Sunday, May 18, 2014

Summer Reading and Discussion

Cognitive Surpluss
Now that summer is fast approaching (and since I'm long overdue for a blog post), I've been thinking about what sorts of professional development I'l be doing over the next few months. Last summer, I spent a lot of time at conferences, and while it was a fantastically productive period of time, this summer I'm looking forward to doing more reading and reflection on the past year of experimentation.

Making Thinking Visible
In particular, I'm interested in exploring ideas on innovation and cognitive science, and to that end, I've compiled a list of books that have caught my attention in the past year (cf. some notes here on a few I've already read). I'm hoping that others in the PLN will be interested in reading and discussing some of these ideas. At the moment, I've got my eye on Shirky's Cognitive Surplus and Ritchhart, Church, and Morrison's Making Thinking Visible, but I'm interested in all of them. If any of the books or ideas look interesting, upvote any of them in the comments section at the bottom of the book list document.

There are also a few books I've recently read that I'd love to discuss in some way, including Hurst's The Purpose Economy (cf. his blog) and Pentland's Social Physics (cf. his blog). I'm open to suggestions on others of value, and I welcome comments on them. And if anyone interested in book discussions will be at ISTE this summer, perhaps we can put together a time and place for conversation in person. Feel free to circulate the list among faculty, and cheers to a productive summer!