Category Archives: innovation

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Inspiration from TEDxPeachtree: SIF Symposium

  October 30, 2014 , ,

Its here. Midterms. As the academic calendar continues to progress, midterms allow you the awareness of “further than we were, but not yet where we need to be” in classes and projects. The same mindset has been being applied to SIF as I had my first small group checkin yesterday. Myself, Ryan, Sruthi, Roxanne, and Valerie all met with Brennan to check in on project progress and the overall SIF experience so far. Because I had not not even met some of these SIFs before, (I’ll remind you that I was not at the SIF kick off meeting in August since I was still living in DC at the time) I really enjoyed that we got to spend a large portion of our time together simply sharing in detail who we are, what projects were were assigned to, and providing an overview of the details of each project and its current status. What was most enjoyable about this was, when these SIFs spoke about their roles and objectives, you could see their faces light up with excitement. And when you hear about their projects, it is easy to see why. My SIF colleagues are working on really meaningful projects that utilize technology in innovative ways. Ah ha. Just what we’ve been striving for all along. But that is my honest reflection towards these projects. People are excited about the work they are doing because it simultaneously interesting, challenging, and best of all-creating a useful end product. This same theme was … Continue reading

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Rhet/Comp, Durkheim, Hybrid Pedagogy, and Me

  October 20, 2014 , , , ,

In the last 7 or so weeks as a SIF, I have learned more than I ever imagined I would. A few weeks ago, I decided to write an article featuring the SIF program. In a stroke of benevolence, Brennan gave me permission to spend some of my hours developing the article. So I set to work – basing the article on a footnote I harvested from Emile Durkheim’s sociologically ground breaking book The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life written in 1912: “A tool is material accumulated capital.” When I read that note, I knew I was going to use it for something – but I wasn’t sure what – until I began to read Writing Teachers Writing Software by rhetoric and composition scholar Paul LeBlanc. The article I wrote went live this morning at 3am on Hybrid Pedagogy. Here is the link: Addressing the Elephant: The Importance of Infrastructure

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Following up with Nicole’s recent post

  October 20, 2014 ,

I’m writing this blog post as a follow up to Nicole’s “Innovation and Education” post that she published on October 13. What I particularly liked about her approach to tackling the concept of innovation is that it’s not certainly necessary to “reinvent the wheel” but to take into account as many perspectives as possible when attempting to create something new. Following this line of thinking, being innovative can be seen as doing something else with knowledge and processes already available to us. In turn, it stresses the idea that innovation always comes from “somewhere”. In few cases, innovative ideas emerge our of nothing. What I have found quite helpful in applying this logic of “somewhere” is to subscribe to as many online outlets that relate to your interests. In my case this meant subscribing to the various Youtube channels of the conference series known as TED. Below is a list of channel links: TED, TED-Ed, TEDMed, TEDFellowsTalks, TEDxYouth, TEDxTalks. For those of you who are not yet familiar with the organization, TED is a conference platform that works to share ideas worth spreading. This year marks its 20th anniversary with conference presentations that deal with a broad spectrum of topics and issues coming from the fields of technology, entertainment, art, education, business, and medicine. The organization curates most of those presentations on its various YouTube channel, thereby creating an impressive archive of information and knowledge. Tapping into this knowledge can really help generate ideas that we can consider innovative. For example, … Continue reading

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Creativity is a Conversation

  October 20, 2014

Photo credit: Sembazuru A reoccurring key concept reappeared again during last week’s lectures: that creative work is a conversation between yourself and whatever it is you’re creating. Very few of us can hear something or visualize something in our heads and have it materialize in the real world. When you pluck a guitar string the string reacts. There is no way to know precisely how the sting will sound. You should know what note your hitting of course, but there will be slight nuances beyond your control. When you ink a piece of paper, the paper and pen will react in unique ways too. In short, nothing happens in isolation. Everything created contains some element of conversation. Even writing a paper is a conversation between you and the paper you are writing. By opening yourself up to this conversation, and allowing the dialogue to flow, you can become more creatively productive. Make a conscious effort to keep the lines of communication open especially during the early stages of creating and be open to change. Bob Ross was the absolute master of this. For one thing, the guy made his living literally having conversations with the canvas. And in addition to being a supreme bad ass, no seriously he was a retired Master Sergeant for the U.S. Air Force, he dropped  creative wisdom on the reg. Perhaps his most famous line, “We don’t make mistakes, just happy little accidents.” sums this post up interestingly. Roll with the punches is another way to say it. The … Continue reading