I only just discovered this cool tool that you can you to make word clouds called Wordle.
"Wordle is a toy for generating “word clouds” from text that you provide."
The above is the Wordle cloud for the text found in this wee blog thus far. Obviously, the blog has got a lot of "class". Perhaps I didn't need a word app to tell me that - but the reassurance is - well - reassuring.
Today a group of students introduced the concept of the Time Bank to the class. A Time Bank supposes a time-based currency, whereby the time that people spends providing services that are of value to the community (i.e. visiting with the elderly, teaching new Canadians English/French, mentoring children etc) earns time that one can spend to receive other services. It's similar barter, but without the need for a direct reciprocal exchange between participants. Further, everyone's time is valued equally - no matter if you are a novice or an expert.
Beyond just introducing the idea to the class - these students actually set up a website for the class (which I will place here once they send me the link), and have started getting students talking about how they could provide meaningful (and possibly less ones meaningful) services for one another. I look forward to seeing where this can go - in the class and beyond.
Here is a video of Professor Edgar Cahn (featuring Jon Snow's wonderful tie), founder of Time Banking, clearly explaining the concept:
It seems like a really lovely concept - and one that does not appear to be well represented in Canada. On the TimeBank.org website there are only a few Canadian Time Banks listed - the Lower Mainland, one in London (this appears to be more a community resource centre website), plus the NDG Time Bank, here in Montreal. Apparently the use of these in the US has really sky-rocketed with the recent economic crisis - though I'm hoping for those who experience it, this could result in a permanent shift in the way people view the exchange of meaningful services.
I like making practical, fun stuff. For me, "practical, fun stuff" often comes in the form of homemade lamps, I'm not sure why. I understand that, stereotypically, architects have a thing for chair design, and while I can appreciate a well thought out chair, I swoon at clever lighting concepts. Once I discovered the bags of lighting fixtures commonly found for very little in the "As-Is" section of Ikea, my crafting life took on a new, brighter life. Perhaps this is why I never went ahead with architectural studies. Or maybe not - we may never know for sure.
This "fist" lamp was a project for a sculpture class I took some time ago. It involved casting my own left hand while holding a lamp fixture. After casting my hand/arm using plaster bandages - it was a three-part mold - while holding the fixture, I poured concrete into the mold and let it set for a few days. I then placed the finished piece into a square form - a mold made from plastering a deep square stretcher frame - and poured a concrete base in which to support the hand and hide the wire from view. Embedded in both the fist and the base, is the wire of the lamp fixture - I hope I never have to rewire it.
Oh - the fun you can have with plaster bandages, some wiring and a large bag of concrete!
This video never gets old to me. While I don't agree with all elements of psychologist Barry Schwartz's TED talk, it is compelling, and really worth contemplating - especially on such a commercial holiday such as Valentine's day.
I honestly think it's problematic to look for happiness in material objects. Perhaps it's the inevitable failure of the hunt for happiness in such objects that leads to the proliferation of them - if at first you don't succeed, try try again, I suppose. But I don't think people were more successful in finding satisfaction or happiness at an earlier time due to less choice, but rather perhaps they were not so distracted by material pursuits and were better to appreciate those things which did bring them a sense of well being or happiness - friends, family, purpose etc.
A clever response to an superbowl ad about oh-so-oppressed hetero men. I love the rapid-fire response of internet-land.
Way to go Dodge! Congrats on alienating half the market - though maybe not your market (anymore). Clearly, the market for new so-called muscle-cars isn't 100% tapped. Anchor down boys, make it yours! Maybe you can make up for the last "sports" car you lost during bankruptcy protection.
According to Julia Bonstein in Business Week: "It's long been known that the woman's role in car purchasing goes beyond choosing the color. Consulting firm A.T. Kearney estimates that women determine 80 percent of consumption, purchase 60 percent of all cars and own 40 percent of all stocks."
Today was one of those days - a day when the fortuitous coming together of a number of key factors reveals something which would, from that day forward, forever appear incredibly obvious to you. The factors in question were 1) fatigue, 2) motivation theory, and 3) a student led dialogue session.
