Launched in May, 2014. I wanted this blog to feature both my original writings plus excellent content from other sources across the public, private and academic sectors. It’s always a pleasure to share blog posts, memes, infographics, video and audio clips that push thinking for human potential professionals! In this post I showcase the top content I curated on Actualization: The Human Potential Project. Rankings are determined by the total number of hits for each post during the calendar year. As a companion post, you can review my top original content here.
Whether this is your opportunity to revisit a favorite posting or have a first glance at something undiscovered, I hope you enjoy the top curated content I selected to share on my blog this past year:
1. I Truly Don’t Think There is Anything You Can Do to Retain Me in Your District… [BLOG POST]
Olivia Chapman wrote this response to DCPS’s question on the Declaration of Intent to Not Return Form for Resigning or Retiring Teachers: “What could we have done to retain you in the district?”
2. What Differentiation Is, And What It Isn’t… [INFOGRAPHIC]
Consider the definition of differentiation, what it is and what it is not, provided in this ASCD infographic from Carol Ann Tomlinson’s “The Differentiated Classroom” 2nd ed. (ASCD, 2014).
3. Seven Challenges Schools Can Work to Overcome [INFOGRAPHIC]
The spring 2014 workshop of Digital Promise’s League of Innovative Schools generated a set of challenges and solutions that we can all work to implement, presented here in this infographic.
4. Sir Ken Robinson: How is Technology Transforming Education? [VIDEO 2:21]
Today’s students seamlessly incorporate technology into their daily lives. Sir Ken Robinson sees this as the dynamic that is forcing education to completely transform itself starting now.
5. How Kids Use Social Media [INFOGRAPHIC]
According to this FashionPlatyes infographic, a full 81 percent of kids between the ages of 12 and 17 use social media (compared to 72 percent of the internet population as a whole).
6. ISTE and the Verizon Foundation Launch Free Mobile Learning Academy for Educators [BLOG POST]
The VMLA will be offered online four times between September 2014 and December 2015. Interested teams can pre-register online.
7. The Question, Waiting to be Answered [VIDEO 1:58]
Google suggests that the crux of the pivotal paradigm shift to which we constantly refer comes down to this: questions, not answers. Once you make the shift, everything else will shift with you.
8. NOT Old School! [VIDEO 10:42]
Educators, students, and architects explore three new elementary schools designed by HMFH Architects for the Concord, NH School District, discussing 21st century learning environments.
9. Six Quick Questions to Determine Technology’s Value [BLOG POST]
Alan November believes SAMR doesn’t provide enough concrete guidance. Many technology projects demonstrate the highest level of SAMR, but November sees them as merely substitution.
10. Seven Ways to Increase Student Engagement [INFOGRAPHIC]
Reading Hosrizons offers this infographic identifying seven ways you can increase the amount of time that students in your class are engaged in your instruction.
11. What Universities Have In Common With Record Labels [BLOG POST]
Martin Smith contends that the internet’s power to unbundle content sparked a rapid transformation of the music industry, and it’s now doing the same thing for higher education.
12. Seven Habits of Highly Effective Teachers Who Use Technology [INFOGRAPHIC]
Always Prepped presents this infographic offering 7 habits of highly effective teachers who use technology. Does this say more about the use of technology or the mindset?
13. You Think You Know What Teachers Do? You’re Wrong [BLOG POST]
Sarah Blaine’s thoughtful piece which contends the problem with teaching as a profession is that every single adult citizen of this country thinks that they know what teachers do. And they don’t.
14. Personalization, Not Standardization [MEME]
Lucas Dredge originally posted this meme on Twitter, which asks “Why are teachers told to differentiate their instruction but standardize their tests?” Good question.
15. Twenty-first Century Classroom Design Cultivates Collaboration [VIDEO 2:56]
There is a new innovation zone in Sakamaki Hall on the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa campus that includes three new classroom spaces—and these are not your mom and dad’s college classrooms.
16. Growth Mindset Checklist [INFOGRAPHIC]
Jackie Gerstein developed this Personal Accountability and Reflection checklist of nine questions to promote personal accountability and reflection as students develop their own growth mindset.
17. Gartner: 10 Business & Technology Trends for Education in 2015 [INFOGRAPHIC]
Transformation is key and education is the industry that needs the biggest overhaul. Jan-Martin Lowendahl, a Gartner analyst, notes that “more people will need to reskill more often.”
18. Educators and the Growth Mindset [INFOGRAPHIC]
This infographic, comparing fixed and growth mindsets, is created by Jackie Gerstein, and is originally posted on her User Generated Education blog.
19. Steve Jobs Didn’t Let His Kids Use iPhones Or iPads [BLOG POST]
Tim Butters shares that, while Steve Jobs may have had an instinctive flair for technology, he was in fact a low tech parent who firmly believed in restricting his children’s access to electronic devices.
20. Daniel Pink: We Have a Poverty Problem More Than An Education Problem [VIDEO 3:23]
Daniel Pink shares, “We just happen to have, disgracefully, a heck of a lot of poor kids. The real issue here is what do we do to address these kids we are systematically leaving behind.”
Thank you for a wonderful first year of Actualization! Here’s to continuing these important conversations in the new year!
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