Top ten podcasts every teacher needs to hear — from wiley.com; with thanks to Emily Liebtag for her posting on Twitter for this resource

Excerpt:

Listening to podcasts is an easy way to dive into a topic that interests you and learn something new from others who share your passion for education.

We’re highlighting the following ten podcast episodes featuring Jossey-Bass authors that you can listen to whenever, wherever to help you master your craft or reignite your love of teaching.

So, take some time for yourself, grab your earbuds, and press play on these…

 

Welcome to the future! The future of work is… — from gettingsmart.com

Excerpt:

The future of work is here, and with it, new challenges — so what does this mean for teaching and learning? It means more contribution and young people learning how to make a difference. In our exploration of the #futureofwork, sponsored by eduInnovation and powered by Getting Smart, we dive into what’s happening, what’s coming and how schools might prepare.

 

 

 

Design thinking for lawyers — from lawyerist.com by Marshall Licht

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

Let’s face it: lawyers have a pretty spotty track record where innovation is concerned. We tend toward the secure, the risk-free, the known…the precedential. We shy from things we view as risky. “New” means “untested” and “untested” means “fraught.” And fraught is a nonstarter.

This propensity toward risk aversion arguably serves our clients reasonably well in the actual delivery of legal services. But it is a two-edged sword. It can simultaneously cripple us and our ability to reimagine how we practice law or how we build our law businesses to meet our clients’ ever-evolving needs.

What is Design Thinking?
Design thinking is an ethos. An ideology. A worldview. It is also, ultimately, a perfectly replicable process aimed at applying long-established and fundamental design principles to the way we build businesses and the processes in them. It is a hands-on, user-focused way to relentlessly and incrementally innovate, sympathize, humanize, solve problems, and resolve issues. For our purposes, design thinking is how you intentionally craft your law business over time to deliver legal services simply, functionally, and beautifully.

 

Using technology to inspire creativity boosts student outcomes — from thejournal.com by Sara Friedman

Transformative technology uses include using tablets or computers to create multimedia projects, conduct research and analyze information.

Teachers’ use of creativity in learning was determined how many times students were allowing to:

  • Choose what to learn in class.
  • Try different ways of doing things, even if they might not work.
  • Come up with their own ways to solve a problem
  • Discuss topics with no right or wrong answer.
  • Create a project to express what they’ve learned.
  • Work on a multidisciplinary project.
  • Work on a project with real-world applications.
  • Publish or share projects with people outside the classroom.
 
 

5 good tools to create whiteboard animations — from educatorstechnology.com

Excerpt:

In short, whiteboard animation (also called video scribing or animated doodling) is a video clip in which the recorder records the process of drawing on a whiteboard while using audio comment. The final result is a beautiful synchronization of the drawings and the audio feedback. In education, whiteboard animation videos  are used in language teaching/learning, in professional development sessions, to create educational tutorials and presentations and many more. In today’s post, we are sharing with you some good web tools you can use to create whiteboard animation videos.

 

 

 

Accessibility and Usability Resource site from Quality Matters

 

Meet AURS — Your go-to resource for addressing accessibility challenges — from wcetfrontiers.org and Quality Matters

Excerpt:

Accessibility is not only one of the main areas of focus for WCET, but a consistent issue and opportunity for higher education institutions. In order to support faculty, instructional designers, and others who work in the area, Quality Matters, a WCET member, created a new resource site for educators to get information on how to address key accessibility and usability concerns. Today’s post introduces the new website, AURS, and reviews the development process for the site and the resources.

 

 

 

Top eLearning Gamification Companies 2019 — from elearningindustry.com by Christopher Pappas

Excerpt:

The Top Performing eLearning Gamification Companies 2019
As community leaders, here at eLearning Industry, we have evaluated hundreds of eLearning content development companies in the past. As we are constantly on the lookout for new advancements and trends in the eLearning field that are relevant to the industry, we decided to take a very close look at outstanding providers of gamification. We have focused on prestige, influence, application of gamification tools, activity in the eLearning field, gamification innovations, and many more subcategories.

For the list of the Top eLearning Gamification Companies 2019, we chose and ranked the best gamification companies based on the following 7 criteria:

  • Gamification eLearning quality
  • Customer reviews
  • eLearning expertise
  • Niche specialization on gamification
  • Gamification industry innovation
  • Company’s social responsibility
  • Gamification features and capabilities
 

Incredible Pictures from Agora’s Contest

 

Some interesting feedback re: the Bar Exam

Introduction

The National Conference of Bar Examiners’ (NCBE’s) Testing Task Force (TTF) is undertaking a comprehensive,future-focused study to ensure that the bar examination continues to test the knowledge, skills, and abilities required for competent entry-level legal practice in a changing legal profession. The collaborative study involves input from stakeholders at multiple phases and considers the content, format, timing, and delivery method for NCBE’s current tests, which make up all or part of the bar examination in most U.S. jurisdictions: the Multistate Bar Examination (MBE), the Multistate Essay Examination (MEE), and the Multistate Performance Test (MPT). The study also includes the Multistate Professional Responsibility Examination (MPRE), which is administered by NCBE and required for admission in most U.S. jurisdictions.

