Learning Literacies - Make It

Make It - Active Learning

Learning is not a spectator sport. No one learns much just by sitting in classes listening to teachers, memorizing pre-packaged assignments, and spitting out answers. They must talk about what they are learning, write about it, relate it to past experiences and apply it to their daily lives. They must make what they learn part of themselves.


Learning outcomes

• demonstrate creative thinking, constructed knowledge
• develop innovative products and processes using technology in support of content
• generate new ideas, products, or processes
• express self in digital work
• explore systems using models and simulations
• identify trends and forecasting possibilities


Keywords

create, participate, innovation, creativity, web literacy, writing, reflection

Study notes

• How are people expressing their creativity digitally?
• Why is it important to have web literacy? What are some of the web skills that are necessary to be a successful learner today?
• How has testing changed with online quizzes?
• What are some new learning literacies?

Media

Active Learning

• Web Literacy Map is part of Mozilla’s ongoing goal to create a generation of webmakers – those who can not only elegantly consume but also write and participate on the web.

Productivity

• 7 Rules for Being More Productive
• 10 Productivity Guides to Inspire You - for example The Zen Productivity Guide
• Re-imagining work: How can we be more engaged, more productive and happier? (video 9:05) - interesting questions about where and how you work at work, can also apply to school, too
• Inside 80 - Re-balance your energy levels, find your natural pace. Free evaluation but requires registration

Presentation

• 10 Most Common Rookie Mistakes in Public Speaking - everyone needs to be able to speak in public.
• 10 Awesome Free Tools To Make Infographics - Information graphics, visual representations of data known as infographics, keep the web going these days. Web users, with their diminishing attention spans, are inexorably drawn to these shiny, brightly colored messages with small, relevant, clearly-displayed nuggets of information.
• 9 Awesome Powerful Free Infographic Tools
• In Pictures tutorials] are based on pictures, not words. They walk you through real-world scenarios, step-by-step. There's no complicated multimedia, just screenshots that show exactly what to do.

Writing

• Reflective writing (or pdf version) published by the Learning Centre at the University of New South Wales. (Remember to read the subpages of this resource.)
• Reflective writing in education published by Monash University. (Remember to read the subpages of this resource.)
• Research and Writing Papers - One of the most important and overlooked aspects of the writing process is the need to PLAN AHEAD.
• DeAnza Student Success - Writing, Spelling - strategies, tools, Grammar, Vocabulary

Creativity, innovation

• IDEO Values - 7 videos. IDEO is in the business of design and innovation, and their overall success is dependent on the overlaps between everyone’s skills.
• Student Film Festival - 16 selections tell the story of exactly why it's so important that we make sure more classrooms have the kind of cutting-edge technology they promote.
• How To Build Your Tribe - Finding ‘Your People’ - One of the most fundamental human needs is the need to belong.

Project management

• Project management for work that matters - simple outline for project work

Also see... Failed to load RSS feed from http://www.diigo.com/rss/user/vtaylor/makeit: Error parsing XML for RSS

Assignments

1. Creativity and innovation - There is a lot of interest in how people come up with new ideas and make new products and services. Find a web site or a video about a product or service that you think shows innovation or creativity or both. What makes this innovation special? Is there a problem it solves? What was the innovator's motivation? Post a link to the site or video, and provide a brief description of the innovation and why you selected this particular example, to the Creativity and Innovation discussion.
   Review the innovations provided by 2 others. What questions do you have about this innovation? Are there other similar problems to be solved?
   
   
2. Learning techniques - Some commonly used techniques, such as underlining, rereading material, and using mnemonic devices, were found to be of surprisingly low utility. These techniques were difficult to implement properly and often resulted in inconsistent gains in student performance. Other learning techniques such as taking practice tests and spreading study sessions out over time — known as distributed practice — were found to be of high utility because they benefited students of many different ages and ability levels and enhanced performance in many different areas.
   This is part of a summary of research on Learning Techniques. What learning techniques have you been taught? What are some learning techniques that work for you? What isn't helpful? Post your thoughts and suggestions to the Learning techniques discussion. Reply to 2 others.
   
   
3. Technology in education - For the Student Film Festival, kids created videos and the 16 finalists were selected. Watch 2-3 and pick one to review. Post your review along with a link to the video you reviewed to the Student Film reviews discussion.
   Provide feedback to to other reviews.
   
   
4. Creativity at work - IDEO is a successful design company. They put a lot of thought into creativity and innovation so they have some good ideas about how to continue to come up with create ideas. IDEO produced 7 videos that talk about their core values. Watch at least 2, then write a brief summary of what you learned about creativity and post it along with a link to the video you selected to IDEO values discussion.
   Reply to 2 other.
   
   
5. Make It - Find a technology and make something to demonstrate the technology to the class. There are many free web-based sites where you can use your creativity and share it. You may have to create an account to use the service. Some suggestions - Infographics, Google Story Builder, Tumblr blog, Prezi or SlideShare presentation, Pinterest or Learnist visual list of links, Flickr photo gallery. Or select from the 50 free web tools listed here. Your technology demonstration should include information about the technology and show how you used it. Save your work. Post a link to your work, the technology site and a brief description about the technology you selected to I made this... discussion.
   Comment on the work of 2 other students. Be sure to ask questions, too.
   
   
6. WebMaker - Where do you go if you want to get better at your web skills? How do you even know what's important to learn? The Web Literacy Map contains the competencies and skills that are important to pay attention to when getting better at reading, writing and participating on the web. The Web Literacy Map is made up of three strands. Each strand has a number of competencies, which are further sub-divided into skills: * Exploring * Building * Connecting. Review the lists for each of the 3 strands and compare your web skills with the list items. How did you do? Are you a WebMaker and familiar with most of the skills? Are there some ideas here for things you would like to learn? Post a brief note about your current web skills and the importance of web skills to learning to the Web Literacy discussion.
   Reply to 2 other students.
   
   
7. Thinking thing - Is everyone creative? Why is 'Make it' considered a digital literacy? Why is it important? What are some of the ways to make things digitally that are different from other traditional physical skills? Post your thoughts and suggestions to Make it digital discussion.
   
   
8. Reflective writing - Review the tutorial on Reflective Writing. Use the ideas outlined in the tutorial to respond. Do you need to learn more to be a better learner? What more do you need to learn about using technology for learning? What 3 or more things have you learned or discovered working through the Make it activities that will help be a better learner? Post your list to the I learned... Make it assignment.

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accessed - 2014.04.06 312