I need help finding a source!

Dear Readers,

After giving it my best shot, I have been unable to locate a source of some material I'd like to use in my new book on creativity. Here is what I know:

The material is a list of ways (about 100, I'd guess) students can communicate in other ways than just an "essay." Things like posters, debates, cartoons, diaries, etc.. (See complete list here.)

In my old handouts I called this Projects & Possibilities and only this as the source - Oftedahl & Olson 1996. The list is prefaced by "No matter what your subject area, break out of the ordinary and do something EXTRAORDINARY!" I am embarrassed to say that I don't remember if this statement is mine or from the original document.

So if anyone is up to a challenge, I'd appreciate learning the original source so I can gratefully attribute the idea to the rightful creator. And I promise a copy of my new book to the first person who sends it to me. I promise.

Thanks for considering this,

Doug

Projects, not tests

The quality of a question is not judged by its complexity but by the complexity of the thinking it provokes. Joseph O’Conner

Google’s online Science Fair program asks students to consider three questions when choosing a project:

1. What do you love?
2. What are you good at?
3. What do you want to change?

The science fair’s judging criteria includes:

• Inspirational entry or idea – does it really stand out?
• Capacity to make an impact - could the science demonstrated make a real difference to science or the world around us?
• Passion for science – would you be a good role model for other young scientists?
• Excellence of method – have you demonstrated real skill in their science/engineering planning and implementation of their experiment(s)?
• Communication skills - enthusiasm, clarity, confidence, effective use of media, diagrams and Google tools.

Google, I like these questions and criteria. But for a company known for innovation, why are you not asking for it as well?

Tests or projects?

In your daily work, do you take tests or complete projects?

My job as a technology director is primarily a string of projects that either I complete and manage or help my staff complete and manage successfully. Deploying student devices is a project. Implementing and maintaining networks, servers, and resources like GoogleApps for Education are projects. Planning and implementing effective professional development activities are projects. I could list probably a hundred more, but you get the idea.

The last time I took a “test” was when I became “GoogleApps Certified”. It meant reading a series of little online guides on things like Gmail and GoogleDocs and then passing short self-administered multiple-guess quizzes at the end of each one. I studied hard for the first quiz, passed it, and realized that these were “open book” quizzes where I could look up an answer (How much personal storage space does each user get from Google?) if I was stumped.

There are two ways to view my look-up-the-answer method of test-taking. It was flat out cheating or Google was testing my ability to locate the “right answer.” I choose to believe the second since as fast as Google products change - often several times a month - any memorized answer might soon be inaccurate.

Some of us of course, need to take exams for getting or renewing specialized certifications or licenses: CPR, Hazardous Waste Management, or driver’s licenses for example.

But most of us spend our days as project-based learners and managers. And those real world skills are why we should ask students to a lot of projects.

My writing process

This post is a bit of simple self-reflection. I'd probably skip right over it if I were you. 

It's early afternoon in the middle of my "writing week" in the Dominican Republic. Since I've done little but write this week writing has been one of the things I've been thinking about - what I know about myself as a writer and how I work.

I started trying to schedule a writing week each year about five years ago. The idea was that if I could get away from my regular job, day-to-day distractions and such, I would be able to focus on a major writing project. So far it's worked. I've written three published books and am a good way into a fourth as a direct result of this writing week strategy. Part of the plan was also to get away from Minnesota's winter for a week. (Up to 10 inches of snow this week in southern Minnesota.) 

I've spent three of these weeks in various small hotels in the DR and one in Thailand after I'd presented at a conference. Fate took me to the DR the first time since a travel agent, when asked for a place that was cheap, warm, convenient, and safe, suggested it as one of the options. While I rarely enter the water, I find an ocean view helps me write. Not sure why. Since by first trip here resulted in a book, I felt it was a lucky place. I've also found that the DR holds few cultural attractions - museums, historic sites, geologic wonders - that I might be diverting. And like I said, I'm not a lay-on-the-beach person.

Here is my typical schedule on my writing days:

• Up at 6AM local time to read my hometown paper online, answer pressing emails, and publish a blog post. I also compare the local weather to home and gloat a little.
• Eat breakfast at 8AM and then write like a demon until early afternoon - 1 or 2PM when I am largely brain-dead and sore from sitting.
• I almost always skip lunch. I take an hour-long walk, take a nap, sometimes a swim if there's a pool, and then read until 5PM or so when I wander to some small place to have supper.
• In the evening I have an adult beverage or two while catching up on e-mail and proof-reading and revising what I wrote the day before. (I have a rule to never proof read the same day you write something.) 
• I read until 10 or so when it's lights out.

That's the pattern and it seems to work. 

I am probably the only really lazy prolific writer in existence. Not only am I lazy, I am an easily-distracted procrastinator. I find writing real work. Enjoyable to be sure, but still work. I feel physically tired after a few hours on the keyboard.

I know I write best in the morning. I can revise and edit anytime.

I have to use a computer to write that does good spell-checking. I have never in my life written something that doesn't have at least one grammatical error or typo.

I have no moral qualms about recycling my ideas in new ways. In fact that's one of my favorite things to do. Hey, don't architects re-use their good designs? 

I am not a particularly creative writer. I don't think I would be a good novelist. I toss off a clever phrase now and then, but that's it.

I am a good synthesizer and simplifier. A benefit of not being intellectually gifted is that I have to work hard to understand difficult or complex concepts. And when I can understand them, I can write in a way that helps others understand them as well. I'm sure I've rarely written something an academic hasn't already written about in more incomprehensible detail.

The purpose of my writing was once because I thought it would earn me big bucks and a Wikipedia entry. While all my books have made me a little money, it ain't what Stephen King probably gets for a short story. I now write because it's fun and it might help my grandchildren indirectly by improving their schools. Oh, publishing something still makes my mother proud, and I would like to think, make all my former English teachers flip in their graves. (See also my old article Why I Write.)

In some way, I suppose, I am driven to write because of some yet-unnamed mental illness. Why else would anyone spend this much time in front of a computer instead of laying on the beach? 

Oh, it's good to have a silent writing partner too.