This Executive Summary provides a synthesis of the stakeholder listening sessions conducted during Phase 1 of the study between November 2018 and June 2019. The purpose of these sessions was to solicit input from various stakeholder groups about characteristics and considerations for the next generation of the bar examination. The sessions were facilitated by ACS Ventures LLC (ACS), an independent psychometric consulting firm. Summaries of the stakeholder input from the sessions are appended to this Executive Summary.

 

From DSC:
Hmmm…I wonder what some design thinking experts might say about the complexities involved here:

  • The Multistate Bar Examination (MBE)
  • The Multistate Essay Examination (MEE)
  • The Multistate Performance Test (MPT)
  • The Multistate Professional Responsibility Examination (MPRE)

 

 

Research Posters Are a Staple of Academic Conferences. Could a New Design Speed Discovery? — from edsurge.com by Jeff Young

Excerpts:

Scholars around the world share their latest research findings with a decidedly low-tech ritual: printing a 48-inch by 36-inch poster densely packed with charts, graphs and blocks of text describing their research hypothesis, methods and findings. Then they stand with the poster in an exhibit hall for an hour, surrounded by rows of other researchers presenting similar posters, while hundreds of colleagues from around the world walk by trying to skim the displays.

Not only does the exercise deflate the morale of the scholars sharing posters, the ritual is incredibly inefficient at communicating science, Morrison argues.

Morrison says he has a solution: A better design for those posters, plus a dash of tech.

 

 

To make up for all the nuance and detail lost in this approach, the template includes a QR code that viewers can scan to get to the full research paper.

 

From DSC:
Wouldn’t this be great if more journal articles would do the same thing?  That is, give us the key findings, conclusions (with some backbone to them), and recommendations right away! Abstracts don’t go far enough, and often scholars/specialists are talking amongst themselves…not to the world. They could have a far greater reach/impact with this kind of approach.

(The QR code doesn’t make as much sense if one is already reading the full journal article…but the other items make a great deal of sense!)

 

 

Resources from Bluescape Brings Creatives Together to Ideate and Collaborate in New Ways at Cannes Lions 2019

  • Design with Greater Ease Using Bluescape on Wacom video <– From DSC: Very sharp!
  • Bluescape for Creatives – War Rooms video
  • Bluescape for Creatives – Review and Approve video
  • Bluescape for Creatives – Presentations and Storytelling video
  • Bluescape for Adobe Creative Cloud and Adobe XD page
  • Bluescape Speeds up UX/UI Design Cycle with XD Plugin video
 

15 of the best tools & resources for web designers in 2019 — from webdesignledger.com

Excerpt:

Digital design technology waits on no one. It’s forever changing, and web designers are forever having to seek ways to keep up with it. If there are any “evergreen” tools and resources that keep pace with the latest trends they are few. Except for upgrades and updates, of course.

The latest tools, apps, and resources can cope with the latest design trends. They are not difficult to come by. There is, in fact, an embarrassment of riches. So many that finding the right ones can actually be a challenge in itself.

Not all of them are top-of-the-line of course, and the best of the bunch is what you want and deserve. To help you out, we’ve put in place this nice little collection of top tools, apps, and resources. They’ll individually or collectively make your job easier. They help you keep up with the times and maintain a competitive edge.

 

 

40 of the Best Classic Fonts Picked by Professional Designers — from webdesignledger.com

classic fonts

 

 

40 of the Best Free Retro Fonts Picked by Professional Designers — from webdesignledger.com

 

retro fonts

 

 

 

Logo Design Guide: 7 Tips Moving into 2019 — from customlogocases.com with thanks to Anna Carter for this item

 

Excerpt:

A logo communicates a brand’s personality and identity in a visual format.

Often, first impressions about businesses and products are based upon logo artwork alone.

For that reason, it’s crucial that you get your design right first time.

Expert logo design requires a mixture of creative design skills, sound knowledge of theory and scrupulous application.

True mastery of can take years of time and patience.

So how can you make your brand stand out amongst a sea of skillfully designed logos? Read on to find out.

 

 
© 2025 | Daniel Christian