Curiosity and Creativity
Reflecting on our work can bring new insights and spark innovation. Take a walk outside and observe things happening all around you. Sometimes a light bulb goes off and sometimes "The Office" will musically follow us outside. Take one of your lunch hours to get to know your workmates better. You'll be surprised about what you learn from them and you will have a much stronger team for mixing some play into your work. We can gain new perspectives if we can go a little outside of our comfort zones. Let's experiment with new ideas and redefine our contexts. The new ideas we were afraid to try won't seem so scary once they become familiar to us. These whale sharks don't bite and neither will our students! Cooking classes are a recipe for fun. Recipe? Who needs to follow a recipe?! Virtual Reality experience can immerse us in unique or familiar environments. There are many creative ways to enhance a student's learning experience with this technology. The trick is to make such experiences meaningful, fun and integrated with learning goals. Emerging technologies have the potential to enhance teaching and learning if employed strategically. They possess a "cool factor" that can be very motivating, but that alone is not enough to improve learning. Their effectiveness can be better leveraged when they are well-aligned with learning objectives and appropriately integrated into meaningful learning activities. Art has been great way for me to relax and express myself creatively. I love acrylic painting and ceramic sculpting. I am inspired by many artists who are well-known and unknown. I participated in research as a control subject for a study about brain-computer interface use with ALS patients. This research was done to determine how ALS patients of varying cognitive, behavioral, and functional abilities differ in their capacity to utilize a brain-computer interface (BCI) device for communication. BCI technology enables the control of a communication device without muscular involvement by using the electrical signals from the brain. |