Capturing Ideas and Making them Happen: STEAM Week

During a faculty meeting discussion about the film, "Most Likely to Succeed," a colleague mentioned that students' STEAM reflections noted their desire for more time for projects. Another colleague chimed in that we should have a STEAM week. I mentioned that there's time for that in June, but then we realized that a week at the start of the year as part of the Global Cardboard Challenge could be a great time to foster a week of STEAM while also building all those TEAM (together everyone achieves more) skills we need to review and build at the start of the year.

I write this down because I want to capture this idea. I find that if I don't write good ideas down when they occur, those ideas are less likely to translate into real time action and effort. Once written down, the idea is "captured" and thus easier to later analyze on our own and as a team as we plan ahead.

To capture ideas well, you need a collection vehicle. Of course, I believe that a blog or a website is a terrific vehicle for capturing ideas. The idea arrives and you immediately add it to its right place on the designated idea blog or website. The great aspect of a blog is that you can search for your own ideas and quickly find them by Googling too once you've written enough. That's awesome.

How do you capture ideas? Then how and when do you return to those ideas to develop and embed them into your work?

We read a lot. We talk a lot. We listen a lot. In the end, what matters is what we do with all those ideas we entertain.