If you use the internet (and I suspect you do) you owe it to yourself to read this short web book by Google.

The moment I found this on Boing Boing, I stopped everything and watched it. Feel free to mash.

I'm still processing what I learned, but I think this is an important take on California's crisis. Is the middle class really in jeopardy? Both the left and right claim that they understand econ 101. Who is correct? Please give me something between Ayn Rand and Michael Moore. Is Krugman wrong? Show your work.

I have the fortune to provide a session on a couple Google tools to San Francisco Friends School today. We'll focus mainly on Google Forms and Sites. 

 

Here's a quick demo of how Google Moderator could be used in the classroom. To try it out yourself, go to www.google.com/moderator

The flight from LAX to Bahrain was uneventful, except for the sunrise over the Atlantic, which was stunning.

It was much better than The A-Team. Admit it, you're like me and your favorite A-Team character is the van.

My friend from high school was not only named Casey Jones, but he also had a van painted just like this! Spoiler Allert: It gets crushed within the first 10 minutes. Rest of the film was a waste.

I flew right over the tornadoes, lightning storms, earthquakes, volcanoes, super solar flares, and whatever else my mom is facing on her solo cross-country adventure. I feel really bad that I couldn't join her for that trip, but she seems to be trucking through well.

I'm really excited to see Tony Wagner speak at the conference. He is one of the leaders pushing for more 21st century skills in education.

I am also looking forward to seeing Kiran Bir Sethi. Her TED talk helped inspire my students last year to adopt a local struggling 3rd grade class by creating and delivering amazing lesson plans.

Finally, Trina reminded me that Gever Tully will be there.

Another TED speaker and author of 50 Dangerous Things (You Should Let Your Children Do). When my friend Camilla asked about a gift for my nephew, Nathanael, I suggested that book. She didn't want to be held liable, but admitted that her boys had already done almost all of the 50. Tully is a strong advocate for encouraging students to learn by making things. I still credit my 7th grade industrial arts teacher and class for having a huge role in making my life as rich as it is. Besides the thrill of getting to use really dangerous power tools, we were taught to design, draft, build, and craft. That class, along with building decks with my dad, taught me tremendous life lessons: Measure twice, cut once. A sharp blade is safer than a dull blade. So far that latter lesson has only held literal value for me.

My custom two-story chicken coop / McMansion built almost entirely out of material found at the local dump is a product of those experiences.

The foxes have tried to get those ladies, but with the help of dad and Beth, the coop has stayed secure.

Gratuitous chicken photo mostly for Trina's benefit:

Too bad most schools don't have shop anymore.

Can anyone tell me how to get to the English version of Google?

A couple weeks ago on the podcast I recommended the "Send and Archive" feature in Gmail's Labs settings. Here's a short screencast that shows you how to get this going for yourself.

In the summer of 1995 I was leading a mountain bike trip in the remote Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina. I took a nasty spill and broke the axle on my front wheel. Digging through my bag I found everything I needed to replace the axle except an essential washer. My partner started digging through his bag, realizing that if we didn’t find a washer, I’d be walking the 12 miles back to the trail head ... and he'd be waiting for me with the rest of the group. He revealed a beer bottle cap, pulled out his multi-tool, drove a hole in the middle of the cap. “Here’s your washer.” Sometimes a bottle cap isn’t a bottle cap.

Archimedes had his moment when he realized a bathtub can serve a purpose beyond bathing--it could also measure volume through displacement. Eureka!

One of the keys to solving problems effectively is to overcome the cognitive bias known as functional fixedness. If you’ve read Daniel Pink’s book Drive, as I’ve urged, you would remember The Candle Problem, which demonstrates our tendency to think of objects as having one discrete purpose. In order to solve this puzzle, we must not think outside of the box, but rather reinvent the purpose of the box.

Recognizing and overcoming our functional fixedness seems to be critical if we are going to solve our world’s major problems, not just broken axles and hypothetical puzzles, but how do we nurture our ability to see objects and tools as having multiple purposes? I would argue, practice.

At some point, I’ll write about how I think Legos have shifted from a system that helped kids combat functional fixedness to one that encourages it, but today I want to write about a video game. Hailed by many critics as the best game of the year, the little black and white 2D game, Limbo, available for download on the XBOX marketplace for about $15 is a beautiful and haunting little game. It’s also another one of those so-called video-games-as-art games. Whatever, that debate has become dull.

Yes, there is so much to love about Limbo, but what made me stop playing it to write this post was its ability to force us out of our functional fixedness. In order to progress through the map, we have to move our benighted little protagonist from left to right, solving puzzles, finding unexpected ways to overcome obstacles.

[minor spoiler alert ... first five minutes of the game ... skip the next three paragraphs if you don’t want to be spoiled]

After overcoming some lethal bear traps, our hero approaches a lake with a little wood crate on its bank. I climbed over the crate and attempted to swim across the lake. The poor boy never learned how to swim, sank to the bottom, and produced small puff of bubbles before his glowing little eyes turned dark. Trial-and-die.

Luckily this game is generous with infinite respawns, so I decided that the crate was going to have to be my boat. I dragged the crate into the water and attempted to float across the lake, but each time, I fell out of the crate and drowned ... and drowned ... and drowned again.

Right when I began contemplating giving up and finding the solution on the web, I had that little eureka moment. The crate isn’t a boat ... it’s a ladder, at which point I dragged the ladder to a nearby tree and climbed my way to the next puzzle.

It’s a very small example of overcoming functional fixedness, but I can’t help but think that time spent experiencing the satisfaction of battling that bias helps train our brains to think beyond the obvious and maybe solve significant problems in innovative ways.

A recent Newsweek article argues that Americans are facing a looming creativity crisis, and our education system is making it worse. Conversly, Europe and Asia are emphasisizing creativity in the classroom. On this week's Schools and Tech Podcast, we discuss this issue and other timely topics. What's more important, intelligence or creativity? According to an IBM survey of top CEO's, creativity is the single most important leadership competency. What do you think?

 

A few months ago some friends and I started a weekly podcast where we discuss how technology and advances in psychology are changing the way we teach and learn. I'm really honored to be associated with Cammy Torgenrud, Tim Torgenrud, and Dr. Roger Luuckenbach. If you're interested in education, technology, or psychology, I invite you to listen at schoolsandtech.com. You can subscribe to the podcast in iTunes here. In the most recent episode, Cammy shares some of the insights she gained at the International Society for Technology in Education conference in Denver. Listen below.