Change Post Its

Below are my notes from Day 1 of our Northwest Iowa TICL conference

Tony Vincent, Learning In Hand@tonyvincent

Question the Status Quo

  • Entrepreneurs are curious, creative, and fearless about experimentation – Hal Gregersen
  • Showing us a series of ‘life hacks’ to help us think outside the box
  • What does innovation mean to you? (using the Post-It Plus app to display audience responses)
    • Sometimes innovation means you have to stay within a box and think creatively
  • MyScript Calculator and PhotoMath
  • Use ‘-teacherspayteachers’ to exclude that site from your Google searches for teaching resources
  • Other places to search for resources include Pinterest, Diigo, Slideshare, YouTube, Twitter, etc.
  • Eric Schmidt – “the best way we’ve found to foster [innovation] at Google is to create an environment where ideas can collide in new and interesting ways, and the good ones are given resources to grow”
  • Plickers is an innovative tool created by an educator
  • Limitations can lead to innovations (e.g., using the address app to make our own dictionary / word wall)
  • Using Amazon book reviews with 5th grade students
  • Inklewriter allows students to make ‘choose your own adventure’ stories
  • Obvious to You, Amazing to Others video (Derek Sivers)

Oculus Rift 02

Dane Barner, StuCamp, @MrBarnerWCMS
 
Sustainable Innovation: Creating a Space for Innovation to Happen
  • No Box Thinking chat, #nbchat
  • Is lack of change just implementation fidelity?
  • Me: If you say to a teaching staff that we’re going to try a bunch of stuff and expect most of it to fail, they’ll look at you like you’re crazy
  • Dane: Innovation is change with purpose. Innovation is not something that we do, it’s something that happens.
  • Adam Bellow: Innovation occurs at the intersection of fear and bravery
  • Dane: Innovation requires an innovative mindset, the removal of restrictions, the right people, and failure as an option
  • Rachelle Mau: Fossilized mindset = they have concrete in their shoes and they’re buying concrete for others…
  • Dane: growth mindset = doing things you haven’t done before, innovative mindset = thinking in ways you haven’t before (and accept them)
  • Two core beliefs in schools: just tell me what to do, and there is a right answer (I just have to figure out what it is) – for both student and adult learners
  • What does it say about us as educators that we tenaciously hang on to what we know doesn’t work?
  • The curse of the three Ss – sports, schedule, and staffing
  • How do the people around you affect your ability to be innovative?
  • Dane: Dreamers and grounders
  • Failure is an event not a destination
  • Learning to walk: After falling, have you ever seen a baby say, “That’s it, I’m a crawler!”

Iowa State University FLEx trailer, Pete Evans, @petemevans #ISUFLEx

  • I experienced a virtual roller coaster wearing Oculus Rift (very cool!)
  • Also present: 3D printer, Little Bits, and more!