cc licensed ( BY ) flickr photo shared by robertstinnett
We are currently working on creating a document for our school division on our “Educational Technology” portion of the education plan. As I have looked at different documents, including this one from Alberta Education, I have been struggling with the generic phrases that have been used. Here is the statement on the outcomes for “digital and technological fluency” from Alberta Education:
Alberta students competently use information and communication technologies as tools in a variety of digital environments and media. Students access information from a variety of sources to learn individually or with others, to communicate, to come to new understandings, to inform problem solving, and support decision making. They are aware of current and emerging information and communication technologies and choose with confidence the appropriate technology for a defined purpose. Students can access, understand and manipulate digital information creatively and effectively for learning, for communication and for sharing and creation. They use technology critically and safely, and in an ethically responsible manner.
I think this is a great goal but I am wondering if you put 20 people in a room and asked them how they would do this, would you receive 20 different answers?
From that viewpoint, I then saw the ‘Technology Integration Matrix’ from the Arizona K-12 Center. This gave different goals, broke them down into steps, and then also provided exemplars in each area. When you provide examples like this, do we often kill the creativity of our teachers and students by giving them a preconceived notion of what good teaching and learning looks like? In this article on creativity, the author notes that our prior knowledge can sometimes inhibit our own opportunities for innovation:
“Perhaps the most important entry on Michalko’s list is his last point, that “creativity is paradoxical.” Schools are places where students are supposed to acquire knowledge—but to create, a person must “forget the knowledge.” If you’re not able to leave what you think you know behind, you can’t approach problems with a fresh perspective. Students must also be taught to “desire success but embrace failure,” and to “listen to experts but know how to disregard them.” Liz Dwyer
So where is the balance? How do we ensure that all of our students get the same opportunities no matter what school they attend, while also ensuring that our teachers have the autonomy to be innovative in their teaching practices? If you were to create a plan to support teachers and provide a vision for a preferred future, how would you go about it? Your thoughts would be appreciated.
Working a lot with teachers and parents in the past few weeks, it is amazing to see the shift in focus that our students need to be more connected. There is a definite shift in the mindset of many. With that being said, the focus on creativity, innovation, and the skills that are needed for the “21st Century”, many understand that schools need to continue to focus on strong relationships with their students and school community to thrive in our time. Relationships continue to be the foundation that great schools are built upon. It is paramount that we continue to focus on that.
Here are some articles that I found pushed my thinking in the last week:
1. What does teaching creativity look like? – Creativity is a skill that is needed in our world with the “knowledge economy” becoming dominant in our work place. With so many traditions that are firmly in place in our schools, does this skew our thinking and take away our ability to be creative? In this short article, the author asks a similar question:
Perhaps the most important entry on Michalko’s list is his last point, that “creativity is paradoxical.” Schools are places where students are supposed to acquire knowledge—but to create, a person must “forget the knowledge.” If you’re not able to leave what you think you know behind, you can’t approach problems with a fresh perspective. Students must also be taught to “desire success but embrace failure,” and to “listen to experts but know how to disregard them.”
2. Autonomy in Teaching Training – My good friend, Chris Wejr, challenges the “status quo” in the way that teacher training programs are preparing new educators for a rapidly changing world and classroom. I have heard this conversation often, yet it is interesting to not only read this post but the comments that follow as well. Chris ends the post with the following:
Our pre-service teaching programs seem to be over in the blink of an eye (in BC, they are often only 16-20 weeks). This is a critical time as this is often the only experience they will have prior to applying for teaching positions. Providing more autonomy for our future teachers is key to their development so I hope you can add your thoughts to this conversation to see if we can help move our programs forward.
Chris has some great thoughts…how can we better prepare our new teachers to implement the strategies needed to be successful coming into this challenging profession? I encourage you to add to the conversation on Chris’ blog post.
