Category: #thinkery

Which Culture for Education?

As an institution, it’s important what your top priority is. However, in my experience, this is usually dictated by the culture of the institution, rather than anything on a piece of paper. It’s in this context that I worry about the culture of Education in the UK.
We teach Maths like a dead language

I’ve come across too many people who shudder at the thought of maths. The damage has already been done. To contrast, at my school I had a Maths teacher who was so passionate about Maths, we all got A’s. This thought came from an interview of Conrad Wolfram by Graham Brown-Martin in his most excellent…
wapisasa overview (v2)

After being in business for a 6 months or so, I held a vision day with the team, and out of that day this was created. it aims to support a wapisasa elevator pitch, and enable anyone to talk though the story.
The Thinkathon

One of our sweet spots at wapisasa is the Thinkathon. We facilitate a (fairly intensive) thinking session with you (the client) in order to discover the purpose, message and ideas surrounding the things you’re trying to create. A lot of brain juice required – but ultimately very rewarding.
Think Different(ly)

To create something awesome, you must go on a journey. wapisasa finds creative young people who dont necessarily have the credentials, and helps them into a digital career. I created this poster inspired by the maker movement to capture how important makery is in being a Rookie.
The Big Picture Machine

Are CV/Resumes the best that we can do to represent ourselves? What does the informal stuff we’ve achieved (that we dont recognise) look like through someone else’s lens? We could do with an (open badge driven) big picture machine…
A visit to the Tate Modern

A visit to the Tate Modern, and I can’t help but draw some pleasing orange blobs…
Smart kids go to Uni

Really? Maybe its just privilege, environment, and the ability to conform and perform within the system.
Greatness needs to be unleashed

Here’s a thought from Sir Michael Barber, from the Education Refrom Summit.
Open Badges

I cant remember where I came across the Maynard Keynes quote, but I immediately thought of the disruption of Education by Open Badge technologies. I was also struck by Bernard Bull’s parallel with the disruption of the Energy market.
Lock or unlock?

I worry about the culture inside our secondary schools. Conform and perform. I know that learning to conform and how to perform is important, but surely not at the expense of creativity, nevermind the false impression of cleverness that this culture emits.
I always did well at school

A little bit tongue in cheek here, I know, but do you ever get the feeling that it’s very hard for the education system to change itself, when those who are in control of it have done well by it?