Design. Learn. Solve.

Inspired Creative Writing

Writer’s Block

We’ve all found ourselves experiencing writers block and have struggled to overcome that mental collapse. Today I found a tool that will help with overcoming your lack of inspiration.

It is called Moodstream, it was created by Getty Images. Moodstream is an application that combines images and music. Based upon several different preset or personalized settings, the images and music are displayed to inspire and brainstorm for ideas. Moodstream perfect web application for creative inspiration when you are hitting a mental wall.

Classroom Application

In the classroom, Moodstream would be extremely useful as a writing prompt. If posted via a LCD projector the site would provide an excellent way to get your students to write about what feelings the images and music conjure. Rather than simply having one picture or one song, the preset wheel in Moodstream would provide a common theme that could inspire so many different ideas from your students.



photo credit: Moodstream

A Summer Tutoring Gig

The Dilemma

About a week ago, as exams were ending, I was faced with a problem. What was I going to do this summer? I will be out in San Francisco but I didn’t have any plans to hone my teaching skills and learn about creativity and learning, two of my favorite past times. Sad, isn’t it? Then I watched a TED Talk.

The Answer

I was watching a TED Talk about 826 Valencia, a tutoring organization in San Francisco, and I suddenly realized I found my answer. The TED Talk discussed how 826 Valencia was created to support students who needed the one on one help that their public schools were not offering. There are similar organizations that offer tutoring and support to students outside of the classroom but there was something that caught my attention. 826 Valencia is creating life long learners by making learning how to write something that students WANT to do. By using creativity, fun, and allowing the students to be active participants in the learning process, 826 Valencia takes the simple process of tutoring and gives it a shake. And by the way, they have a pirate store. Need I say more?


I don’t know if it’s student publishing, the artists they have come and preform for the students, the field trips, or the fact that there is a pirate store as apart of the organization, but the idea of being a part of such a creative and dynamic “school” made me begin to get excited about teaching in the summer. Wait, I thought teachers were supposed “shut down” for the summer.

I believe that creativity, student involvement, and fun are at the core of making our students truly passionate about wanting to learn. Isn’t that our goal? We aren’t teaching our student just for the sake of teaching them, we are trying to inspire them, trying to get them to see their potential and run with it.

At this point in the 21st century, for our students to become successful in a global marketplace, we must reconsider how we teach. If we continue to teach like we did 30 years ago or even 10 years ago, I fear that our students will not be armed with the skills necessary to tackle today’s problems.

In his book, A Whole New Mind, author Dan Pink argues that many of the left brain jobs (law and accounting to name a few) will be automated and that for future generations to succeed, they must use their right brain and think creatively. To that end, it is our responsibility to create environments that support and nurture that ability to create and use your right brian.

826 Valencia does exactly that, it is helping to prepare our future leaders for a world that is and will be very different from the one that we knew even 10 years ago. It is imperative that we support institutions like 826 Valencia and that is exactly why, when I watched that TED Talk, my mind began to go wild.

The opportunity to work in such an environment would not only be satisfying because I will be able to do what I love, teach, but I will also be able to learn. I have applied and will have an interview in a few weeks. If accepted, I hope to learn how to create such an environment such as 826 Valencia because it is places like that, which our students will develop a passion for learning. That passion and the creativity that will come from their experiences will create “a whole new mind” that will arm them for their future.



photo credit: Sean Munson and Kiwikewlio

Google Applications and Education

My school is in the process of beginning a 1 to 1 laptop program. Every student in the middle school will receive a Apple Mac Book at the beginning of next year. This is a great opportunity for the school and presents us with an opportunity to address the issue of how we deal with information on campus. In the past, we have had a great deal of trouble consolidating and simplifying the transfer of information. You had to go to multiple sites to locate assignments, documents. There was no uniformity, no constants.

That hopefully is to change. Because the students will be using their computers on a regular basis it is logical to think that the information the need should be found in one central location. This would create fewer books they need to carry as well as create a sense of transparency that the parents will appreciate.

This is where Google Applications steps in. Google Apps brings all the applications that we use into one location. A uniform start page that houses all the Google Apps, every teacher, student, and potentially parent could have access to the documents, calendars, email, and internal links that would bring all the information from homework assignments to internal news into one place.

Not only will Google Apps help organize resources for our students, it will also promote true collaboration. As we get further into the 21st century, the ability to collaborate both locally and globally will be a skill that is necessary for success in the “real” world. Google Apps provides this practice. The applications, Google Docs, Calendar and Talk allow for students and teachers to share ideas, work on assignments or lessons together online, and reduce the paper trail of emailed copies.

In an era where effectiveness and simplicity are necessary for success, Google Apps provides an option for schools to not only consolidate information but support collaborative and project based learning, ideas that support the authentic learning that our students need for their futures.

To learn more about Google Apps, watch this short video or take part in the tutorial.

Are Our Exams Outdated? Yes!

THE EXAM

This was my history final exam today. As you can see my students were neatly aligned in their rows. This
may seems like a normal procedure but it got my co-worker and me thinking. How do we evaluate our students in a new age where collaboration and group work are the focus? Why do we use this model? My co-worker, Kirk Upton, mentioned that this is an industrial style of assessment. A model that does not correlate to the current collaborative model that our school is attempting to integrate due to our new strategic plan. Our methods of assessment focus on the individual and their ability to recall information rather than the skills learned through projects and authentic assessment.

THE PROBLEM

As the students sat to take their exam in the alloted 2 and 1/2 hours, you could see the anguish in their faces. Do we assess our students in order to torment them? No, then why make them suffer through an exam of recall when we are charged with preparing our students for what is beyond our walls. If we maintain our methods of assessment despite our need to move toward a collaborative model, we are doomed to push our students away from inquiry and learning. If we are faced with a flatten world, where our students are going to be competing with students in India and China, how do we prepare them for a more competitive global marketplace? Is it by having them take an exam like this? We must seriously reevaluate how we teach and assess our students as their success depends upon it.

THE SOLUTION

While this post will only create more questions than answers, I do believe that one method of assessment that would work is the portfolio. If our students were to keep portfolios of their work and would be assessed upon their improvement, wouldn’t that be much more rewarding than having them sit at a desk and answer multiple choice for 2 and 1/2 hours?

There are more questions than answers but this is an interesting topic to start this blog.