3. Important Conversations – Some of the practices that I (as well as many other teachers) have implemented over the past few years we now know are not beneficial to learning. The idea of taking away grades for being late does not show the true understanding a child has over the content of the class, yet it is essential to ensure students are good citizens and respectful of our school environment. The picture in this blog post is a great conversation starter for staff, students, and parents. More importantly though then the message, is the conversation. How do we continue to bring parents in on the learning of school to help enhance the work we are doing together with children? How do we continue to inform and discuss with them continuously evolving teaching and learning practices? I think of this Marc Prensky quote when reading the aforementioned article:
“Involve your students’ parents as much as you can. Try thinking of them as your students as well, that is, as people you are educating.” Marc Prensky
When parents and schools work together, you double the chance of success for each child.
I hope that all of you have an amazing week and I thank everyone for continuing to share and write amazing content that will help all of us continuously learn!
As I end this blog post, I have been caught up in all the “Linsanity” (as most were) and this was probably one of the most inspiring moments that I saw from the last week…enjoy!
cc licensed ( BY ) flickr photo shared by photogestion
Over the last few years, I have fallen in love with Apple products. The ease of use, playfulness in design, and power they demonstrate have got me hooked on the product. With that being said, I was very saddened at this recent article discussing Apple’s failure to address concerns regarding labour practices at factories making the product. Immediately when I read the article, I thought of my youth when I had heard about the conditions that children were facing at Nike factories in Asia. The writer of this article clearly thought about that same instance:
Apple ignores these demands at its own risk. Such assaults on a company’s reputation—especially a company as brand-focused as Apple—have rattled powerful organizations before, from the recent controversy at the Susan G. Komen Foundation to Nike’s labor rights failures in the 1990s.
I remember as an avid basketball player, choosing other products from the Nike brand as it just didn’t feel right to still continuously buy this product. It just didn’t feel right. I cannot even remember the last time I bought a Nike shoe, although admittedly I do own a pair or two.
With social media giving so many a voice in our world now, how could a company so quickly ignore any type of social injustice being created by the need for profit? With people seemingly having less connection to the companies that they purchase from, Nike still had a PR nightmare in the 90′s:
Another industrial design giant, Nike, endured the same kind of public relations nightmare in the 1990s, when consumers and activists made the company’s storied brand synonymous with sweatshops around the world. At a university convening on sweatshop issues in 2001, Nike representative Todd McKean bravely acknowledged, “Our initial attitude was, ‘Hey, we don’t own the factories; we don’t control what goes on there.’ Quite frankly, that was a sort of irresponsible way to approach this.” Consistent with assertions about Apple’s power and influence, McKean went on to say “We had people there every day looking at quality. Clearly, we had leverage and responsibility with certain parts of the business, so why not others?”
As Simon Sinek has clearly used Apple as a company that clearly defines their “Why”, I am hoping that they address this in a way that is transparent and showing their eagerness to rectify this situation.
School leaders can definitely learn from this Apple miscue. We have to continuously realize and embrace that our “customers” have a voice, and when we make mistakes, we must listen and rectify. I have watched my own brother challenge Sasktel recently and receive a great deal of attention as the company has seemingly performed a bit of a “bait and switch”. Customers know that they have a voice.
This does not mean that sometimes we are unable to have disagreements as education is a complex profession that many have different opinions on, but communication is imperative. I am proud to be in a school division that does its best to continuously be transparent in our message, and they have recently hired a new Communications Director to continue to work on how we can connect with our stakeholders in an open manner. Sometimes messages can get muddied through so many mediums, but what I have learned from Brian is that simple and straight to the point are always your best bet.
Hopefully Apple gets to the point and fixes this problem sooner than later.
