Thursday, February 3, 2011

Walking the Talk

There has been a lot of chatter on the Twitter about life-long learning and how we embody that as professionals and instill the same into our students. It is very easy to say you are a life-long learner and perhaps just as easy to extol the virtues of it to your students. However, I find when trying to instill new habits, a little bit of modeling can go a long way.

If you want your students to become life-long learners you need to not only talk about it - you need to demonstrate it. Start the class with a comment like "I just found this yesterday ..." or "I just learned about this and wanted to share it ...". Show students that knowledge is not something that can be amassed and then ignored.

So, to ensure that I walk my talk I have decided to add a weekly post summarizing the best design and coding resources I have stumbled upon during that week. I normally post them to my class wiki site however things have a way of becoming buried in there.

So what do you think? Is this an idea you could adapt to your classroom? How else can you show your students the benefits of life-long learning through not just your talk but also through your actions?

Resources of the Week - Feb 4/2011

Here are the best design resources I found while surfing this week:

General Reading:
5 Pitfalls to Avoid for New Web Designers from webdesign tuts+

How to Tell When Your Rates are too Low from FreelanceSwitch

16 Useful and Free eBooks for Web Designers and Developers from Skyje

Inspriation:
The Crazy Evolution Of 10 Major Brands' Logos

Tutorials
Best of the Web - Jan 2011 from psd tuts+

Photoshop Basix video tutorial series from psd tuts+

Futuristic Space Scene from PixelTango

Freebies:
150 Free Business & Application Icons from graphicriver

30 Fun Free Blogger Templates from Tintation