Arizona in black & white

Jared Diamond on creativity, innovation and wealth

Nov 8, 2008

Jared Diamond has an article on edge.org, somewhat provocatively titled: How to get rich? The question his after is simply, "what is the best way to organize human groups and human organizations and businesses so as to maximize productivity, creativity, innovation,...

Designing learning futures through reflective practice: 1 of 2

Mar 3, 2020

This is the first of two posts on the topic of bringing principled innovation practices to designing learning futures. The first post (co-authored by Punya Mishra & Cristy Guleserian) focuses on the need for designing learning futures, and how the PI practices...

Virtual speed bump

Jul 19, 2008

Optical illusions are usually seen as being cool visual tricks, an intriguing way of peeking into how our brain works. They have rarely been considered to be functionally useful. Here is an exception: an optical illusion seen as a virtual speed bump! Check it out...

Back from India…

Aug 25, 2008

Got back yesterday from a short, hectic but sweet trip to India. I had a wonderful time and still have a lot to do to just document all that happened and connect with all the people I met (hopefully over the next few weeks)... but now it is time to get back to fall...

Demotivational Posters II

Jul 23, 2010

A few weeks ago I posted a note about an assignment I gave my students in the on-campus version of the MAET program. They had completed an unit on motivation and had watched the RSA / Daniel Pink video and their task was was to create demotivational posters, (along...

Tools “R” Us: When objects become you

Apr 9, 2023

Danah Henriksen shared an article with me recently “When objects become extensions of you.” It is an interesting piece arguing that “Whether they are tools, toys, or mirror reflections, external objects temporarily become part of who we are all the time.” Essentially,...

ON@TCC: Do not toss aside lightly…

Feb 19, 2008

One Night at the Call Center is the second novel by Chetan Bhagat. I picked it up from the library, since I had read nice things about it on some website somewhere. What a tragic waste of time. This is a terrible novel - maybe the worst I have read in a long, long...

21st Century Learning, one school’s ongoing story

Jan 24, 2012

Recently I had been invited to the Birmingham School District to speak to the administrators, teachers and broader community about their recent initiatives on 21st Century Learning. I had a wonderful visit - which I was reminded of by this article (On the Front Lines...

Video Bingo in Alabama: Tech & change

Nov 12, 2009

How does technology change what we do? Often when a new technology appears we tend to see it in terms of existing practices and structures. So an e-book is the same as a book, except in digital format. E-books still have "pages" which we "turn" (with a flick or our...