As Educon has just passed, and many teachers will be attending our annual teacher convention, things have been very busy. With that being said, information never stops and my twitter feed and Google Reader account continue to push and inspire my thinking. Here are some interesting articles I have found this week:
1. The Ugle Side of Social Media? - Interestingly enough, the first I heard of this story of a woman taking this t-shirt from a young fan at the Australian Open was through mainstream media (I would provide a video link, but they are hard to find due to the backlash against the woman in question) , which has not become the norm for news in my life at this point. While I was aghast at what happened to this young girl, this article made me realize of the impact that social media and mainstream media have upon one another on significantly impacting the life of any one individual in a moment of indiscretion. This quote from the post really has pushed my thinking:
While the behaviour of the crowd may seem entirely justified to themselves – acting on behalf of the innocent girl – this can somewhat cloud the real situation. That is to say that we are focusing our attentions on someone grabbing a t-shirt, inciting hatred and abuse and even invading their privacy.
The question of who is responsible is a difficult one. Social media is not responsible itself, as it is simply the prevalent form of self-expression in our society today. It has not created the concept of mob mentality or victimisation, nor are the mob to blame themselves. While some are certainly taking it too far, it is innate within human nature that we will crowd together and rally round where we see that justice is needed, however far that concept of justice may have been stretched.
In this case, we can actually look to mainstream media as playing a big part here, for choosing to further the story and continuing to sway public opinion. There is a sense of responsibility required for those who, in an era when social media tools exist, are able to influence and reach the public en masse. What’s needed is balanced reporting to calm the crowds. The danger of doing otherwise is far too high.
Whatever you think about the situation, it is an extremely interesting read and great for a topic of discussion with students and staff. Does mainstream media have a different responsibility in our world today knowing that our world is different or is this solely the responsibility of each individual? Both? Can you imagine if “Bartman” would have made his mistake in a world where Twitter existed? Definitely an article that will make you think about our world today and the role media plays.
2. A little empathy – Edna Sackson has long been one of my favourite bloggers, but this short post really made me think about our role as educators in relation to those in the medical field. In this personal post, Edna discusses her thoughts in the context of a personal situation that she is going through at this point:
I’ve spent many hours in a hospital this past week (not as a patient) and have become acutely aware of the effects of every personal (and not so personal) interaction. It’s irrelevant whether the person concerned (or not so concerned) is a doctor, a nurse, an orderly or a cleaner. Only some display empathy. Not all are communicators. These are the things that matter. These are the things we should teach our children…
This quote is something that every educator should consider.
3. Education: Not ready to listen? – In this post written by Adora Svitak, a student currently in our educational system, she has some tough criticisms regarding the voice of students in our current educational system:
If the education community is unable or unwilling to receive a message about education from a student, I think we have problems. We’d find it unacceptable if our representatives suddenly started refusing to meet with constituents or if companies like Bank of America kept on charging ridiculous fees despite public uproar. Yet we accept that education doesn’t want to hear from students? We are the “customers” of our nation’s schools. It’s in our interest to learn in the best way we can–many of my fellow students have plenty of wise insights that I think could help change education for the better–but that simply won’t happen if the adults in the room are covering their ears.
I hope you all have a great week, and continue to enjoy learning with your students!
cc licensed ( BY SD ) flickr photo shared by wadem
“Directions are instructions given to explain how. Direction is a vision offered to explain why.” Simon Sinek
As I am seeing a growing demand for schools to learn how to use social media tools in classrooms with students, staff, and parents, I have continuously tried to focus on this Simon Sinek video (which I have mentioned several times in this blog). In the Ted Talk, Sinek continuously says the same phrase over and over again:
“People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it.”
Although this can be taken as a very “business-driven” phrase, there is definitely a connection to the work we are doing within our schools and especially with our students, staff, and stakeholders. I have this huge belief that people want to be inspired and want purpose in their lives, they don’t want to just “show up” and do the work.
With that being said, I have seen the importance of defining the “why” in my own experience. Often I have been asked to work with staff to either give a talk and/or to follow up by doing a workshop on how to help educators get connected. Sometimes though, I have been asked to simply do the workshop portion. Although doing the latter is much more time efficient for that day, in the long run if we do not clearly articulate “why” we are doing what we are doing, the “what” and the “how” are lost.
