Fuzzy Thinking

INTRO

What was lost, found, I looked up and there it was in the distance, about 30 meters away. Not my missing phone case, it was in my car the whole time. This..

WHEN SETTLING ISN'T MAKING DO

I was out flying out flying my Parrot Bebop 2 drone yesterday. I used to think it was one hot drone. Then I flew a DJI Phantom 4. Then I saw a demo of the new DJI Mavic Pro drone and took the Phantom back and pre-ordered a Mavic. Which is why I was out flying. I fly drones, not for the flying so much. That's scary. Drones are expensive. I've lost one and crashed several. I fly drones for the photos. The DJI camera gimbal and cameras are much better than what my Bebop 2 has.

But the Mavic Pro isn't likely to arrive for a while. So Bebop and me were out in the Arizona desert west of Phoenix flying and taking pictures. At the very end, packed up and about to drive off, I looked to the right and there it was: a frowning cactus. A few days from Halloween sighting it was timely. It made me think of a Jack-o-Lantern, this Jack-o-Cactus.

Photos other drone pilots post on social media show wondrous things: cathedrals and estates, lush green or craggy snow covered mountains, cruise ships and barges on the sea or rivers, basically a whole lot of amazing places. Around these parts, in the slice of Arizona I call home, all there is is scrub and cactus.

But finding and photographing Jack-o-Cactus made me think that since I got it I should use it.

OUTRO

I wish my Mavic Pro would get here already. It's 4K camera would have taken a much sharper Jack photo. Oh well. Soon. Soon.

 

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Sit n Get

INTRO

My K-12 experience spanned from 1961 through 1974. My butt polished a lot of chairs in that time.

SIT

I can't recall many times, outside of PE class, where I wasn't sitting down in school. Sure, there were those terrifying moments working problems on the blackboard. But this activity wasn't something a kid looked forward to.

The classrooms I knew had rows of chairs. Desktop collaboration was difficult. Aside from the floor flat surfaces to spread out and collaborate on were few. I cannot recall a time when we used the floor.

@ErikWahl and @KidsDeserveIt if you want to move education forward then your delivery needs to get students' bodies moving.

GET

I design learning experiences for adults. In the almost two years that I've been participating in EdCamp I have learned many ways to teach kids. I have been able to use some of these techniques and strategies and tools with the learners I support. The best of them involve movement.

Devices and technology give students reach: to information and each other. The information stores, libraries, that I encountered in the 1960s were places to borrow books. The Internet of the day, card catalogues, were slow and cumbersome and in the end useful only insofar as the library was able to keep the resource: book, periodical, or map. Accessing the resource required that I go to the library. Today the information comes to students through browsers and apps.

Students need to be set in motion. In a Twitter chat some time ago I heard about Heutagogy. In a nutshell I think its about going after learning. Students, whether adults or children know what they need. It's arguable that maybe adults have a more definite idea of their needs than children. I'm not so sure.

OUTRO

If we're serious about growing flexible, curious, and creative people we have to set them free to go after what interests them. It's our job as educators to design learning experiences that facilitate that chase. Set our students free. My granddaughter Carly is counting on you.

 

 

Knot Tried

PROLOGUE
I’d like to teach the world to sing “I’d to teach the world to sing” — The New Seekers, 1972.
KNOT
Day 10’s AprilBlogaDay is suddenly upon me. Who knew it’d wrap me up in its all encompassing thrall? What have I not tried this school year that I want to? (Disclosure: I’m an instructional designer producing learning experiences for health care providers).

Sure, a Tangram is supposed to come with seven shapes. But if seven is good eight or more must be great!
Anyway, most of my better ideas for learning activities have their roots in K-12; the bulk of my PD (Professional Development) activities come from participation in EdCamps, CUE, and TCEA events. There’s some amazing things going on in K-12. The rub for me is my learners are quite a bit older than first graders, so there’s that. Other differences are a little more knotty.
For example, teachers sometimes assign stuff to be completed after school hours. With adult learners being trained this way can be a big no-no; unions have contracts and there are strict rules for overtime and so on.
I usually have to reflect tons and bounce ideas off my PLN (Personal Learning Network) before an idea morphs into something that I can test.
TRIED
Tried is tired spelled sideways.
When, as part of my design thinking instructional design process, I interview learners I hear a lot of moans and groans about stuff that doesn’t work or work well. Don’t get me wrong. Most of the learning I see is great. But there’s room for improvement.

The thing I’d like to try next is a series of case studies told over a campfire. There’d be a campfire hook (thank you @burgessdave and his Teach Like a Pirate book for that) to draw learners in. What would have been a series of PowerPoint slides on a wall and a lecture would instead be transformed into hearing about a problem and then working through to an actual solution.
My thinking here is that at by the end of the training transfer would have occurred and learners will have made something (job-aids, decision-trees, something I haven’t even thought of (!!)) to make their learning visual and discussable. To the English teachers in my PLN: apologies for that run-on.
EPILOGUE
A lot of technology goes into education and training. I’d like to try a more primitive and earthy approach next time out. I’ll let you know how it goes.