{"id":793,"date":"2011-06-03T08:28:51","date_gmt":"2011-06-03T16:28:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.stanford.edu\/group\/sdgc\/cgi-bin\/ycisl\/?p=793"},"modified":"2015-08-10T14:09:31","modified_gmt":"2015-08-10T22:09:31","slug":"exercise-idea-unitaskers-bad-multitaskers-good","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ycisl.su.domains\/?p=793","title":{"rendered":"Exercise Idea: Unitaskers Bad, Multitaskers Good"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Prodded by Alton Brown&#8217;s insistence that kitchen utensils, tools and appliances should be multitaskers, not unitaskers [kitchen space being part of the issue], I am thinking up an exercise to challenge students to be creative about this idea.<\/p>\n<p>One concept is to suggest a common object, such as a wheelbarrow, and have students creatively list all the tasks that could be done with it. This is similar to the brick use story described in [??? update later].<\/p>\n<p>The second concept is to provide an object to have in hand, then have students dream up a uniquely creative alternative use for the object. For example, [and I did not know it was already in use] manicurists use rice cookers to warm towels for their clients. [Reference:\u00a0http:\/\/www.ehow.com\/how_7733273_use-rice-cooker-towel-warmer.html]&#8230;and Alton Brown threw his rice cooker out the window because he said it was a unitasker! [Good Eats! Season 9 Episode 6 &#8220;Wake Up Little Sushi&#8221;] I use screwdrivers to dig up dandelion weeds; then again, I use my weeder to move around hot briquets in my BBQ. If you collected 52 rewards club cards, you could potentially make a stack of playing cards! Students would spend 10 to 15 minutes dreaming up their new task, then have 90 seconds [see\u00a0http:\/\/online.wsj.com\/article\/SB10001424052748703509104576331044032063796.html &lt;- this is the article that got me thinking about the 90 second elevator pitch although a web search shows that there are many more articles on this topic] to cast out their idea in front of the group &#8211; there could be an easel pad for participants to sketch their ideas [but this would not truly be an elevator pitch any longer!]<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.stanford.edu\/group\/sdgc\/cgi-bin\/ycisl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/06\/26cf3d23-d139-448e-b88f-fb770b93081e_300.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-805\" title=\"26cf3d23-d139-448e-b88f-fb770b93081e_300\" src=\"http:\/\/www.stanford.edu\/group\/sdgc\/cgi-bin\/ycisl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/06\/26cf3d23-d139-448e-b88f-fb770b93081e_300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ycisl.su.domains\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/06\/26cf3d23-d139-448e-b88f-fb770b93081e_300.jpg 300w, https:\/\/ycisl.su.domains\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/06\/26cf3d23-d139-448e-b88f-fb770b93081e_300-150x150.jpg 150w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Prodded by Alton Brown&#8217;s insistence that kitchen utensils, tools and appliances should be multitaskers, not unitaskers [kitchen space being part of the issue], I am thinking up an exercise to challenge students to be creative about this idea. One concept is to suggest a common object, such as a wheelbarrow, and have students creatively list [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-793","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ideas","category-lessons"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ycisl.su.domains\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/793","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ycisl.su.domains\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ycisl.su.domains\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ycisl.su.domains\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ycisl.su.domains\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=793"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/ycisl.su.domains\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/793\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3603,"href":"https:\/\/ycisl.su.domains\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/793\/revisions\/3603"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ycisl.su.domains\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=793"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ycisl.su.domains\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=793"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ycisl.su.domains\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=793"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}