Recently, I had the opportunity to work with a school staff giving a presentation on some of the trends happening in our world and how we can leverage technology in a way to connect with our students, school community, and the rest of the world. After the presentation, we were meant to do a workshop on Google Apps, but questions came up about Twitter and how they would use that tool to connect and learn with so many great educators around the world. The questions were inspired and teachers were excited about moving forward and learning something new. As I left to head off to my next meeting, the entire staff was still there working on what I had tried to teach them. It was inspiring for me to see and I was reluctant to leave.
I am not certain if the discussion I had with them that day will stick with them, but I do know that taking that hour before and sharing with them “why” we are trying to move forward will definitely increase the percentage of success. As educators (and as people in general), we are always stressed about the amount of time we have in a day, but as I have been told often, “sometimes we have to go slow, to go fast”. Taking that time to discuss the why was important and needed. It is also a lesson that I can learn greatly from as I continue my own work.
I have embedded the Sinek video below…if you have not seen it, it is definitely worth the 19 minutes it takes to watch it.
cc licensed ( BY ) flickr photo shared by Search Engine People Blog
“Our careers, our companies, our personal relationships, and our very lives succeed or fail gradually, then suddenly, one conversation at a time.” Susan Scott
We are currently in a workshop entitled “Fierce Conversations” (where the above quote came from). The focus of the workshop (that I have obtained so far) is about the relationships and connections that we have with people; how we talk to them and how we move forward both personally and professionally, in a way that we build relationships and trust. Relationships, as I have always believed, are the foundation on which good schools and organizations are built upon. They do not necessarily make an organization great, but without them, excellence is less likely to happen.
I haven’t been blogging much lately. Honestly, for one time in my life, I feel that I have had nothing much to say. Now in reality, I always have an opinion on something, but just in the case of my career or my experience in education, I just haven’t felt the need to share anything, nor have I seen anything that has inspired me to write. It is not that there are not a lot of amazing things happening in our school division and around the world, but I have just tried to purposely disconnect for a bit. I have been thinking a lot about my job, the work I do, and my own personal life.
Last year as a principal, inspiration came seemingly every day when I worked with students and their stories affected me profoundly. This year, being in central office, I have been around students, and have seen different ones a fair bit. The problem is that seeing a mass amount of students for a limited amount of time has not created the same connection that I have always longed for in my life. The relationships are there, but they are just not as deep. I miss that connection often and have sometimes struggled with it.
It is not that I don’t love my job, but there has definitely been an adjustment. Any time I felt I needed a break from ‘office work’, I would get up, walk around, and go visit kids in the classroom. I have found now that I get up, walk around, and have nowhere else to go. It is just different.
Schools, I believe, are like no other business in the way we build relationships. Leaving a school or classroom, impacts people to a point where students, and sometimes families feel abandoned and hurt. I remember specifically students at my last school in grade 6 (the highest grade in the school), wondering how I could possibly leaving them. I told them that it would not matter to them since they were switching schools as well, but you could still feel that they were at a loss because the world that they had known was going to change. Although I think in a positive way of the relationships that I had built in my former schools, there is always a feeling of guilt when you leave, even if it is to do what you feel is right for your own life and family. Kids impacted me in a way that I could never imagined when I first started teaching and I miss seeing them every day.
As my career has moved quickly, and I have always felt that if I wasn’t busy, I would be bored, I noticed that I started to check out of many things outside of work. It wasn’t that I hated the things that I was doing, but I was continuously doing things, as opposed to sometimes just soaking in moments. Last year, I taught classes at a gym 6 times a week, refereed basketball on my nights off, all while running a school. I had no time for anything else. My blog posts in this year have focused a lot less on educational technology, leadership, and teaching practice, but a lot about balance. The term balance has always perplexed me as those who are seemingly successful aren’t necessarily ‘balanced’; they are focused and determined to be successful in what they are passionate about.
