Part 1- Evolution Summary: This week our group interviewed three different educators. We had three google hangout meetings where we examined our feedback and made adjustments to our program. Through the Design Thinking process our collaboration and research amplified our own understanding of the nine elements of digital citizenship. It also increased our knowledge of our students and their level of understanding of the nine elements as well as digital citizenship overall. My individual contributions was getting feedback from an outside audience, once that was done I communicated the feedback to my group. I also researched different ways to implement summer trainings for students and staff. After we all discussed the feedback I gave my opinion on what we needed to adjust and refine in our program. I have witnessed so many programs fail out my previous school because the lack of preparation. If an administrator or lead teacher had a good idea for a program they would implement it right away. I believe using Design Thinking would offer steps to increase the effectiveness and creativity to a program that is in the infancy stages. The systematic approach of Design Thinking also allows stages of refinement to enhance your programs effectiveness. I had no idea what Design Thinking was before this class. When we first started using Design Thinking in our groups I was a bit skeptical, and thought it’s just another ploy that we have to experience. After a few weeks in I really started to enjoy the process of Design Thinking. My group was engaged and our creativity began to develop through each phase in Design Thinking. I agree with Tony Wagner 7 survival skills and how “students have to be creative problem solvers in this day and age”. We just can’t teach them information for the sake doing well on test, we have to give them tangible skills and teach them how to be lifelong learners. Part 1- Experimentation Summary:
Part 2 1.The article speaks about preservice teachers learning to use WIPs. How would you introduce and encourage experienced teachers to use WIPs?Especially teachers who may not be as comfortable with technology? I would partner teachers who are not experienced with technology with a teacher that is more tech savvy and provide ongoing professional development and coaching. This would provide ongoing support. There have been many veteran teachers at my school that have benefited from other teachers that are tech savvy. I think that's the best way you can get seasoned teachers comfortable with the new technology. The ongoing support also helps make them more comfortable, because they know their is always someone to help them if needed. 2.How can you convince teachers who have no experience with WIPs of the benefits? Professional development that includes classroom visits to see the benefits of WIPs, would help teachers experience WIPs. Also, providing data on the benefits would be beneficial when convincing teachers to use WIPs. I agree with you 100%. I also think we frustrate our veteran teachers by implementing new apps or new devices without giving them any training. A lot of the frustration can be nullified with professional development trainings as soon as new technology is implemented. Yes, nothing will stop any new initiative faster than frustration. Finding ways to minimize frustration and making change easier for teachers is essential. 3. What are some factors that may keep teachers from using WIPs after being exposed to their use and benefits? Often time’s technology is acquired and then just handed out to teachers without any formal training. Professional development is sometimes an afterthought or a luxury that some districts cannot afford. I agree that technology is sometimes handed out with little or no professional development. Also, WIPs may scare some teachers because they may feel a loss of control over how and what their students are learning. This is where we need a strong professional development team, a team that is on top of all the innovative changes our schools are going through. This would eliminate some of the setbacks our experienced teachers go through. 4. What are the benefits for students and teachers of using WIPs? The impact that WIP’s has had on today’s schools has been quite significant.WIP allows the student to be involved in the process of learning, this widespread adoption of WIP has completely changed how teachers teach and students learn. Yes, WIPs have changed the way teachers teach and students learn. It is also a great way to introduce collaboration, creativity, communication,and critical thinking into the curriculum. It's a great way for students to get involved with the learning process and for teachers to use technology in the classroom. Collaborative work accomplished for this phase
Collaborative phase was a bit rough this week, we kept getting stuck on different phase of module 3. We started our meeting with listing some guidelines and norms for generating ideas. After we created our norms, we started to brainstorm and put our ideas down on a google document. We met on google hangout a few times with each meeting lasting a few hours. What helped us get going creatively was completing or trying to complete the 100 idea challenge. Your individual contribution to this week's work I have said it before and I’ll say it again there is no weak links and everyone puts in 100% of effort. My contribution to our group this week was collecting data on some of our ideas we had. I also put in a great amount of brainstorming when it came to generating Ideas, we did not meet the 100 Idea challenge but we came close. I think we all threw out around 20 to 30 idea each. Challenges the group or you as an individual faced I think the biggest challenge for us this week was finding time to meet and get module 3 finished. Two of us had group projects due this week for EDL640. So we met multiple times for EDL655 and EDL640 therefore time constraints was our biggest challenge. How would you apply this process with students or colleagues at your site? I have lead some collaboration leadership meetings and I can’t wait to try some of the different process used in model 3. One of the processes that helped out my team to get our creative senses going was the 100 idea challenge. I enjoyed this because it deferred judgment and builds on the ideas of others. Sometimes staff can be reluctant to give their opinion or an idea they had during a brainstorming session, with the 100 idea challenge you’re not judged by what you say. How does Tim Brown speak about creativity that aligns with the process of Ideation or even the DT process overall? I enjoy how Tim Brown runs his company, we has created a culture where people are not afraid to give their opinion or ideas. There is no bad idea when brainstorming, there are just ideas that promote creativity to eventually solve many of the problems they are hired to fix. Part 2 There are a growing number of educators who are using electronic devices to inspire their classrooms and address education requirements. BYOD is just another extension of the tools we already use, the only difference is our students are bringing their own electronic device. I know there are some educators that feel students can’t handle the responsibility of staying on task when their device is so readily available but we need to start holding our students to a higher standard of growth. “Treat students like adults, we are going to have to trust our students until they give us a reason not to.” There are so many tools for students if they are allowed to bring their own devices. They have access to their own notes, books, podcast, recordings and other reinforcement learning tools at the palm of their hands. I have used podcasts in my classroom and there are some powerful ones that tell good stories and captivate students who otherwise would not be engaged. Podcasts for me were used to reinforce lecture concepts and for learners to review and re-review information an unlimited number of times, I was able to do this not because we had a set of laptops in my classroom but because I let students use their own devices to keep them engaged.
