Who's Agile? Betty White Is! Ideas for Changing Education

Well if agile means lively...the best image I could come up with is Betty White. Not only is she still active and virile...but she keeps up with Social Media on Twitter.




Background
Today is a continuation of Monday, Wednesday's and Friday's post.

The Idea Hunter is organized around this acronym:

I Interested – Be Interested, Not Just Interesting
D Diverse-Diversifying the Hunt
E Exercised-Mastering the Habits of the Hunt
A-Agile- Idea Flow is Critical


So..."Idea Flow is Critical." Ideas themselves, "do not start out auspiciously." (p.103) Basically ideas have to ruminate together often amongst others to develop into something that can be used.

Here is an example from Stephanie Meyers' Twilight

"I woke up (on that June 2nd) from a very vivid dream. In my dream, two people were having an intense conversation in a meadow in the woods. One of these people was just your average girl. The other person was fantastically beautiful, sparkly, and a vampire. They were discussing the difficulties inherent in the facts that A) they were falling in love with each other while B) the vampire was particularly attracted to the scent of her blood, and was having a difficult time restraining himself from killing her immediately."

Then of course that idea steamrolled into four books, movies and nice tourist dollars for Forks Washington. Not to mention really cool Edward and Jacob T-shirts...kidding...oh so kidding...

Educational Applications
Steve Jobs designed Pixar's building to have an atrium in the center, with all the bathrooms, cafeterias and mail slots. (p.107) Why? To encourage a mix a people during the day.

Are our schools designed this way? I would like to think that elementary schools have a common hub for teachers (staff rooms) and students(lunchrooms) but I think we can go further with this.
How can we really increase the flow of ideas?
1. Perhaps multi-age groupings
2. Multi-use classrooms
3....Teachers visiting each others rooms
4. Graffiti Walls on Paper OR Online
5. Wallwisher
6. Other Collaboration Sites
Consider also, increasing the flow of ideas between schools!

Boyton and Fischer state "...putting people in motion with ideas is often more important than the ideas themselves, which are all subject to idea flow." (p. 109)They also noted, "...the stream of ideas does not flow in a straight line."(p.109)

6. Yet another idea is to take a "weirdo" to lunch. "Get to the people who hang out in places where you don't normally hang out." (p.110) So clearly the image of the Breakfast Club comes to mind. Note: Probably not a great idea to tell the person you are taking out to lunch that they are "The Weirdo".



7.Prototyping was mentioned in the previous posts. But the key idea is not waiting to show off your ideas, instead start early and regularly. I think about Demonstrations of Learning that schools are using in place of parent teacher interviews. Twice a year....max. But what about the rest of the year? Also consider that demonstrating the process of learning is often more powerful than just revealing a product.

Key Point
"Make the Ideas visible, and to start making decisions on them." (p.118)

There is still so much to share about IDEA Hunter. Check out new posts this week...to keep those ideas flowing....

Please take the time to share how you keep your ideas flowing!

Until Next Time,
Lit Maven Out!