I need to get my hands on Sir Ken Robinson's new book, The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything. I am fascinated by his thoughts on creativity and eager to consider ways to build a school where learning is centered on our passions. Until the book arrives in the mail, I will listen and listen again to Sir Ken Robinson speak on this video.

It's a 40 minute video, so take some time to sit back with a cup (or glass) of your favorite beverage and enjoy. Don't be tempted to skip the question and answer session at the end because his final words are powerful.

Inauguration Speech MindMap

Love this post at DigiGogy. It's a MindMap of President Obama's Inauguration speech.

Just poking around the blogs out there and came across this great video that's a 21st Century Literacy version of the Letter from Camp. It's posted at Higher Edison. Take a look. I promise you will smile.

Reading a Book with Zeke

We babysat our three-month-old grandson, Zeke, tonight. My daughter tells me that he has a favorite book - imagine that! It's called I Love Colors by Margaret Miller. Each two page spread has a picture on the right (a red bow on a child's head) and on the left is a small bit of text ("red bow") on top of a brighlty colored matching background (red).

So when I shared the book with Zeke tonight I watched his eyes catch the page of color. The bright colors seemed to fascinate him. As I turned the pages, each new color caught his attention.

I am looking forward to watching our beautiful grandson learn to read!

A Clean Desk

I spent a few days of the winter break cleaning my office at school. The piles had overtaken any available workspace! I was determined to begin 2009 with a clean desk. As I moved through the piles, it was scary to realize that so much of it went straight to the recycle pile! Someone told me once that I should handle every piece of paper just once. Good advice but I am not very good at following it. The piles grow no matter how hard I try. I am anxious to begin 2009 with a desk that sparkles.

The future...

I spent some time today looking into the future. While many feel that our education system is stagnated, I find it compelling to look at future trends and to think about how they will impact our schools, learning and teaching.

I visited the Cool Cat Teacher blog where she suggested in her Daily Spotlight on Education that readers take a look at an interview, Six Important Forces That Will Shape 2009 at Trends in Living Networks. I found Ross Dawson's points very interesting especially the trend he calls Constant Partial Attention (CPA). He states that "our attention is constantly divided between a massive array of channels." and that "to be successful, we need to thrive on constant interruption.

This makes me think about the times I often watch TV, talk to my husband or to a friend on the phone, and read blogs or twitter - all at the same time! It also makes me wonder how that will impact learning and teaching.

In education, we need to raise the urgency to understand and respond to future trends. While this information is connected to the business world it has huge impacts on education.

While I was at Trends for Living Networks, I also linked to Future Exploration Network where I discovered a few other fascinating things under FEATURED CONTENT.

Extinction Timeline - a fascinating look at what will disapper in our lives

Future of Medial Report 2008 featuring the seven driving forces shaping media

and Enterprise Social Network Strategy Report that features what people are saying about social network strategy

Ross Dawson also posted on December 23 a Trend Map for 2009 created by futurist, Richard Watson and points out a few of the elements of the trend map.

While this seems like an unusual post for me, my brain has exploded with information as I have blogged and twitted in the last month. Hoping that you will join in the conversation.

Happy Thanksgiving!