down the myth that some people are born creative and some aren't.  David Kelly shares stories from his design career that will touch the heart and inspire.

Make your Monday meaningful y'all!

http://www.ted.com Is your school or workplace divided into "creatives" versus practical people? Yet surely, David Kelley suggests, creativity is not the domain of only a chosen few. Telling stories from his legendary design career and his own life, he offers ways to build the confidence to create...

Rethinking School

This week's #MeaningfulMonday calls on us, all of us, to rethink how we "do school".  Whether it's bell schedules, disciplines, the role of the teacher or the role of the learner, this provocation provides us with a healthy dose of why do we do things the way we are doing them?  

All stakeholders, parents, teachers, students, community members, need to watch this. 

Make your Monday meaningful y'all.

Everyone wants America's education system to do better. Ex-Googler Max Ventilla has a radical idea for how to make it work more like a social network. Ventilla's AltSchool is building a highly-personalized education experience that gets better and cheaper as more students use it.

A World With Colour

This week's #MeaningfulMonday is all about honouring creativity, diversity and originality.  It's about showing our students that we value their voice, their passions and their interests.  It's about harnessing the unique traits of our learners in our classrooms each and every day. 

Together, watch this provocation to help lay the framework for more creative and authentic demonstrations of learning and to honour the talents of your students.

Make your Monday meaningful y'all.

And thank you to good friend and colleague Jessie Moore for pushing this my way.

"Alike" is an animated short film directed by Daniel Martínez Lara & Rafa Cano Méndez www.alike.es SYNOPSIS: In a busy life,Copi is a father who tries to teach the right way to his son,Paste. But... what is the correct path? --- En una vida ajetreada, Copi es un padre que intenta enseñar el camino correcto a su hijo Paste.

The Most Powerful Questions of 2017

As an inquiry teacher I love shedding light on the power of questions as the start point of learning.  Whether the question is simple to answer or is personalized, possesses room for interpretation, and provides opportunity for rich and meaningful researching, questions stir wonder, curiosity and interest.

Case in point this week's #MeaningfulMonday.  A recap of some Google searches from the year and yes, they will strike a chord.  

Shout out to edufriend Natasha Rachell for pushing it my way.  You rock!

Make your Monday meaningful y'all.

In 2017, the world asked "how." Questions like how to join the military, how to run for office, how to make a protest sign, how to be a good parent, and how to be a firefighter were asked more than ever before.

Twas the week before finals...

For this instalment of #MeaningfulMonday check out Ms. Nunez making the difference in the lives of her learners and how tech, although it doesn’t drive the learning experience, powerfully impacts it.

Make your Monday meaningful y’all.

Xavier College Prep World History teacher Ms. Nunez will have to miss class during the critical review week before final exams. She turns to Google to interact and connect with her students. Learn more about teachers and students using Google tools in education at http://www.google.com/education

Rube Goldberg Machines

This week’s #MeaningfulMonday is a lot of fun!  Huge thanks to friend Alec Couros for always sharing interesting content.  Y’all know how much I LOVE Rube Goldberg Machines (find out more about these fun creations here) and the below two are absolute gems.

This past weekend I was in Georgia working with some amazing educators and I had an inspiring chat with a technology teacher as we brainstormed lessons with her grade two kiddos in mind.  These two videos surfaced from our discussion.

Try this on for size no matter what grade or subject you teach: challenge your students to create a Rube Goldberg Machine of their own.  You can make this activity fun by limiting the time they have to create their machine, determining how many steps must be in their project, and even requiring them to plan and blueprint their machine before they experiment.

This activity really drives home the importance of process rather than merely the product of learning.  As students experiment they must also make observations, reflect, revise and try again and again until they achieve succeed.  Powerful stuff!

Make your Monday Meaningful y’all!

I've taken the piece "Waltz of the Flowers" by Tchaikovsky, and synchronized it to a chain reaction marble run by hand. After listening to parts of this song hundreds of times to match things up I went a bit crazy. Subscribe if you'd like to see more chaotic contraptions.

After 3 months of work and probably more than 500 fails, I'm happy to present you my best video ever. Since magnets and marbles I've always wanted to make a big chain reaction in one take with this 2D style !

NOT Impossible: Project Daniel

Do you have a 3D printer in your school?

Have you used it?

Have your students?

What did they make?

Have a watch of this video by the good folks at Not Impossible and see how Mike Ebeling’s vision to help Sudanese amputees due to injuries sustained in their bloody and damaging history of conflict.

Make your Monday meaningful y’all!

Just before Thanksgiving 2013, Not Impossible's Mick Ebeling returned home from Sudan's Nuba Mountains where he set up what is probably the world's first 3D-printing prosthetic lab and training facility. More to the point of the journey is that Mick managed to give hope and independence back to a kid who, at age 14, had both his arms blown off and considered his life not worth living.

Moonshot Thinking

“People can set their mind to magical, seemingly impossible ideas and then through science and technology bring them to reality.”

Not a bad hook, eh?

Share this with your class today.  Discuss the impossible.  If you could do one thing tomorrow without fear of failure or worry of risk, what would it be?

Cue Moonshot Thinking.  Check it out.

Make you Monday meaningful y’all.

At X, we pride ourselves on moonshot thinking. Moonshots live in the gray area between audacious technology and pure science fiction. Instead of a mere 10% gain, a moonshot aims for a 10x improvement over what currently exists.

Embracing Change

“Probably the most important thing for kids growing up today is a love of embracing change.”

Curiosity should be at the forefront of what we do, each and every day.  On this #MeaningfulMonday I call on you to spark some curiosity in your learners.

Make your Monday meaningful y’all.

From cell phone and video games to Facebook and YouTube, digital media are changing the way young people play and socialize in the 21st century. Learn more at http://www.macfound.org/programs/learning. The MacArthur Foundation's grantmaking aims to determine how digital media are changing the way young people learn, play, socialize, and participate in civic life.

Designing Solutions to Challenges

How can you use technology to solve a real-world problem?

Ask your students this simple yet transformative question.  Have them identify problems, propose plans, and design solutions.

Even if you don’t take the brainstorm or design to iteration, asking students to design solutions to challenges they see in their community, locally or globally, will pay huge dividends.  Whether it’s fostering creativity, nurturing empathy, sharpening 21st century skills or honing an innovative approach to attacking issues, this simple prompt can take you and your learners to wondrous places.

Then show them this provocation.

Make your Monday meaningful y’all.

When it comes time to eat, Abyssinian ground hornbills pick up prey with their beak, toss it into the air and swallow it whole. But for Karl, the Zoo's hornbill, eating was a challenge due to his worn down lower beak.