The ambigram design I had first presented here is now available through cafe-press in a variety of formats. Click here to buy t-shirts, buttons and more... Just to be clear, the prices for all the items are exactly what cafe-press charges. Matt and I make no money of...
Posts related to: Design
Bits to Atoms, A Fab lab
I had heard of Neil Gershenfeld's work on the Bits to Atoms Project at MIT but thought of these Fabrication Labs as being too expensive ($500,000+) or esoteric for everyday or classroom use. But one fine day I got an email from Glen Bull from Virginia informing me of...
TPACK Ambigram
I have been wanting to create a TPACK ambigram for a while now... what would be better than combining my two greatest loves - technology integration in teaching WITH ambigrams! Finally after some subtle prodding by Matt Koehler I have finally done so. This is a...
Visualizing periodic tables (What not to do)
Sean Nash (of Nashworld) sent me a link to A Periodic Table of Visualization Methods of Management. This is a very cool looking representation developed by Ralph Lengler & Martin Eppler at the Institute of Corporate Communication at the University of Lugano,...
Multiple representations of the periodic table and learning
Mishra & Yadav (2006) was a paper based around my dissertation research. It took a while to get published and I am including it here for the record. My dissertation (Mishra, 1998) was maybe the first place where I made a specific mention of the triad of...
Gandhi, ambigrams, creativity & the power of small pieces loosely joined
This is an extended piece on the manner in which the web, small pieces loosely joined, can lead to “serendipitous connectabilty” (something I had written about earlier here). All this is situated in a story that connects cognitive scientist Douglas Hofstader, Oriya...
EduPunk: The logo
I had written about the EduPunk program and my natural affinity to it here. What I forgot to add in that posting was an EduPunk logo I had created. This logo was made using photos of letterforms from Flickr. There is a handy-dandy tool created by Erik Kastner called...
MSU Technology Showcase: The Usual Suspects
I have been invited by Patrick Dickson, Byron Brown and Jon Sticklen to offer a lowkeynote address (note emphasis on lowkey!) for MSU's Second Annual Faculty Technology Showcase (more details here). I have created a small presentation to go with my lowkeynote, slides...
Finding myself in EduPunk
Matt Koehler introduce me to the idea of edupunk. As this Chronicle story (Frustrated With Corporate Course-Management Systems, Some Professors Go 'Edupunk') says, Edupunk seems to be a reaction against the rise of course-managements systems, which offer cookie-cutter...
Barriers to Innovation & Inclusion
Leigh Wolf just sent me this video created by the Johnson Space Center on Barriers to Innovation & Inclusion. A Google search led to this description: Last summer, Johnson Space Center senior management coordinated a center-wide, cross-generational effort to explore...
EdTech 2009, Ashland Virginia
I am at Ashland, Virginia for EdTech 2009 to be held on the campus of Randolph-Macon College. You can find the complete schedule here. EdTech2009 is an annual two-day conference (that has been going on for over 20 years now) hosted by the Educational Services staff of...
TE150 presentation in streaming video
Terri Gustafson has created streaming downloads of the presentation recently made by the TE150 (Reflections on Teaching, Reflections on Learning) Online team (see this for more context). The video can be seen in two parts: Part I: The presentation "Reflections on...
Presentation/Workshop at Twente
I just completed a presentation at the symposium organized by the Department of Curriculum Design & Educational Innovation, University of Twente. Later this afternoon I will be conducting a workshop on creativity and the TPACK framework. The slides for both the...
Cool clock design
Just thought I would share an example of interesting clock I saw during my stay here at Twente, made almost entirely of cardboard! front view back view Enjoy
Young-Hae Chang Heavy Industries
... Or Why I love the web. I stumbled upon a piece (Lotus Blossom) by Young-Hae Chang Heavy Industries the other day... and it was like nothing else I had ever seen. At some superficial level it looked like kinetic typography, but both simpler and more complex at the...
Rate of change of technology
I just stumbled upon this image from a 1950 issue of Popular Mechanics. The tag line below the image says: Because everything in her home is waterproof, the housewife of 2000 can do her daily cleaning with a hose. Though it is easy to make fun of this image it can be...
The more things change…
I had posted earlier about a recent commercial that, though arguing at one level that technology can fundamentally change education, seemed to stick to the standard-lecture (albeit in different and cooler modes of transmission). Just how little the discourse around...
Playing with light and shadows
Stumbled upon the creative work of Kumiya Mashita. It is amazing just how much can be created with just light and shadows. Just brilliant. Here are some examples:
Representing networks
Facebook has a couple of apps that allow you to map your friends' network. I knew about them but hadn't really played with them till Matt Koehler asked for some ideas to use in his 956 (Mind, Media & Learning class) and I suggested trying some of these tools out. To...
On making computation visible
Here is a cool video about a "a mechanical, binary adding machine that uses marbles to flip the bits" - in other words a computer made of wood, that works at a pace that we can grasp! Marvelous. (HT: Collision Detection). Check out the video: [youtube width="425"...
Is your head in the McClouds!
Scott McCloud is a pioneer in his field - the field of comics. (I had previously posted about him here). I just discovered (via Presentation Zen & Matt Koehler) a TED talk he had given back in 2005. It is a wonderful introduction to McCloud the man and his ideas....
Of hernias and hiccups, the evolutionary story
Interesting article in Scientific American about how flaws in our biology reveal our evolutionary history. Steven Gould talked about it in his famous essay on The Panda's Thumb. This is a wonderful argument for Darwinian evolution since it points not to perfection...
A different vision of the web
T. H. Nelson coined the word "hypertext" and more than anyone else, and much earlier than anyone else, truly understood how computing technology would change the text and print. One of my most treasured possession is a copy of his double-book ("Computer Lib: You Can...
Technology, creativity & illusion
Marco Tempest is magician who loves technology, or a techno-geek who happens to be a good magician. He brings an unique amalgam of high-tech and magic to his shows (see this article for details), but that is not what is most impressive about his work. What is...
Ambi-poetry: A mathematician reinterprets ambigrams
My friend Gaurav Bhatnagar (I had blogged about his new book, Get Smart: Math Concepts here), for some reason, known only to him, has decided to create a poetry-blog based around my ambigrams. Each posting consists of one ambigram (taken from my large collection of...
Happy 2009, a stop motion movie
Soham, Shreya and I spent this afternoon making a stop-motion animation new year's card. Check it out... http://www.youtube.com/embed/7kw_icNKI44 Have a great 2009!
The Ethics of Dallas Clayton
I just stumbled upon Dallas Clayton's website. Lots of stuff there to enjoy... here's a short poem (as a sampler). ETHIC A father stands at the lip of the wharf with his daughter who is only three. They watch sea lions lounging about in the sun full with fish dazed...
TPACK & creativity
Matt Koehler and I just submitted an article for Learning & Leading with Technology, the flagship journal published by ISTE. The journal features practical ideas for using today’s technology tools to improve teaching and learning. Our work on TPACK was recently...
Best of SkyMall
I love browsing through the SkyMall catalog when I am flying. I never cease to be amazed by human ingenuity - the range of things we have built, irrespective of how useful (or useless they may be). Anyway, someone has now listed the 10 best (or worst, depending on...
TPACK and online learning
Matt Koehler and I just completed a talk on TPACK and online learning for the Faculty Seminars in Instructional Technology. The Faculty Seminars are a semi-annual two-day series of short courses for faculty who want to learn about using technology in instruction....