This week the Designing Divas spent a lot of time together and apart going through the ideation phase. We all agreed to go through the readings and videos before our first group meeting so that we could get right to work. We met after class on Wednesday and began going through the checklist for the ideation phase, starting with goals. We then brainstorming using Padlet. We were really trying to come up with 100 ideas - per the challenge- ranging from realistic to wild, specific to more visionary. We did not reach our goal of 100 but we had a lot of great ideas to work with. Once we did our original brainstorm we went through and looked from ideas that we could combine or link together. We talked about which of the ideas were student centered and which were teacher centered and sorted them initially with those categories in mind. One of the challenges that we faced was when using Padlet, you could only move your own sticky note- unless you were the “owner” of the document. So that was a little bit limiting/tricky because we had so many sticky notes to work with. This was a very long process - almost two hours so at this point we gave it a rest and planned to meet the following evening.
In the meantime, everyone was supposed to look through our ideas and come up with what they thought would be “promising ideas”. We decided to use a color key to differentiate our written opinions and ideas and made the goal of answering the questions and reviewing each other's thoughts before coming together to discuss on Thursday night. On Thursday we had a rich discussion/questioning session to work through some sort of solutions for our question. We all felt very excited and passionate about some of the ideas that we came up with. By questioning one another and piggybacking off of each other's’ thoughts, we were able to agree on two possible promising ideas. Then as a group we went through the discussion topics and recorded our thoughts on the shared google doc. I would say that we all contributed equally this week to sharing our ideas, recording our discussion topics in the shared document and taking on leadership in the conversation. I look forward to seeing where this project will go!
I really enjoyed Tim Brown’s Ted Talk on creativity. He used an analogy that really resonated with me as an elementary school teacher. He explained how young children need to feel secure and in a trusted environment to feel most free to play. He compared this to a design team that also needs to feel like they are in a safe and trusted place before they can “play” …. Playing being the time where they are working to come up with creative ideas. He outlined his talk around three types of “play” that help to promote creative ideas: exploration, building and role playing. Each of these types of creative “play” provide different opportunities for ideas to be discovered and developed. I connected his talk to Design Thinking and specifically ideation, because as adults, sometimes we feel that our ideas have to look or be a certain way. Unless we feel we are in a safe environment (and will not be judged), a person’s willingness to fail, or ability to come up with a wild idea may be stunted. During the ideation phase we worked hard to defer judgement, come up with wild ideas, build on each other’s ideas, and we tried to come up with as many as possible (our goal was 100). I imagine that if we had the ability to explore through role playing, exploring, and building we may have reached that goal!
BYOD programs have received both praise and disapproval over the years. I think there can be a lot of benefits to to BYOD type programs, but there can also be a lot of difficulties. For me, the bottom line is that students should have access to technology in and out of the classroom, and if bringing in devices from home is the only option to make that happen - than that scenario is better than the alternative. I’ve been lucky enough to be in 1:1 iPad program for the past 4 years and I see so many benefits to each student having a device to work with in the classroom. Since so many programs have moved to “web based” it makes it so much easier for students to access content from any device available to them.
I think having devices available increases the students’ ability to connect with other students from around the world. It also opens up the doors to sharing their learning in new and exciting ways through different creation applications. One example that the article gave was that by utilizing BYOD program devices, students could “advance their content knowledge” by being able to create artifacts and share them on social networks. This allows students to not only share but also access other student work, furthering their learning on the topic. It allows students create projects and then easily communicate and collaborate about the projects with peers from around the world. The Shrum and Levin text also claims that students often take better care of their devices and take more ownership over their learning when they personally own the device.
One concern I have about BYOD programs is that socio economic inequities become very apparent to students by the quality of devices that students have access to. As a teacher I could see some of my students feeling insecure or inadequate if they did not own a device that was deemed “cool” or “expensive”. I think good classroom management and classroom culture can counteract this issue, but it is still something to think about.
References
Schrum, Lynne, and Barbara B. Levin. Leading 21st Century Schools: Harnessing Technology for Engagement and Achievement. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin, 2009. Print.
Song, Yanjie. "“Bring Your Own Device (BYOD)” for Seamless Science Inquiry in a Primary School." Computers & Education 74 (2014): 50-60. Web.
In the meantime, everyone was supposed to look through our ideas and come up with what they thought would be “promising ideas”. We decided to use a color key to differentiate our written opinions and ideas and made the goal of answering the questions and reviewing each other's thoughts before coming together to discuss on Thursday night. On Thursday we had a rich discussion/questioning session to work through some sort of solutions for our question. We all felt very excited and passionate about some of the ideas that we came up with. By questioning one another and piggybacking off of each other's’ thoughts, we were able to agree on two possible promising ideas. Then as a group we went through the discussion topics and recorded our thoughts on the shared google doc. I would say that we all contributed equally this week to sharing our ideas, recording our discussion topics in the shared document and taking on leadership in the conversation. I look forward to seeing where this project will go!
I really enjoyed Tim Brown’s Ted Talk on creativity. He used an analogy that really resonated with me as an elementary school teacher. He explained how young children need to feel secure and in a trusted environment to feel most free to play. He compared this to a design team that also needs to feel like they are in a safe and trusted place before they can “play” …. Playing being the time where they are working to come up with creative ideas. He outlined his talk around three types of “play” that help to promote creative ideas: exploration, building and role playing. Each of these types of creative “play” provide different opportunities for ideas to be discovered and developed. I connected his talk to Design Thinking and specifically ideation, because as adults, sometimes we feel that our ideas have to look or be a certain way. Unless we feel we are in a safe environment (and will not be judged), a person’s willingness to fail, or ability to come up with a wild idea may be stunted. During the ideation phase we worked hard to defer judgement, come up with wild ideas, build on each other’s ideas, and we tried to come up with as many as possible (our goal was 100). I imagine that if we had the ability to explore through role playing, exploring, and building we may have reached that goal!
BYOD programs have received both praise and disapproval over the years. I think there can be a lot of benefits to to BYOD type programs, but there can also be a lot of difficulties. For me, the bottom line is that students should have access to technology in and out of the classroom, and if bringing in devices from home is the only option to make that happen - than that scenario is better than the alternative. I’ve been lucky enough to be in 1:1 iPad program for the past 4 years and I see so many benefits to each student having a device to work with in the classroom. Since so many programs have moved to “web based” it makes it so much easier for students to access content from any device available to them.
I think having devices available increases the students’ ability to connect with other students from around the world. It also opens up the doors to sharing their learning in new and exciting ways through different creation applications. One example that the article gave was that by utilizing BYOD program devices, students could “advance their content knowledge” by being able to create artifacts and share them on social networks. This allows students to not only share but also access other student work, furthering their learning on the topic. It allows students create projects and then easily communicate and collaborate about the projects with peers from around the world. The Shrum and Levin text also claims that students often take better care of their devices and take more ownership over their learning when they personally own the device.
One concern I have about BYOD programs is that socio economic inequities become very apparent to students by the quality of devices that students have access to. As a teacher I could see some of my students feeling insecure or inadequate if they did not own a device that was deemed “cool” or “expensive”. I think good classroom management and classroom culture can counteract this issue, but it is still something to think about.
References
Schrum, Lynne, and Barbara B. Levin. Leading 21st Century Schools: Harnessing Technology for Engagement and Achievement. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin, 2009. Print.
Song, Yanjie. "“Bring Your Own Device (BYOD)” for Seamless Science Inquiry in a Primary School." Computers & Education 74 (2014): 50-60. Web.