Design Thinking

I first came across the idea of "Design Thinking" last July when I attended the mid-summer IISME meeting at the Stanford "D" School. Design Thinking is presented as a collaborative process that begins with empathetic listening that evolves to defining issues and experimenting with solutions.

Design Thinking was presented in the classroom again last Friday when the World Languages Department spent the day at the Monterey Institute of International Studies (MIIS) in their Curriculum Planning class. My notes are below.

Here is a video, taken from the "Design Thinking for Educators" site:
http://vimeo.com/22570825

Teach Siri To Stop Saying Your Contact Names Like a Robot

OK, so Siri is not quite as sophisticated as, say, Scarlett Johansson’s robot character in Her. Sometimes, in fact, she has some trouble pronouncing your name, or your friend’s name.

That’s a problem, but Siri can learn new things! In fact, a little-known feature in iOS7 allows you to verbally educate Siri on how to say the names of your contacts. - Alyssa Bereznak

Here’s how you do it:

https://www.yahoo.com/tech/teach-siri-how-to-stop-saying-your-contact-names-like-a-70608840304.html

Using Google Forms as Exit Tickets

I recently tried using a Google Form as an exit ticket in my ECJ: India class.  As we finished reading a book on various women's issues in India, I wanted a quick, easy way to check if the students were able to apply the concepts of Catholic Social Teaching to what they had learned about discrimination against women in India.  I created a two question Google Form and embedded it in myMitty.

After the students responded to the questions, I opened a link to the results on myMitty and instructed the students to review what other students had written.  This was a quick way for students to synthesize information and begin a discussion on the topics.

Do you have a younger one at home? Here's another way you can use guided access...

"There comes a time in your life when you must hand your beloved smartphone over to the slimy fingers of a young child who has asked to play Zombie Farm.

And while you may not have any control over whether your phone is sneezed on, buried in sand or dropped, you can at the very least make sure the little beast isn’t running up your Candy Crush tab or texting gibberish to your crush." -Alyssa Bereznak  

Here’s how you lock the screen of your iPhone using guided access so it functions in one app and one app only.

https://www.yahoo.com/tech/heres-how-to-lock-your-iphone-so-it-wont-run-anything-74100463523.html