véjà du, all over again

by | Saturday, September 04, 2010

A véjà du experience is about looking at a familiar situation but with fresh eyes, as if you’ve never seen it before. It forms the basis of an assignment I give in my CEP818, Creativity in Teaching & Learning course. The assignment is described in greater detail here, but the core idea is to take multiple photographs of some everyday object in such a way that the viewer cannot easily determine what the object is! More here.

Today, I spent some time with my kids re-doing the assignment. My son suggested taking pictures of his X-Box 360 but we finally went with an object selected by my daughter. Here are the pictures. What do you think it is?


A few randomly selected blog posts…

Creativity, Digitality, and Teacher PD

It has been almost 5 years since my research interests shifted formally to issues related to creativity, technology and teacher education. This line of work (though less influential than my TPACK related work) has led to multiple journal articles and research studies....

Chimp number sense…

A video, brought to you by Slate, titled "How smart are chimps?" I apologize in advance for the commercial at the beginning of the video.

The attention economy and the future of education

Peter Hershock is an education specialist at the East-West Center in Honolulu and author of Buddhism in the Public Sphere. He was recently interviewed by Matt Bieber of The Wheat and Chaff. I found this interview fascinating, particularly the first half which spoke to...

Qualitative research in an age of AI

Qualitative research in an age of AI

Qualitative data can be extremely rich, complex and insightful, allowing us to uncover the complexities of human experiences, perceptions, and interactions. It can also be complicated and messy. And the way we make sense of it is through the one-two punch of thematic...

Deep-Play & the Engaged Scholar

Deep-Play & the Engaged Scholar

The Engaged Scholar is a magazine published by MSU's Office of University Outreach and Engagement with the goal of celebrating "Michigan State University's ongoing partnership with Michigan, our nation, and our world." I just got the 10th anniversary issue in the...

Oh Wow! Oh Wow! Oh Wow!

Much has been written about Steve Jobs in the past few weeks since his passing but the best piece I have come across is the eulogy by his sister Mona Simpson. Mona Simpson is an author and professor of writing and delivered this eulogy on Oct. 16 at his memorial...

Beirut, Nairobi, Paris

After I had posted my "Paris, City of Love" design on FB, my friend Pilar Quezzaire posted on my wall the following question: What about Beirut and Nairobi, Punya? Can you make one for them as well? In another posting she linked to the...

TPACK & Creativity at Twente

I just finished a marathon session of presentations and discussions with the master's students in Curriculum Development and Educational Innovation at Twente University. It was wonderful to meet with them and discuss creativity, teaching, design, TPACK, among other...

Creativity in Surgery, Music & Cooking

Creativity in Surgery, Music & Cooking

Here is the next article in our series Rethinking Technology & Creativity in the 21st Century for the journal TechTrends. In this article we feature an interview with Dr. Charles Limb,  professor of Otolaryngology and a...

8 Comments

  1. Punya Mishra

    A corkscrew it is! This is what the overall object really looks like.

    or click here to see all the images

    Reply
  2. Amy Strange

    I’m going to agree with Randy that it looks like a corkscrew.

    Reply
  3. Jung

    I think this is a part of the lawn spreader!!

    Reply
  4. Kylie

    Corkscrew?

    Reply
  5. Mary

    part of a table umbrella???

    Reply
  6. Heather Nordman

    Telescope?

    Reply
  7. Randy Johann

    It looks like a corkscrew.

    Reply

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