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Here is a short list of what TEDsters liked most over the past few years. These are really inspiring ideas on education, motivation, mind, creativity and passion. If you can’t get enough of that you should definitely have a look at our complete list of 750+ TED talks.
SUPERNATURAL CREATOR 2 on Vimeo.
This simple, minimalistic and therefore even more impressive animation was created by Mareike Ottrand during a workshop with only 3 days for conception and realisation at the F2F International conference.
The animation is based on the “ex nihilo” version of the creation myth, known from Genesis I in the Bible in Judaism and Christianity, and from the Koran’s Sura VII in Islam. The funny and creative idea was to match the seven days of the creation week with seven levels of a video game called “Supernatural Creator 2”:
A particularily strong moment arrives, when the creator is asked the common video game question “Try again?” and chooses: “No!” before taking a rest in Level 7.
Nice idea, minimalitic graphics and sounds, great work!
Maria Montessori (1870-1952) took the idea that the human has a mathematical mind from the French philosopher Pascal. A mathematical mind, in her words, is “a sort of mind which is built up with exactity.” The mathematical mind tends to estimate, needs to quantify, to see identity, similarity, difference, and patterns, to make order and sequence and to control error. Young children observe and experience the world sensorial. Math is all around them from day one. How old are you? In one hour you will go to school. You were born on the 3rd.
The concrete Montessori materials for arithmetics are materialized abstractions. The child’s growing knowledge of the environment makes it possible for him to have a sense of positioning in space. Numerocity is also related to special orientation. The Montessori materials help the child construct precise and internal order.
Intro to Math by Montessorium elegantly adapts this idea for the use with the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch. It provides several activities to teach the numbers 0-9 and the concepts behind them: arranging a collection of rods from smallest to largest, learning how many bars are in another collection of rods, tracing numbers as they appear on screen, matching written numbers with rods, and matching dots from a box with numbers.
Maybe Montessori classrooms will include some iPads with Montessorium’s apps in the near future. There is a great potential for an enhanced learning experience using different approaches to the same old idea: that math is all around us.
Intro to Math by Montessorium on the App Store.
Wooden Montessori Materials at www.kidadvance.com.
DeviantArt’s new drawing app Muro works in all modern browsers. You can directly start drawing on a blank canvas using different brushes, all without Flash or any other plug-in. Several brushes are available to everyone, some of the advanced features are reserved for registered users. The image above was created by DeviantArt user loish using the new tool. It’s fascinating to see how new technology can help to liberate online creativity, which is no longer restricted to writing texts, but open to a much wider range of expression. If you ever wondered what HTML5 is good for, here is the answer.
The latest fascinating contribution to Street View comes from Microsoft. With the new technology called Street Slide users do no longer teleport from one 360-degree bubble to another, but slide rather comfortably along a street panorama. The visual search has therefore become much more efficient and faster. Thanks to a mobile application, it will be much easier to find your way in the real world, using street signs and billboards both virtual and real ones.