Design thinking @Edutech2014

I was fortunate enough to attend a Masterclass at Edutech this year.

“Design thinking in the Australian Curricululm” with Ewan McIntosh @notosh (and Hamish Curry and Tom Barrett).

The sessions were fast and furious (I went through four pencils in the Immersion and Synthesis stage of the process).

Simple, yet effective ideas like the six word stories are wonderful ‘I can implement tomorrow’ ideas.

I think that a tool like Haiku Deck would be excellent to visualise these as well.

I am currently in the synthesising phase of how to actually implement this process at SALC. The concepts have great potential not only for use with the Australian Curriculum but perfect for the inquiry method in the PYP. I LOVED the idea of using TED talks to generate a “generative topic” and the challenging nature of them.

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@art_cathyhunt visual notes – nice!

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What’s in a word? Meaning and intention? Does it make a difference? Emotive words and hidden intent?

The focus on a key word in statements was frustrating (as often words used could be interchangeable) yet I understood the purpose and importance of the selection of language.

See some tweets – #Edutech

 

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Lots of food for thought. Stay tuned for where we go next.

Want to have a play?

Bee Bots supporting inquiry

We have spent some of our reward points from Scholastic Book Fairs and we have purchased some Bee Bots. Bee Bots are some programmable robots that are excellent to use across the curriculum (lower primary). These are hassle free ICT tools for supporting the Technologies curriculum as well.

In the JS Staffroom we have the Bee Bots on a world map ready for your explorations. We have ordered more maps – just waiting on delivery!

Bee Bots in action

See this blog post Beebots Downunder for some ideas about how these are being used in classes.

Great for literacy, maths, problem solving and geography! (Perfect for mapping UOI Year 2/3).

Name our beebots

We have six Bee Bots and they need names!

Please come and have a play with your class and suggest a name (and reason why).

Beebots (2)

 

Post your responses below.

 

ASK A LIBRARIAN and EFFECTIVE QUESTIONS

 

SEARCH – ASK – LEARN – CONNECT

ASK

Term 2 is focused on asking questions and what it means to ask questions.

Sometimes the question is more important than the answer.

What does this mean?

Students have been asked to ask me their questions (about anything) and I will endeavor to find an answer. Part of this process will be also demonstrating my research to find this answer (or answers).

STUDENT QUESTIONING

As a PYP school we encourage students to ask their questions and to direct their own inquiry.

One concept based on student questions is the PASSION PROJECT and GENIUS HOUR.

TEACHER QUESTIONING

Jamie Mackenzie has many books and blog posts about types of questions and how to formulate the right questions. This is the link to his QUESTIONING TOOLKIT.

This approach to developing effective questions is often coined as ungoogleable and it is essential that we support students “move beyond the cut and paste“.

DIGGO LINKS QUESTIONING

Read more about PASSION PROJECTS