Who is the subject of your creative profile?

Don't forget to email the subject of your creative profile to Mr. Capozzi today!!

Class Today

Students,

I will be traveling unexpectedly this afternoon, and so will not be in class.  Attendance will still be taken.  Please continue to refine your presentations.  To help get you going again, check out this great tip on presentations from Lifehacker:

http://lifehacker.com/5687910/create-compelling-presentations-with-the-three-q-method

A few things to consider:

• ALL GROUPS - Think about survey data you want to share to back up your recommendations in your presentations.  Consider an informal poll, or even a short survey to distribute to other students at the SVHEC with a few questions that would provide some data to make your argument stronger.  Don't delay on this as it may take some time!
• ALL GROUPS - Think about "best practices," that is, what are other institutions, classes, people, or places doing to address the same concerns your presentation is about.  If your recommendations are informed by, or backed up by, what other folks are successfully doing elsewhere, that makes your argument stronger.
• FACEBOOK GROUP - If you were to contact someone on Facebook from one of the classes you've looked at that use Facebook, and ask them how it's working/not working, that would demonstrate some impressive initiative and also strengthen your presentation.

~MrC

PS - As promised, below is that video I promised to post.  It features Tim Brown, CEO of IDEO, a creative firm that should sound familiar to you by now, and it continues the conversation on the importance of Play.

Tim Brown on creativity and play | Video on TED.com
- Watch more Videos at Vodpod.

Egg Drop Date

Estudiantes!

We will drop our eggs on Tuesday, November 23rd, the last day of class before the Thanksgiving holiday!

Gracias,
~MrC

Job Opportunities

Students,

Just passing along a note about several Job Listings at EBI in Danville, VA.  They're an upholstered furniture and mattress maker, and manufacturing needs your creative brains!

Find the job descriptions on the page below:

http://www.svhed.org/index.php/workforce-assessment-a-advancement

Or contact Dr. Nettie Simon-Owens, SVHEC Director of Workforce Assessment & Advancement, at nettiesimon-owens@svhed.org or 434-572-5477.

~MrC

Project EPD

Forget the date of 2008!  The time for your Egg Drop is NOW!  Check out the project description at right 

and let me know your team members as soon as possible.  You can be a team of One, but no more than a team of Three.  Materials will be handed out in class.

~MrC

Homework for Thursday, 11/4

Students,

Please come to class Thursday ready to deliver a joke.

Also, please review the list of suggested Interview Questions in the Creative Profile Project and come to class with your own suggestions for additions.

~MrC

Homework for Tuesday 11/2

Ciao, studenti!

Today in class, we'll introduce a new project, the Creative Profile, and also take a closer look at your presentations on School Improvement.

For next week, please come to class having read the chapter on PLAY in Daniel Pink's A Whole New Mind.  We'll discuss, as well as practice!

~MrC

Design Thinking Article from the Harvard Business Review

Class,

Please read this article from the Harvard Business Review, Design Thinking by Tim Brown.  It's just 8 pages long, and we'll discuss on Thursday as well as have an in-class activity and take a look at your presentations.

~MrC

In-Class For Tuesday and Thursday 10/5 + 10/7

Students,

For class today, you'll get your study guides returned.  In general they're pretty good.  A little light for some, but not bad.  I'd like for you to meet with your group members, read my comments, and then begin revisions.  In general, the biggest shortcoming for many of them was a lack of thoroughness.  You had some great takes on the most salient points for the various materials you covered, but more details would improve many of them.

Next, please watch the video embedded below on Emotionally Intelligent Signage from Dan Pink.



After you've watched the video, please work with your group members (yup, same folks from the study guides) to identify:

1. Signage at the SVHEC (think bathrooms, hallways, classrooms, parking lot...)
2. Whether the sign demonstrates empathy, encourages empathy, or even is empathetic at all (pay attention to the distinction Pink makes in his presentation).  If a sign is not, make note.
3. How the sign could be more empathetic

To do this, yes, you'll need to get up, leave the classroom, and move around the SVHEC.  Record your answers and ideas in your sketchbooks.  You also have additional time to work on your Dieter Rams inspired "gute design" (no laughing, Ms Walton) examples from last Thursday's assignment.

This THURSDAY 10/7, I will not be in class.  (I'll actually be at a Creativity in Business seminar in Danville.)  You still need to come to class (attendance will be taken) and turn in your sketchbooks once more.  Before doing so, though, there'll be an in-class assignment (another portrait).  Over the weekend, read the Pink chapter on Symphony for discussion next week, and we'll go over your good/bad design examples and findings for signage around the the SVHEC.

~mrc

Dieter Rams on Design + HOMEWORK for next Tuesday 10/4

Studenti,

German design-meister and former design director at Braun electronics Dieter Rams had some great comments in the documentary Objectified describing his thoughts on design, what's good and bad in contemporary products from architecture to advertising, and the timelessness of good design.

In his words, "good design..."

• is innovative
• makes a product useful
• is aesthetic design
• makes a product understandable
• is honest
• is unobtrusive
• is long-lived
• is consistenti in every detail
• is environmentally friendly
• is as little design as possible

For class next Tuesday, take some pages in your sketchbook and put down your own thoughts on products and/or processes you find that possess these qualities, that adhere to these principles, and even ones that clearly fall short and why.  Take pictures, print them out, and paste them into your sketchbooks.  You might also pull advertisements featuring these products or processes out of paper ads in magazines and newspapers.

I'm not going to give a specific quantity, but I will encourage you to be aggressive, thoughtful, and wide-ranging.  More is better than less.

