A Reflection - My ADE 2019 Journey

2019 has been one of the busiest years of my teaching career. Even before the school year began, I was preparing for another year of study, getting my curriculum ready for Term 1 and preparing my children for their next year of school (including first year of High School for my daughter). Among all this, I knew the Apple Distinguished Educator (ADE) applications would soon be opening and so I was busy taking notes of what I would do. It was one of my professional goals for 2019 to become an ADE. 

When applications opened in January I was excited but didn’t get to work right away. In fact, I kept putting it off due to my busy schedule. School returned and I just couldn’t see how I would possibly have the time to put anything together

I Used Design Thinking to Transform my Learning Space - Part 4 - Prototyping

I’ve reached that point in the design process where I get to experiment with everything I have been thinking about and planning. It’s when I get my hands dirty and start to get a real insight into what will work, what won’t, students’ thoughts and opinions and develop my own ideas of how successful I have been. I have found the prototyping process very engaging, stimulating and somewhat cathartic (they say ‘a change is as good as a holiday’). I have been able to quickly test out all of my ideas, analyse them and improve them in a short amount of time (Dam & Siang, 2018).

I Used Design Thinking to Transform my Learning Space - Part 3 - Ideation

I spent quite a long time trying to understand what my biggest problem was in my classroom. I mean, STEAM is fun and kids love it but I kept wondering if I was doing everything I could to fully engage all of my students and if the working environment was really promoting this engagement. This lead me to decide on my problem statement: How might we design the learning space to better engage all students?

I Used Design Thinking to Transform my Learning Space - Part 2 - Synthesising

I previously wrote about my new understandings of Empathy in the Design Thinking process and in this post I am going to discuss the importance of synthesising information gathered in the Empathy phase, what this means and a practical approach to synthesising that anyone can try.

Coding Our Own Computer Games

Nothing makes me feel more proud than when I see my students happily showing off their hard work to an audience. What makes it better is when these kids have never done anything like it before and have developed a love for it. This is how coding went down with my Year 4 students this year when they presented their first ever GameCon.

I Used Design Thinking to Transform my Learning Space - Part 1 - Empathy

Embarking upon my understanding of the Design Thinking process, I have come to learn more about the importance of Empathy. I had always considered myself an empathetic person but had I ever really taken this approach to solving problems? Maybe, subconsciously.

Empathy can be best described as “feeling with people” (The RSA, 2013) and in the realm of Design Thinking, it plays an important role because it allows us to try and truly understand the people for whom we are trying to solve a problem. It is no good to try and make something better without truly understanding the end user.

10 Reasons to Try Coding in Your Classroom

Coding has been the centrepiece of my classroom this year. Everything we have done revolves around it in some way, shape or form. We have introduced it to our Prep students all the way up to our Year 4's. When I talk about coding to other teachers, I always sense a fear that they too would have to one day do this in their classroom. The reason I have created this list is to help those teachers that are new to coding to relax a little and to just give it a go. These are the ten reasons I think everyone should give coding a go in their classroom (in no particular order):

Getting Started with One Note

I feel like I have been quite slow to jump on board the OneNote bandwagon. I had previously exclusively used Evernote for most things but found that there were other, equally great options out there that cost far less that I should try.

I started out by using OneNote for taking notes when attending Professional Development. I liked that I could quickly type them up if needed or hand write them on my Samsung Galaxy Tablet with the dedicated S Pen (which I LOVE!). I soon learned that

Using Seesaw Activities for Assessment

I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to present this week on Episode 40 of TeachTech Play with the incredible Eleni Kyritsis (follow her on Twitter - @elenikyritsis).  I was given 4 minutes to discuss how I have been using Seesaw for student assessment in my specialist classroom. 

It's no secret that Seesaw has become the most important digital tool that I use. I'm like a giddy school kid; I can't stop talking about it whenever I get the chance. Lately, I have discovered the benefits to using the Activities part of Seesaw along with Skills View for assessment in my STEAM classes. It has become a huge time saver for me and my students but it has also allowed me to explore new ways to modify and redefine the way we use learn using technology in the classroom.

Getting to know Seesaw

When I began using Seesaw last year, I didn't really understand much about it except that it was 'like Facebook but for kids and parents'. It was such a misguided response of which would not be my answer today. I liked how we could use it and the platform it gave the students for sharing their work. I never really delved too deep though and I'm kind of kicking myself for not trying more whilst I still had my own class.

It's now my second year of using Seesaw and my first as a specialist teacher (STEAM) and I am understanding the capabilities even more and starting to see a greater benefit. My team teaching partner and I have recently discovered