On Thursday, we did a live webinar on design thinking involving me, David Jakes, Don Buckley; and moderated by my colleague, Kristen Swanson. It was a nice blend of talk and tweets!
You can see the recording and look at Twitter highlights of the event by clicking on the link below:
[View the story “Open Webinar on Design Thinking” on Storify]
Over the course of this year we will be rolling out our revised approach to curriculum design, based on some cool new processes and tools that we developed as a result of our partnership this year with the good folks at IDEO, the renowned design firm. Their movement into the design of education is welcome, and you can find a great set of tools at their site and stories on their work with schools here.

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3 Responses

  1. Perhaps, with Design Thinking in mind, change your blog title to, “Granted, and…” ?
    I was recently forwarded your rubric on Creativity and am interested in your thoughts on the facet of “newness” seeming to be a cornerstone of the rubric. Design Thinking teaches the fundamentals of designing for a user. Is creativity required to have “newness” to be a part of a thoughtful and impactful design for the user? Creativity is paramount to a successful and innovative design. To innovate would seem to require creative invention or put another way, new invention with impact. However, there are an ocean of inventions that were not innovative in their respective eras and when remixed in contemporary times can be quite innovative. “New” seems to be relative. If indeed “new” is relative, then how might the rubric be enhanced to include this element?
    Most sincerely,
    m

    • Ha! Granted, what if, maybe? You raise a good point. I think of innovation as not new per se but the creation of greater value than currently exists. The ipod was not ‘new’ – many mp3 players laready existed – but its integration with itunes and the Apple store was incredibly innovative: greater value (results vs. needs and current ‘costs’) was created.
      I am not sure I communicated this adequately in the rubric. ‘Creativity’ per se is not as important as innovation because innovationm turns ideas into realities. I’ll ponder… thanks for your comment.

      • When I work with students and talk about creativity, invention, and innovation I suggest that there are many inventions, some of which are creative, some not so much. The inventions become innovations when they are used to create increased value and thus impact. I would suggest that realizing an idea does not make it innovative. It must be valued in some way, hence it must be used. I think this is what you mean.
        Once upon a time I had my first foray into the patent libraries…I was astonished at the vast number of inventions. Again, some creative, some not so creative. One could argue that the creative ones are the new ones and thus patentable. Inspiration leading to creative remixing of both new and old inventions seems to be playing a bigger and bigger role in many innovative ideas. Or said another way, remixing more than one existing invention and applying it to modern day technology could yield an innovation. Call it…creative remixing perhaps.
        I find UbD and Design Thinking paramount to teachers successfully preparing our youth for the many hats they will wear tomorrow. Great stuff!
        best,
        m

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