I like having the freedom to allow my students to walk around the class, like it's theirs. I like having them lead a good portion of the class, like it's theirs. I like to imagine that this motivates them to learn more, to retain more, to consider the sometimes challenging topics that we cover in that particular class. Sometimes they might not learn exactly what I was hoping they would, but sometimes they learn something much deeper. I always learn something, even if it's just that it's okay to let go and let someone else, someone less "experienced" be in charge.
Every week in my Social Context of Business class, a group of students develop and implement some kind of class activity to help their colleagues better understand the topic of that week - be it ethics, or consumerism etc. This forces the group in question to develop a solid understanding of the topic at hand, in addition to creating some interesting ways of sharing this information with the class. Examples of such exercises include scavenger hunts, the development of barter systems, quiz shows, dialogue sessions, and puzzles. Fun is often a key element of this half of the class.This week they had their peers experience a controversial topic from multiple perspective - I feel it was a highly effective exercise.
It's not like this in all my classes. In some of the coordinated classes I teach, there seems to be a pressure to teach the topics from a given text, in a given fashion. Perhaps as a result, I feel a little less passionately about teaching those topics - I leave the class less inspired. It only just now occurred to me why, precisely, I cannot and will not continue in this vein.
This morning, in one such coordinated class I lectured on the topic of intrinsic motivation. I did this by standing in front of the class and talking about it. "More autonomy, more responsibility etc.... lead to better outcomes," I explained. This I explained by standing in front of class, using examples, real and fabricated to illuminate the topic. I can't imagine a less original way to cover a topic that relate to something as interesting as what drives people. I don't know why it didn't occur to me that, given the power dynamic between student and professor, every class presents the opportunity to put this concept into practice - to give these bright, curious people a chance to develop ways to improve their own learning.
This realization made me understand why the structure of my "Social Context" class seems to be so effective in bringing students together around complex ideas. It's because they do it themselves - it's not imposed on them. I trust them as bright and original thinkers to come up with a variety of solutions to the challenge of real education. At it's root, part of the reason I implemented this structure to this particular course in the first place was because I too was entrusted with more autonomy in the creation of the course. The course coordinator has given me the freedom to cover the topics that I feel most relevant to the subject, in the ways that I feel most effective. I feel this freedom has challenged me to become a better educator, and the freedom I grant my students seems to encourage them to be better learners. It's like a motivational cyclone - kind of out of control, but powerful nonetheless.
Today I was privileged enough to participate as a facilitator in a green building design charette at École Polytechnique de Montréal. The charrette was called by Professor Micheal Bernier in order to expose his students to the concept of a design charrette and to allow them to interact with industry experts. The fundamental goal of the day was to refine the design of an off-grid parking attendant booth, which will be constructed by the students prior to the end of the semester. Such a conceptually simple building, so much learning to be had.
Students struggled with balancing the degree to which the building would be insulated, in order to reduce energy demands, with the reality that this would be a small building with it's door often ajar. Further, there was some hope to use a multiplicity of energy systems (e.g. wind and solar), so as to reduce dependence on one source of energy (e.g. the sun). The greater the variety of sources of energy, the less you have to bank on storing said energy for long periods of time. As it turns out, the specification of the building being totally off-grid, in addition the the location of the booth being between a number of large institutional buildings made this a particularly challenging issue. It will be interesting to see what the final product looks like.
Overall, this was primarily an academic exercise, as the students had been working on the particular design exercise since September. Ideally, a charrette would be called at an earlier date - to initiate a creative undertaking, for example, or to try to develop a shared vision for a project. Given the amount of learning required for the students to actually undertake this project, they had only recently developed sufficient expertise to really use the knowledge provided by industry experts this afternoon. It will be an excellent experience for those students interested in pursuing a career that involves regular integrated design sessions, such as those that are part of most complex or particularly sustainable designs.
As a total aside, I noticed that only 4 of the 33 students in the class were women. This kind of strong gender divide is something I never see in business school. Some things are slow to change, I suppose.