So this year, I have decided to cut back on several things. Reffing basketball was off the table. I teach classes at the gym only four times a week (as opposed to seven). When I leave work, I tend to not check my phone at all hours and I spend much less time working at Starbucks. This does not mean that I am not passionate about my job, but I just know now that I do not want to be defined by it. I love what I do. I love connecting with people, both kids and adults. But I also know that I needed to focus on things outside of work. I have spent more time connecting with friends, working on relationships, and just enjoying life outside of work. To be honest, it has been great. I had “blog-guilt” for awhile, but I promised myself when I first started that I would not write unless I had something to say. The guilt goes away.
So when we talk about the ability to have “fierce” conversations with one another, we always have to focus on our own readiness to talk. We have to look at where we are at as individuals. Are we at the point where we are truly ready to listen and empathize with someone else’s point of view? To get to that point, we have to look at our own situations and make sure that we are able to have those conversations.
In the workshop, the following quote (unknown) said it all to me:
“If you don’t like the conversations you are having with other people, look at the conversations you are having with yourself.”
We always need to be able to work on ourselves if we are truly going to be effective leaders. What I found from my lack of blogging lately is that sometimes the best reflection comes from saying nothing at all. We need to be comfortable with those breaks as well.
I have enjoyed taking some time away from social media and connecting with family and friends. The more I get involved in the “online world”, the more I appreciate my time away from it. That being said, this graphic from Royan Lee says it all to me.
1. 7 Deadly Sins of Creativity – Innovation and creativity are two words that seem to go hand-in-hand to me, so when I came across this blog post, I thought that it had some fantastic ideas. I loved this quote that was shared:
Happiness is not in the mere possession of money; it lies in the joy of achievement, in the thrill of creative effort. - Franklin D. Roosevelt
In this post, the authors go over the things that stifle creativity, while also discussing how you can conquer these ideas. Here is an example:
Lack of passion and enthusiasm.
Enthusiasm is the lifeblood of creativity. Creativity blossoms when you are passionate and enthusiastic about what you are doing. It’s extremely difficult topioneer creative solutions for things you have absolutely no interest in. When your mind is stimulated by curiosity and a fundamental interest in the subject matter, your creativity and motivation will automatically accelerate.
2. Questions about curriculum… – Edna Sackson has long been one of my favourite bloggers and this post definitely helps to guide questions in not only how you build a classroom, but also a school. These types of questions are imperative to growth of ourselves as educators and our schools as a whole. Here are some of the questions that Edna asks:
What are your beliefs about learning? Do they coincide with ours?
Did you know that a curriculum should not be static, but constantly revisited and updated to be current, relevant and promote authentic learning?
Do you think a curriculum has to be a set of books with prescriptive instructions for teachers?
Are you aware that workbooks do not usually foster meaningful learning?
Read the entire post to really get the entire idea of some of the powerful questions Edna asks of educators.
3. Zeitgest: 2011 Year in Review - As the year closes, I loved this video as it would be a great opportunity to discuss world events and how they effect our own communities. What are some of the questions that this type of video can spark? I love the easy access we have to these types of videos and events in our world; it really shows me how important it is that we bring this learning into our classroom every single day.
4. Although the below video is not necessarily focused on education or pedagogy, it is something that I loved and watched about 100 times last week. When I see amazing dance videos like this, I think of this amazing Chris Andersen Ted Talk where he talks about the power of video to drive innovation in our world. Would you see dance like this 10 or even 5 years ago? How many have learned this dance since the video has been released?
I hope all of you are having an amazing holiday season and I wish you all of the best going into the new year!
