Jugaad, educational toys from Junk (TPACK at work)

by | Monday, September 14, 2009

sextant

I had written earlier about the idea of Jugaad, the quintessential Indian idea of situational creativity. One of the masters at this is Arvind Gupta. Check out his website for tons of wonderful science toys and experiments that can be made from stuff we typically throw away. Very cool and a critical part of the kind of repurposing of artifacts we need for creative teaching.

Throwaway Technology, playful Pedagogy and powerful Content… who says TPACK needs hi-tech!

Via Major Fun (aka Bernie DeKoven) comes Arvind Gupta, winner of the Defender of the Playful Award.

A few randomly selected blog posts…

Stuff Indian’s Like

After the success of Stuff white people like, can Stuff Indians like be far behind. Check it out... it has the occasional nugget that nails Indians and their behavior.

Technology, creativity & illusion

Marco Tempest is magician who loves technology, or a techno-geek who happens to be a good magician. He brings an unique amalgam of high-tech and magic to his shows (see this article for details), but that is not what is most impressive about his work. What is...

Pomes on creativity

I am in Plymouth, England, for a week, as a part of our off-campus MAET program. I spent time today with the first year cohort, talking with them about creativity in teaching (with our without technology). One of the short (5-10 minutes) activities they completed...

From brains to music

From brains to music

From Brains to Music: a Multi-Faceted Discussion of Creativity with Dr. Anthony Brandt Dr. Anthony Brandt, is Professor of Composition and Theory at Rice University and is co-founder and artistic director of the contemporary music ensemble Musiqa. He has co-authored...

The existence of futility

I have written about the value of seeing humor in the futility of existence (see this and this) but humor can also be found in the existence of futility. Below is a motivational video that demonstrates this fact. Enjoy......

Following up on lunar distance

A followup to my previous posting about the Italian kids calculating the distance to the moon using recordings from the Apollo Space program. As I read the story on the technology Review website, I came to the comments made by readers. One stuck out. This is what...

Tell me a story: Delightful design in an airport

Tell me a story: Delightful design in an airport

“Design doesn’t need to be delightful for it to work, but that’s like saying food doesn’t need to be tasty to keep us alive” — Frank Chimero I am always looking for examples of good and bad design in the world around me. Good design is rare, functional and at the same...

On becoming a website

I wrote this essay a few years ago, around the time I was going up for tenure. I saw writing this as a welcome change from the usual academic stuff I had been writing. I was bored and tired of taking on this third-person, impersonal intellectual voice and just wanted...

Crayons are the future: New article on technology & creativity

 Over the past year or so I have moved my line of research into teacher creativity particularly focusing on ideas related to trans-disciplinary creativity and what that means for teaching and learning in the 21st century. In this effort I am joined by an awesome group...

2 Comments

  1. Susan

    Whooah! That’s cool. How can you make toys out of junks?

    Reply

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