Instructional / Course Design
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Ideas that ‘Stick’
[social-bio] The Book: Heath, C. and Heath, D. 2008. Made to stick: Why some ideas survive and others die. New York: Random House Why do we remember certain things, like the scary music from the movie Jaws, but forget others, like the name of that theory we learned in economics class years ago? Why is it easier for some people to remember an urban legend about missing kidneys than a concept they studied in the college or university classroom? Why do some ideas “stick” while others are just as easily forgotten? This question is the premise of the New York Times bestseller book Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive…
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Making History With Technology in the Classroom
[social-bio] Last December someone pointed me towards an article about John Boyer, a professor at Virginia Tech, and his intriguing uses of technology in his World Regions class. By the time the column about Boyer was published, he had already “used his viral YouTube tactics to lure actors Martin Sheen and Emilio Estevez to present their film, ‘The Way’.” He had also had his students create clearly fake Twitter accounts to pose as current world leaders in government and business to respond to current world issues. The most amazing part of the story, however, was what was yet to come in Boyer’s class of 3000 students. He and his students…