“So here are some questions that keep me up at night: How are we to make our students literate if we ourselves are not? If we cling to age old definitions and ignore the wisdom of one of the oldest professional education organizations we have in this country, how do we provide my kids with the experiences they need to fully understand what it means to be a self-directed, participatory learner in this century? How do we make sure that every child and every teacher has access to these tools and connections? And what do we do when the reform conversations are being led by a majority of folks who have no context for the changes that are happening every day in these connected spaces, folks that by NCTE’s definition, may have some literacy issues themselves?” ~ Will Richardson
As literacy is so fundamental to opportunities of learning, I have been thinking about Twitter and the use of it in our schools. If you look at this video, you will see that the use of Twitter is going up exponentially and things such as hashtags are making their way into things outside of Twitter. For example, have you ever read a text message that has the term “#fail” in it? Why the pound sign?
Just looking at a random tweet from Patrick Larkin, I wonder if most educators are able to decipher what the message is saying or even where to go to find out what the “pound sign thingies” mean? Take a look:
During this time in our world, if you can’t read this, are you missing out on something important? It is not just the words, but the links and hashtags that are in the message as well. I have done several workshops with educators and having something up like Tweetdeck looks like it is right out of the Matrix movies. I know it did to me when I first started using it. That being said, I am always appreciative when others are willing to take the time, struggle, and learn to get better at using this medium. It is so important that we model our learning continuously as educators for the sake of our students.
“The new literacy, beyond text and image, is one of information navigation. The real literacy of tomorrow entails the ability to be your own personal reference librarian—to know how to navigate through confusing, complex information spaces and feel comfortable doing so. “Navigation” may well be the main form of literacy for the 21st century.” ~ John Seely Brown
I have written about the texting improving literacy before, but I was again reminded of how much more our students read now as opposed to the time I was a kid when I read this article discussing a recent talk by Margaret Atwood:
Thanks to the rise of the internet and of social media, “I would say that reading, as such, has increased. And reading and writing skills have probably increased because what all this texting and so forth replaced was the telephone conversation,” she continued. “People have to actually be able to read and write to use the internet, so it’s a great literacy driver if kids are given the tools and the incentive to learn the skills that allow them to access it.”
Often you will hear things on how Twitter is “eroding society”, yet there can often be much more in a tweet then simply 140 characters. Atwood goes on to talk about how people are using Twitter to express themselves in similar ways, further their learning through the links that are often provided, and are sometimes using the medium to do different things:
“A lot of people on Twitter are dedicated readers. Twitter is like all of the other short forms that preceded it. It’s like the telegram. It’s like the smoke signal. It’s like writing on the washroom wall. It’s like carving your name on a tree. It’s a very short form and we use that very short form for very succinct purposes. There is a guy out there who is writing 140-character short stories — I just followed him today…but that’s the exception. It’s sort of like haikus [and] prose,” Atwood said.
Journalists are quickly learning that a Twitter account can be the best way to connect with an audience and share information as it happens. It is making the news more interactive and you will often see on newscasts the “Twitter handle” highlighted when a person is speaking. Humans yearn for connections and Twitter is a great way to be able to interact with those that once seemingly were out of reach. If journalists and writers are using this medium, should we not understand or share it with our own students?
Literacy is something that continuously evolves and I am not here to condemn those that don’t use Twitter. There are many areas of literacy that I can continue to improve (especially in the area of media literacy), but I know better to not just brush it aside and ignore it. We always need to get better for our kids. If we can’t understand all of the symbols in Twitter, learn how to write a tweet, and use those 140 characters (not all of the time) to lead people to more information, are we missing out on something?
As evidenced in the video below, there can be a lot of power in a simple tweet. We need to learn and take advantage.
cc licensed ( BY ) flickr photo shared by aloshbennett
There are WAY more questions in this post then there are answers…I would love your thoughts.
I am a HUGE believer in personalized learning and think that our students should have opportunities to express their learning in many different ways. I would say that this holds true with the majority of educators that I know. The difference though is that do we often limit students to our version of personalization? Do we only give them options that we know? I have been very comfortable in my career encouraging students to share their learning in different ways whether I know them or not. The exploration and problem solving that goes into the work that a student creates using an unknown technology may not be taken directly out of the curriculum, but will obviously have some learning “side-effects” that will benefit the child long after their time in my class. Is this notion of exploration the norm though?
