Of Design, Agency, and Blenders
deconstructed blender

Through my blender-fixing experience, I gained a deeper understanding of what Dr. Clapp means by maker empowerment and how I could increase agency by tinkering with the things around me.

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Bing Crosby, Design, and Meaning Making

Note: This post was cross-posted on talkingaboutdesign.com. Thanks to Amanda Riske for her excellent editorial review! ​Over the past few weeks, I have revitalized my crush on the RadioLab podcast–specifically the currently airing series “Mixtape.” I was hooked from the first episode, Dakou, when host and producer Simon Adler starts the series describing the introduction of the Walkman to a […]

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AECT: Responsive Professional Development

Today I presented a paper I wrote about how design principles informed the work I did for my dissertation–a responsive professional development program that ended up having to respond to COVID-19 school closures. The result was an unexpected stress test for the design principles. The figure below outlines the theoretical structure of the program, with […]

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AECT Epistemic Fluency

Want to participate in an activity on epistemic fluency? ​Join below or follow this link: padlet.com/warr1/mhs5mwi8ujsdtqyu Read more about this approach! “Seeing Things Differently”: Using Diverse Representations to Promote Epistemic Diversity and Fluency Fluency in the application diverse epistemic approaches can help individuals develop a deep understanding concepts. By combining multiple ways of interacting with an […]

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Creativity, Learning, and . . . TECHNOLOGY!
variations on Scratch's number block band

This week, I asked my students to draft a “learning, teaching, and technology statement.” Their thoughts and insights pushed me to think more about my own beliefs. Although I have been exploring the relationships between learning, creativity, design, and teaching, I hadn’t ever articulated where “technology” fit in. (A bit ironic, seeing that I am […]

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Teachers as Designers: Epistemic Diversity and Sensemaking Amidst Indeterminacy

Thanks to the help of family, friends, and faculty and staff at Arizona State University, last month I officially graduated with a PhD in Learning, Literacies, and Technologies. My dissertation entitled “Teachers as Designers: Epistemic Diversity and Sensemaking Amidst Indeterminacy” included three journal articles (one published, two to be submitted soon) about my work on […]

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Harnessing the Rapids: Teacher Identity, Design, and COVID-19

This piece was cross-posted on TalkingAboutDesign.com and SilverLiningforLearning.org The river has taught me to listen; you will learn from it, too. The river knows everything; one can learn everything from it. You have already learned from the river that it is good to strive downwards, to sink, to seek the depths. Herman Hesse (Siddhartha, 1922) I love lazy […]

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Designing for Systemic Change: Self-Driving Cars?

This post was originally shared on TalkingAboutDesign.com Can designing systems be done piece-by-piece, or does it require revolutionary design? Let’s start with two parallel stories of automobiles. Story 1: Waymo In September 2012, Sergey Brin, a Google executive tasked with leading Google’s autonomous vehicle program, suggested autonomous cars would be available to the public in five years. […]

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Design, Perspective Taking, and Systems Thinking

I recently published a piece of systems change in education with Steven Weiner and Punya Mishra. Read more here. Weiner, S., Warr, M., & Mishra, P. (2020). Fostering system-level perspective-taking when designing for change in educational systems. Tech Trends.

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New Publications in TechTrends

Two new publications in TechTrends: Creativity and Play with Sandra Russ and online critical dialogue​ Creativity and Play Shagun Singha and I interviewed creativity and play expert Dr. Sandra Russ for the latest in the Deep Play Research Group’s series on creative experts. We were inspired by her dedication to supporting children’s creativity through play. Singha, S., […]

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