Do you know where good ideas come from? Well, according to Steven Johnson, the author of ‘Where good ideas come from‘, chance favours the connected mind. This RSA animation does a stellar job of visualising his ideas, and I liked how he identified the need for people to come together in spaces dedicated to conversation and the opportunity to discuss and dissect ideas. Sounds like the function of a library today to me. If we design libraries with this kind of thinking in mind, then we provide opportunities for connected minds to meet face to face.
I came across the following video from Derek Sivers this week, and it seems to me we could be using this as a prompt for some vigorous class discussion with our students. All too often I think we dismiss our ideas as trivial, unimportant, not worthy of sharing. But who knows the impact your tiny idea might have on someone else who has never considered it? Sharing has become such an important part of my life; for me it seems natural now to push my thinking out there. Sometimes I hesitate, but more often than not I just push that send or publish button and put it out there. Watch it and see if you can find a way to use it in a classroom.
Renovations will occupy most of my weekend I’m figuring. We’ve been working on our back room, and I’ll probably be making the cups of tea, providing the food, hauling some plaster board or wielding a paintbrush. Gee, I wish it was more fun that it sounds, but someone’s gotta do it. I should take a look at that linen closet too, because I managed to avoid cleaning it out last weekend!
We’ve experienced some stunning spring weather today in Melbourne – I’m just hoping it lasts through the weekend. Find some sunshine and soak in it if you can.
Enjoy. : )
Lucacept - intercepting the Web 
Great video – definitely sparks a discussion in my head! Looking forward to sharing this.
This reminds me very much of Dan Pink’s 2009 talk which you featured in your Sept ’09 post: http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_pink_on_motivation.html . I do wonder whether we should build into our programmes more time where our the students are expected to learn but are allowed to do so without imposing a prescriptive structure; not essays, not reports, not posters, not tables, but still with learning aims that they can build on. How much more would students be able to enjoy learning when they are allowed to work to their own strengths, which we all do when given the opportunity?