A colleague and I presented some thoughts from ICOT2013 to the staff for our PD session this morning. I focused on Ewan McIntosh’s Keynote, The Learning Pit and the Key Competencies Indicator project. During this, I set a task to come up with an ungoogleable question based in their subject areas (with donuts for the best).

This drew some brilliant responses as you can see below:

Maths

Have negative numbers always existed, or were they invented by man?

An immediate following question: If they were invented, does that mean prior to that time everything in the universe was positive, whether it be associated with humans or not?

Show that a must be positive in 

Technology

How can you tessellate human brains?

Using a single line, how would you convey a sense of London culture? (Actually being used with Year 9 Graphics students this year)

Social Sciences

What will space tourism be like?

What was Anne Boleyn’s job?

To what extent did Mao Zedong’s social policies allow him to rule with  the support of China between the years of 1929 and 1976?

English

How does a literary work draw the reader into participating beyond the level of passive spectator? (IB English Lit. task from last week)

Physical Education

How fast can I run 4 kilometres?

Media Studies

What is the meaning of life? (Although many would answer 42!)

Why did God allow Avatar to get made?

And from one of the donut winners: Is a donut a donut if it doesn’t have a hole in it?

2 years later I have finally updated this post with far more detail on how I help my students develop ungoogleable questions. Read this more detailed post here.