~mrc

COLLABORATIVE STUDY GUIDES

Students,

Please use the time in class today to meet as a group and begin your Study Guides, the guidelines for which are here.

I apologize once more for canceling class.  You don't want what I've got!

I am available by text or email if you have any questions, so please don't hesitate to ask if you have questions.

~mrc

Tuesday 9/21 Class Cancelled

Students,

I am sorry to say that class is cancelled for this afternoon, Tuesday 9/21.  I actually got much more sick after Thursday's class and have had a miserable time since then.  But there are many potent drugs in my system now, and we WILL have class on Thursday.  Please use the time wisely to make sure you've read and thought about the 2 chapters from A Whole New Mind and are ready to discuss Thursday.

Again, my apologies.

Best
~mrc

Class for Tuesday, September 14

Students,

Class has been cancelled for this evening. We will resume at our regular meeting time on Thursday, Sept 16th. Be sure you have your reading done!

Academy of Art University Open House 9/25 in DC

Students,

Those of you considering careers in art and design and are looking for additional coursework or to study elsewhere after graduation may be interested in Academy of Art University's open house in Washington DC at the end of the month.  Saturday the 25th from 10-5 (all day, basically) representatives will be on hand at the Westin City Center at 1400 M Street, NW to review portfolios and answer questions about financial aid and their accredited degree programs (Animation, Game Design, Graphic Design, Education, Fashion, et al).  They even have pre-college scholarships for high school students!  More info at: www.academyart.edu.

If you can get away, DC's always a great town to visit with lots of free art, and Rich Salcido's solo show Beautiful Failures will be up at the awesome Art Whino gallery.

~mrc

HOMEWORK for Tuesday 9/14

Students,

This week we're doing in-class activities and assignments, so there's no homework, but NEXT week, please come to class Tuesday and Thursday having read the first 61 pages of the Daniel Pink book, A Whole New Mind –that's the Introduction and Chapters One, Two, and Three.

Also, make sure you're caught up on all the little assignments to date like adding your profile to the course wiki (as Mr Barry has done here), and that I have your Multiple Intelligence Learning Style test results.

~mrc

HOMEWORK for Thursday, 9/2

Fellow Creative Types,
1) First, take the quiz at the link below and keep track of your results. If you're comfy doing so, post them in the comments section below.
http://www.edutopia.org/multiple-intelligences-learning-styles-quiz

2) Please watch the following short video from a 1997 interview with Howard Gardner, the father of Multiple Intelligence Theory.




3) Read this article catching up with Gardner years later:
http://www.edutopia.org/multiple-intelligences-howard-gardner-interview

Come to class prepared to discuss.


Best
~mrc

HOMEWORK Due Tuesday 8/31

Students,

For Tuesday, we're going to dig into the work of Sir Ken Robinson, a British researcher and educator with a particular passion for creativity and human development.  It's good that you have 4 days between classes, because there's a LOT.  Please do the following:

1. Watch the video embedded above.  It comes from the AWESOME site TED.com, and features Sir Ken speaking before an audience at a conference.
   
2. Read the Introduction and First Chapter of Robinson's book, The Element.  This was handed out in-class Thursday
   
3. Come to class having listened to the Podcasts linked to below.*  They were recorded almost 2 years apart for DishyMix, an interview-driven business personality, management and marketing show hosted by Susan Bratton. There are some ads and other fluff in these episodes, but push through them and really listen to Robinson's comments.
   
   DishyMix 006
   http://personallifemedia.com/podcasts/232-dishymix/episodes/3066-sir-ken-robinson-creativity-innovation
   
   DishyMix 098
   http://personallifemedia.com/podcasts/232-dishymix/episodes/39555-sir-ken-robinson-element-talent
   
4. Lastly, please remember whether or not you volunteered to help lead the discussion for Tuesday.

HOMEWORK due thursday 8/26

Students,

Read this:

http://www.newsweek.com/2010/07/10/the-creativity-crisis.html

Be prepared to discuss in class.

~mrc

WORDLE: From the Creativity Crisis Article

Creativity_Crisis_Wordle_from_Newsweek_July_2010

Students,

Here's a Wordle I made for us to discuss in class.  It's derived from the Creativity Crisis article in July's Newsweek I posted earlier, and which will you be reading/have read soon.  I LOVE using these as a different way to look at a text or data!

What relationships do the words suggest?

~mrc

COOL: Sharpie OMG!

OhMyGod!

http://blog.sharpie.com/2010/08/introducing-the-new-sharpie-liquid-pencil/

Nice way to advertise, too; Pink would call this "emotionally intelligent signage," which is a term you will come to know well this semester.

~mrc

COOL: Roster InfoGraphic

Thought you folks might like this.

Creativity is perhaps most about making connections.  I used the free web app Wordle to generate an image of the class roster (as of 8/15/10) and I was surprised to see there are NO shared names, at least not yet according to the information I have.  When words (names, in this case) appear multiple times in a body of text (the class roster in this case), the words appear larger.  But here, all your names are scaled evenly.  We'll have to explore other ways in which you all differ, and in which you're similar.

Depending on the text, you can get some dramatic results; for instance, below is a visualization from Wordle of the text of the Declaration of Independence.

Wordle's pretty fun to play around with, and I encourage you to do so.  Indeed, PLAY will be very important to you in the semester ahead.

~mrc

ARTICLE: Timely Newsweek piece on the 'Creativity Crisis'

Never been a better time to take Creative Thinking!  I think we'll start with this; you can get a jump on the semester by reading it here.

~mrc

Keep Yer Shirts On!

This course is in development and the blog will be ready in August.  How else would one spend his summer?

~mrc