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Designing Online Learning

By in 21st Century Learning Skills, Creativity, Design, eLearning, Problem Solving

When I am designing an online course, I use lots of check lists and charts to help guide me. Then,  when reading an articles on Three Keys That Make Good Interaction Design Great, these words stood out to me:

  • Optimizing: Making daily activities more efficient
  • Engaging: Capturing attention, creating delight and delivering meaning
  • Empowering: Enabling people to go beyond their limits
  • Expressing: Encouraging self expression and/or creativity
  • Connecting: Facilitating communication between people and communities
  • Disrupting: Re-imagining completely an existing product or service by creating new behaviors, usages or markets.

Hello, this list can be used to double check an online course.  Are these being represented in the course I’m designing? Why can’t a check list, like this one, be used to help create some dynamic online design?  I say “Yes it can!”

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A 21st Century Education

By in 21st Century Learning Skills, Creativity, critical thinking, Inspiration, Problem Solving, Self-Directed Learning

There are a series of videos here, to view.  I highly recommend.

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Content in Context

By in Creativity, Design, Free Tools, Inspiration, Problem Solving, Project Management

antique lathe

Just like a carpenter, web designers need to know when to use the right tools. A big part of designing is problem solving.  No, I should re-phrase that, a big part of living is problem solving and we need more of these skills in life.

So, in a recent query I received, Brenton wanted to develop a blogging site comparable to this site.

WordPress will make your websites and you might want to look into making css code out of your PSD [PhotoShop Documents].  Check it out.

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Design Sucker!

By in Creativity, Design, Inspiration, Problem Solving

GoPetDesignBlcakCrateI am the first to admit it: I am a sucker for great design!  And can you believe this?  It makes me want to get a little dog, just so I can have the crate.  Humm, I wonder if you could build a terrarium in there?  This is so fabulous.

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Project Management Roles & Cool Titles

By in Inspiration, Problem Solving, Project Management

Light bulb Idea

As I have mentioned, I am currently in an Online Project Management course, whereas we are working in groups on solving a project management issue [ours is partially real and some what fabricated-which is fine with our professor].One task last week was to choose our Project Management Roles.  I am the Idea Developer for our group.

If you want to read some really interesting role titles, check out Automattic This is the startup group who are best known for a little project called WordPress.  It is worth a quick scroll to read some of these titles.

My favorites:

  • Happiness Engineer[they actually have about 6 of these],
  • Digital Entomologist,
  • Systems Wrangler,
  • Outernationalist [his name is Ze Fontainhas],
  • PollDaddy Jr,
  • Design Wacko,
  • Schmooze Engineer,
  • Lightbulb Engineer,
  • and wouldn’t you love to hear your child announce they were going to grow up to be a
    • Bug Exorcist or Master of Suggestion?

Makes you want to re-think your title doesn’t it?

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Joining The Institute for Digital Media Arts [IDMA]

By in Creativity, Design, eLearning, Inspiration, Problem Solving, the Institute for Digital Media Arts Online

IMDA Home Page

Another group I am happy & proud to be working with is  The Institute for Digital Media Arts [IDMA].   I am creating a Web Design Diploma for them.

  • The Web Design Diploma offers students the opportunity to explore the design of websites, interactive media, and other digital technologies. Following a project-based curriculum, students will immediately gain knowledge and learn skills about tools and technologies used in designing and creating digital products.
  • Student studies will focus on design, functionality, target audience, and user experience. The studies will remain grounded in the fundamentals of information architecture, basic front and back end web development, and interactive media design.
  • These courses are developed to be presented completely online.

Fun and exciting times, online.

Join us on Facebook

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Mental Pictures, Telling Stories & Lessons Learned

By in 21st Century Learning Skills, Design, Inspiration, Problem Solving, Project Management

I’m nearly complete with a Graduate Certificate Program I’ve been enrolled in since Jan 2010.  I so enjoy learning and learning online…..well, I’ve been doing this since 1994. The current course is all about Project Management and we’ve been discussing Project Management [PM] Roles.

Mike Mulligan and Mary Anne

Speaking of PM Roles I am reminded of an old book, written in 1939, called ‘Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel Mary Anne.’ For those too young to remember, the story goes:

Mike and Mary Anne are a team and after many years of working successfully together, Mike and Mary Anne face competition from modern, diesel-powered shovels. Seeking an area of the country where his less modern steam shovel can still find work, Mike finds a small town that is about to build a new town hall. The authorities react with disbelief when Mike makes the claim that he and his steam shovel Mary Anne can dig the cellar in a single day; they protest that it would take a hundred men a week. Mike insists that Mary Anne can indeed finish the job in one day, though he has some private doubts.

At sun-up the next day, Mike and Mary Anne begin work and just manage to complete the task by sundown. However, they have neglected to dig themselves a ramp so they can drive out. A child who had been watching makes the suggestion that Mike take the job of janitor for the town hall, and that Mary Anne should become the boiler for the town hall’s heating system.  Wikipedia

It just goes to show how our roles change during a project and how powerful stories can be when helping to solidify learning.  Check out Mike and Mary Anne.

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The real reason China is laughing at the US

By in Creativity, Design, Inspiration, Problem Solving

Having lived in Beijing for 15 years I could really relate to this report;

“In China there has been widespread education reform to extinguish the drill-and-kill teaching style. Instead, Chinese schools are also adopting a problem-based learning approach.”

Always adapting, the Chinese are masters at analyzing trends, seeking to copy and then improve. I remember Chinese education being delivered in the rote memorization formula.  Those days are gone.

As Daniel Pink reported [frequent readers will note I really do respect Mr. Pink's work],

“[Indiana University professor Jonathan] Plucker recently toured a number of such schools in Shanghai and Beijing. He was amazed by a boy who, for a class science project, rigged a tracking device for his moped with parts from a cell phone. When faculty of a major Chinese university asked Plucker to identify trends in American education, he described our focus on standardized curriculum, rote memorization, and nationalized testing. “After my answer was translated, they just started laughing out loud,” Plucker says. “They said, ‘You’re racing toward our old model. But we’re racing toward your model, as fast as we can.’”

In America we are having a Creativity Crisis! Research show that American creativity is declining.  what went wrong -and how we can fix it.

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