IDFuel, the Industrial Design Weblog

IDFuel, the Industrial Design Weblog

It's probably safe to say that every designer goes into the business with the intention of shaking things up. We want to "Change the world" or "Make a difference". And that's awesome. There are tons of problems that need worldchanging solutions. It just happens that not all the solutions are barn burners like a sexy new car or supersonic jet.

Take for example the brainchild of Deborah Adler and Klaus Rosburg. They are responsible for Target's brand new (and desperately needed) update to the lowly prescription pillbottle. Believe it or not, with the exception of the frustrating, and largely ineffective childproof caps, the orange plastic pill bottle has been unchanged since world war 2!

OK.  Now let’s do what they did for the lesson plan , the gradebook, the bulletin board and  the classroom.  What would a redesigned lesson plan look like in a weblog?  I would hope it would emphasize the organization of the old with the improvisational and interactive nature of the new.  That’s the hard part, now somebody go out and do it. 

 

 

 

Blogging 101

Blogging 101

The major cause of fatalities among online learning operations, internal and commercial, is not technical failure or pedagogical failure, it is process failure flowing from a failure in vision. Short-sightedness, tunnel vision, and technology focus can leave you very exposed.

Parkin's Lot: Defining an E-Learning Strategy

Parkin's Lot: Defining an E-Learning Strategy

The major cause of fatalities among online learning operations, internal and commercial, is not technical failure or pedagogical failure, it is process failure flowing from a failure in vision. Short-sightedness, tunnel vision, and technology focus can leave you very exposed.

 

Amen to this.  The proper order of business at the beginning of any project:  1. what do you want to do?  2.Where are the tools for doing it?

Hullabaloo

Justice Sunday.  The jackboots are gathering and I can hear their thunder from afar.  What will you do?

Hullabaloo

Twenty years ago, I wrote about “National Socialism as Temptation,” about what it was that induced so many Germans to embrace the terrifying specter. There were many reasons, but at the top ranks Hitler himself, a brilliant populist manipulator who insisted and probably believed that Providence had chosen him as Germany’s savior, that he was the instrument of Providence, a leader who was charged with executing a divine mission. God had been drafted into national politics before, but Hitler’s success in fusing racial dogma with a Germanic Christianity was an immensely powerful element in his electoral campaigns. Some people recognized the moral perils of mixing religion and politics, but many more were seduced by it. It was the pseudo-religious transfiguration of politics that largely ensured his success, notably in Protestant areas.

German moderates and German elites underestimated Hitler, assuming that most people would not succumb to his Manichean unreason; they didn’t think that his hatred and mendacity could be taken seriously. They were proven wrong. People were enthralled by the Nazis’ cunning transposition of politics into carefully staged pageantry, into flag-waving martial mass. At solemn moments, the National Socialists would shift from the pseudo-religious invocation of Providence to traditional Christian forms: In his first radio address to the German people, twenty-four hours after coming to power, Hitler declared, “The National Government will preserve and defend those basic principles on which our nation has been built up. They regard Christianity as the foundation of our national morality and the family as the basis of national life.”

As Digby says,  “Makes the hair stand up, doesn’t it?”

 

The Future of Mathematics

The Future of Mathematics

New technologies inspire and infuse with energy. One math teacher's love for Flickr. Check into it even if you aren't a math instructor.

Index card conversion : Lifehacker

Index card conversion : Lifehacker

de Kooning, Willem -- Encyclopædia Britannica

Encyc. Brit. has an RSS feed.  LiberalArtRSSUniversity.  Tres bon.

 

de Kooning, Willem --  Encyclopædia Britannica

de Kooning, Willem
Encyclopædia Britannica Article

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Willem de Kooning
born April 24, 1904, Rotterdam, Netherlands
died March 19, 1997, East Hampton, New York, U.S.

Photograph:Willem de Kooning and his wife, Elaine, photograph by Hans Namuth, 1952.
Willem de Kooning and his wife, Elaine, photograph by Hans Namuth, 1952.
Hans Namuth


Dutch-born American painter who was one of the leading exponents of Abstract Expressionism, particularly the form known as Action painting. During the 1930s and '40s de Kooning worked simultaneously in figurative and abstract modes, but by about 1945 these two tendencies seemed to fuse.

WFMU's Beware of the Blog

WFMU's Beware of the Blog

One of the most consistently mind-blogglingly cool sites.  Be there.

Teacher Package

Teacher Package

Moodle Hosting possibilities