- Caine’s Arcade was created by a young boy playing with cardboard and using imagination to play. In his own pursuit of fun and creativity, he inspired a movement. Check out Cain’e video here! And here’s how you can use Cain’e arcade to inspire your classroom! (A shout out to ED 678 for introducing me to this one).
- Mavis Beacon was an enormous part of my childhood typing curriculum. Computers where still pretty novel in second grade, so learning how to type was exciting, but what really made us want to practice typing was the gaming aspect of our dear friend Mavis. Sometimes, in today’s classrooms, we discount video games and platforms as a “waste of time” but these can actually be really great motivation!
- Steal Like an Artist is a book by Austin Kleon that goes into great detail about creativity. In the very beginning, Kleon encourages stealing. He says there is no such thing as an original idea anymore and that’s ok. Steal ideas and put your own twist on them until they become yours. (Give credit where credit is due of course!). Interestingly enough, in Mitch Resnick’s article, All I Really Need to Know (About Creative Thinking) I Learned (By Studying How Children Learn) in Kindergarten (Links to an external site.), students give tips for the next workshop of students saying, “It’s OK to copy stuff (to give you an idea).” Stealing like an artist can be a great place to begin learning to fiddle and to build your “creative cabinet.”
- Play is, or rather, can be, the foundation for childhood learning and inquiry. Let the Kids Learn Through Play, was interesting to me because it cited a study about students who went to either a kindergarten that was “academically oriented,” “child oriented,” or something in between. The study found that by the end of 4th grade, those who had attended an academically oriented kindergarten were trailing behind the others in terms of grade.
- An interesting conversation that seems to be gaining interest in higher education is the idea of Courses with no Syllabi. This idea struck a cord with me because it parallels with what Mitch Resnick says in his video, The 4 P’s of Learning. He argues that not all play leads to valuable learning. He likened it to a play-pen vs a playgound. Courses with syllabi can be likened to play-pens. They can be restrictive, especially to students who do not set their own boundaries, but rather have those classroom boundaries set for them. However, Courses with no syllabi could be “sandboxes” or “playgrounds” for students to experiment more freely under the guidance of a faculty-member there to help structure and challenge students to be creative and reflect.
- This past week, I have been learning more about generation Z, whom we are now serving in the higher edu realm. Pearson published this GenZ_Infographic,which I found interesting because it very obviously indicates that these students have not seen a world without technology. So why are we forcing them to learn without it in the classroom. Why not have them use the resources at their disposal to be creative, learn, and think-critically. Connecting to Gen Z, is another resource that I recently found very interesting. It indicated that Gen Z have lower attention spans and indicate that they prefer receiving their information in images and will not look past the first page of a google search.
By the way, I lost the game 😉 #ED677
Learning to Connect 