The essence of abstraction consists in singling out one feature, which, in contrast to other properties, is considered to be particularly important. Sparks of Genius, p. 72 Looking past the obvious is hard to do, especially when you're up against a deadline. Our quick-to-consume culture has conditioned us to see the world in snippets...short burstsRead More
It's important to use attribution online. When you pull a picture, make sure you tell other people where it's from. Some sites make it easy for you to do that, others...not so much. Flickr used to be great at making attribution easy, but their latest redesigns have made it harder to accomplish. Alan Levine hasRead More
Sometimes the simple challenge to think concretely about abstract concepts can be effective. Sparks of Genius, p. 64 Perception is how our mind interprets data. Those interpretations are influenced by our surroundings, experiences, and biases. Root-Berenstein (1999, p.43) point out that "objective observation is not possible" because of the own influence our mind has onRead More
We cannot focus our attention unless we know what to look at and how to look at it. Sparks of Genius, p. 42 There's a concept in biology which says that structure and function are inextricably linked. In fact, you can boil down any part of the study of life into looking at the structuresRead More
Loops When I got into coding, loops were one of the more difficult tasks for me to get the hang of - especially iterating through conditions. Part of my struggle is that I made my loops too complicated...I tried addressing symptoms, not the overall desired behavior. When I jumped into the Noughts and Crosses game,Read More
Each year teaching chemistry, I made it a point to my students that everything they learn over the course of the year is based on observation and best guesses. Up until 2009, we hadn't actually seen a molecule or an atom...they're just too small. What we can see is how they behave and change whenRead More
Game Theory Games and learning go hand in hand. Children learn social interaction, communication, and even motor skills through playing. Remember, Piaget and early learning theorists broke learning down into formal and informal actions. Play is very much in the informal category, with school in the formal setting. Lately, the gamification movement has pushed toRead More
This time last year, I was writing about increasing my household population by 50%. In the blink of an eye, a year has already gone by, and we went from an empty crib to a girl sitting in her own lawn chair. I know it's a cliché, but I feel like I blinked. Excuse meRead More
Trying to represent a familiar object in abstract ways is harder than you'd think. The goal of this particular assignment was to take three photos of an everyday "thing" and see if someone could figure out what it is. Rather than just posting a gallery, I wanted to have some more fun. As you scrollRead More
This is a follow up to my first post on Computational Thinking. For a background, go check it out before reading further. I'm often victim to my own ignorance, and I think to be good thinkers, we need to fall prey to preconceived notions and half-formed thoughts. They give a lens through which we canRead More