Hello and welcome to this online, self paced professional development (PD) course. This course will give you the opportunity to think about concepts of simplicity and to develop practical ways to incorporate principles of simplicity into technology initiatives you are developing for your classroom, school building, or school district. The content for this PD is adapted from John Maeda's book The Laws of Simplicity, and its companion website. Maeda, an artist, engineer, and MBA, published his work to achieve "simplicity in a digital age" (2006, p. ii). Following Maeda's lead this PD will revolve around simple thought exercises to infuse simplicity in complicated technology implementation.

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Maeda has ten laws of simplicity. In this PD each law is discussed on its own page, on each page is an excerpt from the companion website, my brief analysis, and discussion questions that can be answered in a comments section. After the tenth law a longer final response form is provided to record takeaways from the PD. Successful completion of the PD will earn you a "simplicity badge" and the opportunity to win a free $5 Starbucks card.

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There are three levels of completion for the PD and three levels of badges as well. To earn each level you must:

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• Basic Level: complete all readings, complete the final response form, and contribute to three discussions

• Silver Level: complete all readings, complete the final response form, and contribute to six discussions

• Gold Level: complete all readings, complete the final response form, and contribute to all nine discussions

 

In addition to your badge you will have the chance to win a raffle for a Starbucks gift-card with your successful completion.  Basic Level will receive one entry, Silver two entries, and Gold will receive four entries for the drawing on 6/1/17. When you have completed the final response form I will contact you with information about you badge information and your raffle entries.

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