Hi, my name is Jonathan Apodaca I am the new acting principal for Summit online. I am excited to help guide our students into becoming a 21st century school. We will use and implement technology, I believe it will propel us into reaching our goal. Technology will be utilized to help students learn at a higher order of cognitive skill of analysis, synthesis, and evaluation. With the use of technology comes the guidelines we must abide by. Here are some guidelines that I would like to use to assist us in being digital citizens. Keep private information private. This consist of telephone numbers, addresses, emails, etc. Respect yourself and others you come in contact with online. Be sure to get permission before posting photos or videos of yourself, or classmates. Use a respectful tone of voice when posting. Refrain from posts that; tease, bully, annoy, spam, or gossip. Always Use digital etiquette. Exercise Health and Wellness, make sure you are not spending too much time in front of your screen. Digital rights and responsibilities, know your rights and know that you are responsible for your online use. Always be kind. If you would like more resources about digital citizenship I suggest https://globaldigitalcitizen.org/turning-students-into-good-digital-citizens http://www.digitalcitizenship.net/ http://www.edutopia.org/article/digital-citizenship-resources I look forward to working with your student and expect a year of new challenges and growth as we endeavor to becoming a 21st century school. If you have any questions or concerns feel free to contact me. Sincerely Jonathan Apodaca
There are many lessons we can take from Emily Pillotons. The way she uses DT is so simple but yet so effective. I like how they remodeled their computer lab, they first defined the problem and then implemented solutions. Always, keeping the needs of the user, at the core of concept development. These processes reminded me of ROP classes we had in high school. These classes would work first hand with a real life problem that needed an action and some creativity to solve them. 1. Design Thinking is a method used by designers to find solutions to multifaceted problems. The designers are not focused so much on the problem but on the solution. The frame work for Design Thinking are
*Discovery * Frame opportunity * Incubate * Ideate illuminate, *Evaluate/refine * Rapid Prototypes, * Deliver * Iterate & scale Working with my group was very smooth, we worked well together recognizing the difficulties students might have in working in today’s institutions. Since technology is established in each of the schools we teach at we decided to try and find out how much of our students recognized there roll as a digital citizen. We collaborated for a few hours discussing who our end users are, and what we presumed about them. The next step was to create a survey for our students on their knowledge and their exposure to digital citizenship. What worked out perfect was we all teach students in the three major phases in school. I teach at the high school level, Andrea teaches middle school and Michelle teaches at the elementary level. We all came up with our own questions since we have insight to the culture and knowledge of our students. By the end of the week we should have all our data we need for this section of our group project. I really enjoyed this process and can see it working at my school site with my fellow educators. The process was unique and relevant in discovering the challenges of our students. 2. Working on a vision statement was harder than I thought it would be. With the help of the hundreds of mission statements I read I tried to envision what a P21 Framework for 21st Century Learning would look like. My vision for today's learners are to provide a safe learning environment where staff, students, parents, and community accept the responsibility of preparing students for academic success and to lead in generating practical and theoretical knowledge that enables students to better understand our world and improve conditions for local and global communities. Students will excel in essential skills for success in today’s world. Supports educational success and social, emotional, and physical development of all students. Parents will be positive, supporting members of the school community. 3. What does your learning space say about the learning you want for your students? I work for an online school so most of the students work at home 90 % of the time. When students are done with the class they are assigned they have to come into our resource center and take the final. Our resource center is a gigantic room filled with 50 computers inside cubicles. The room is as boring as can be, there is nothing really on the walls. The paint is off white with no character. Instructors have their own cubicle so they can have somewhat of a private conversation with their students. Our resource center is the opposite of everything that inspires the human soul. |