As the year has progressed, I have seen so many learning opportunities where “paper” has been the only option (always my favourite thing to happen in a session that discusses differentiated learning) and there is no digital component. This is not only for reading what has been shared, but also creating content to deepen understanding. Lyn Hilt wrote a fantastic post today giving some great options of what school administrators can try to further their learning. She ends her post with this quote:
This learning and reflective practice, which needs to be embedded throughout any district or school organization, must be modeled. It must be visible. It must be continuous. If you’re a school leader, ask yourself what about your own teaching and learning methods needs to be transformed in order for you to grow your capacity as a leader. Then turn your insights into action.
I have always believed in the idea that we need to give all learners options and Lyn exemplifies this in her post with a great table of ideas. That being said, I am wondering if this is a ‘suggestion’ will people jump in and try the “new” way (which I would say is better)? Even if it isn’t better for that learner, as leaders, should we still not understand different opportunities for learning, especially if we are to be experts on the subject? I wrote a post this summer that literally stemmed from my frustration of not been given the opportunity to have a digital component for my own learning at a “21st Century Conference” that was “paper heavy”. I know we are supposed to meet learners where they are at, but, to be honest, this pushed me out of my comfort zone. That being said, when we are being pushed out of that zone, shouldn’t it at least be a push forward? I wonder what would happen if we came to a point where we would say to educators that we are only going to use digital resources for this meeting, this PD session, this learning opportunity? Would they back down from the challenge or would they adapt and perhaps even transform their practice? I love the idea of sharing a continuum as Lyn has done, but maybe we need to just cut off the ‘old’ option. Can we really personalize learning for students if we don’t understand how to use emerging technologies?
We ask our students to be uncomfortable in their learning every day; do we embody that practice ourselves?
Last year, I spoke with John Carver and our conversation still resonates. He said to me, “This is a printing press time in history; what are we going to do with it?” In my opinion, we shouldn’t have the option to ignore it.
Thoughts?
As the year is winding down and people have been busy preparing for holidays, I have not been as connected this week as I have been in the past. That being said, I have definitely seen some awesome links. Hopefully they will be helpful to whatever you are doing.
1. 7 Deadly Sins of Creativity – The thoughts of creativity and innovation to me, seem to go hand-in-hand. In this blog post, I love how it shares some of the roadblocks to creativity. There is a great list shared on this post, but I love the first one on “lack of knowledge and attention” as it is applicable to the work we are doing in schools:
Lack of knowledge and attention.
Knowledge and attention are absolute necessities. Creative thinking cannot be productively applied until a certain level of knowledge is gathered about the current situation or problem at hand. Thus, creativity actually relies on both sides of the brain, the creative right side and the logical left side.
The first steps the brain takes when tackling a creative venture are actually governed by logic, not creativity. This is because most creative breakthroughs rest on the shoulders of everything that came before it. The logical left side of your brain analyzes the situation and all the known facts, defines the problem that must be solved and then hands the data over to the creative right side of your brain. In other words, once a creative challenge has been realized, you must first rely on your logic and absorb yourself in what is already known. Without this logical review process, creativity will drown in misdirection.
The battle between content and process is something we often talk about, but we need to have both. I think that is well defined in the above example.
2. This Year’s 10 Best Ted Talks To Share With Students – Edudemic has been doing some great “end of the year” lists which have led to some great resources being shared going into 2012. Although many Ted Talks are great for adults, these suggestions may be ones that will start some great conversations with students in the classroom. Definitely check them out.
3. Smile – Nothing more than I can say then that I love this video and the story it tells. There are so many great little lessons from this video; it is definitely worth the sixteen minutes just for the smile it will bring to your face.
I hope that everyone has a great week and enjoys their well deserved holidays 
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