Let's Keep It FRKE

Published: November 14, 2021 • 📧 Newsletter

Welcome back, everyone! Here's Digitally Literate, issue 311. Your go-to source for insightful content on education, technology, and the digital landscape.

This week, I shared insights and reflections on creativity in education and technology. A highlight was working on Towards a Taxonomy of Transdisciplinarity, a paper for the LRA 2021 Conference. This project explored how pre-service teachers can use transdisciplinary thinking to connect math and music through summer art camps.

🔖 Key Takeaways

• Creativity Through Connection: Building bridges between seemingly unrelated concepts (like spoons becoming musical instruments) creates profound learning experiences and human connections
• Misinformation's Media Evolution: COVID-19 misinformation spreads unchecked through podcasts and radio, highlighting the need for nuanced approaches to content moderation beyond traditional AI solutions
• Assessment Innovation: Digital multimodal composition requires new frameworks that evaluate audience engagement, mode effectiveness, and originality rather than traditional essay criteria
• Grading Equity Focus: Schools are abandoning traditional grading systems that exacerbate inequities, moving toward standards-based and alternative assessment approaches
• Productive vs. Destructive Reflection: Distinguishing between problem-solving reflection and unproductive rumination becomes crucial for mental health and forward progress

📺 Watch

All About Spoons

You'd be forgiven for wondering, as an adult, why Mister Rogers carries a spoon. As detailed in a new book, When You Wonder, You're Learning: Mister Rogers' Enduring Lessons for Raising Creative, Curious, Caring Kids, the journey — from a simple Point A (a spoon) to a deeply human Point B — embodies the magic of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood.

The effect is that for children, spoons become more than passing intrigues. They become musical instruments, a spark for artistic expression, and even possible career paths. Most importantly, they become points of connection between kids and caring adults. As science has shown, the more of these connections kids have, the better they tend to do.

Building connections through creativity can have a profound impact on children's growth and curiosity.

📚 Read

On Podcasts and Radio, Misleading Covid-19 Talk Goes Unchecked

The "Wild West" of podcasts and radio continues to spread misinformation about COVID-19. Hosts perpetuate false claims, even as some succumb to virus complications.

Evan Greer highlights how flawed AI-driven solutions might cause more harm than good.

Addressing misinformation requires nuanced approaches that prioritize context and human judgment over automated content removal.

Robots vs. Fatbergs: High-Tech Approaches to America's Sewer Problem

From drones to robots armed with lasers, U.S. cities are turning to tech solutions to manage aging sewer systems and combat fatbergs—massive blockages caused by grease and debris.

Innovative technology is helping to solve critical infrastructure problems, showcasing the intersection of AI, robotics, and public service.

An Interconnected Framework for Assessment of Digital Multimodal Composition

A comprehensive framework for assessing digital multimodal compositions by Ewa McGrail and collaborators highlights three domains: audience, mode and meaning, and originality.

Rethinking assessment can help educators better evaluate diverse forms of expression beyond traditional essays.

Faced with Soaring Ds and Fs, Schools Are Ditching the Old Way of Grading

High school teacher Joshua Moreno explores alternative grading methods to address systemic inequities exacerbated by the pandemic.

The shift toward equitable assessment practices is essential for addressing learning gaps and supporting all students.

Lego's 4-Word Philosophy: FRKE

The LEGO Group's customer service philosophy—Fun, Reliable, Knowledgeable, Engaging (FRKE)—has guided them for 15 years.

FRKE can serve as a model for improving engagement and fostering trust in your personal and professional interactions.

🔨 Do

Are You Problem Solving or Ruminating?

As human beings, we have the capacity to reflect on our past behaviors. Unfortunately, there are many times in which going over the past becomes quite unproductive. This Psychology Today post discusses how we can know if we are engaging in adaptive self-reflection or maladaptive rumination.

Rumination is sometimes viewed as a negative form of emotional processing.

The defining aspect of rumination that differentiates it from regular problem-solving is the unproductively negative focus it takes. Rumination may involve going over the details of a situation in one's head or talking to friends about it.

As a general rule, the following can be indicators that you may have fallen into the trap of rumination:

• Focusing on a problem for more than a few idle minutes
• Feeling worse than you started out feeling
• No movement toward accepting and moving on
• No closer to a viable solution

🤔 Consider

Listening is where love begins: listening to ourselves and then to our neighbors.

Fred Rogers

This profound insight from Mister Rogers connects beautifully with the themes explored throughout this issue. The spoon example demonstrates how listening—to children's curiosity, to their natural creativity, to their need for connection—transforms simple objects into profound learning experiences.

Assessment frameworks that evaluate multimodal compositions require educators to listen more carefully to diverse forms of student expression. Equitable grading practices demand that we listen to the ways traditional systems have failed marginalized students. Even distinguishing between productive reflection and harmful rumination requires listening to our own internal processes.

Rogers reminds us that in our rush to optimize, innovate, and solve problems, the foundational skill is learning to listen—to ourselves, our students, our communities. This kind of deep listening creates the trust and understanding necessary for meaningful learning and growth.

🔗 Navigation

Previous: DL 310 • Next: DL 312 • Archive: 📧 Newsletter

🌱 Connected Concepts:

• Critical Pedagogy — Creativity education connections through transdisciplinary thinking
• Assessment Reform — Digital multimodal assessment and equitable grading practices
• Disinformation — COVID misinformation challenges in media ecosystem
• Digital Wellbeing — Productive reflection versus rumination patterns

Part of the 📧 Newsletter archive documenting digital literacy and technology.

Starting to pay attention to Low-Code Software Maker WSO2 after they received $90 Million from Goldman Sachs. There are not enough skilled developers and engineers to build things so as technology skills demand grows, so does attention to low-code and no-code solutions.