Reading Assignment (part A):


Interests and Issues


In my career as a teacher my focus has been on elementary school learners. I enjoy seeing the sparkle in students' eyes when they discover new skills and overcome challenges. The last few years have been spent teaching in a combined grade 3 and 4 classroom. In school district 23 we have a Design Thinking Network where teachers all over our district can come together and collaborate and discuss ways of promoting inquiry and technology to our students using a design thinking process. I was really excited with my students' thinking and ability to empathize and Ideate and then COVID happened and everything came to a standstill.


This year I have been trying to get back into using Design Thinking and I have been hitting a lot of barriers. First, I am at a new school and my students do not seem to have the foundation technology skills, such as being able to log onto a chromebook. Second, it has been challenging to find age appropriate resources to allow students to research and find information. I feel like our district resources are not student friendly. For example, the district pays for World Book online but there are a lot of steps to log in. Lastly, I find that when trying to teach students different avenues to present their learning it is a juggling act to teach them different platforms and challenging to find appropriate tools for elementary students. 


Another part of incorporating technology into our class has been using Seesaw. This year my focus was to have better family communication. I find Seesaw a great tool to share my students' learning with their families. I also use it as an additional communication tool, such as classroom reminders or quick check-ins with families. There are features of Seesaw that I am currently not using, but next year I will start looking into using it more with my students. 


Keywords


Digital Literacy

Collaborative Publishing

Applied Design Skills and Technologies

Online library


Opportunity Generator


Website Creation: I would love to be able to create a student friendly website that is accessible to students as young as kindergarten and grade 1. It would be wonderful for students to be able to feel confident by clicking into a trusted online resource that has all the tools they need to be successful. I am not over tech savvy so this would be a huge endeavour for me but I have seen some amazing online libraries.


Apps and Sharing Platforms: This is a list of technologies I would like to teach to students for them to be able to share their thinking with small audiences to big audiences.

podcasting, video production, stop motion, coding, book making, poster making, blogging, online presentations (google slides/padlet).

This is a website that will need further investigation.


https://www.commonsense.org/education/top-picks/design-thinking-tools-for-students


Design Thinking: John Spencer makes great videos about implementing design thinking in the classroom. Here is a video to explore the design thinking process.


The LAUNCH Cycle: A Design Thinking Framework for Education

Comments

  1. D.McNeeMay 24, 2022 at 6:14 PM

    This is a good first post. You have a clear focus for further reading and research. I look forward to seeing where your learning takes you! For your next post, I encourage you to include additional multimedia elements (images, videos). These add another layer for your reader.

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