Information Technology Education

Buster the dog, a disco room, and a talking, chopping fruit ninja?  What do these all have in common?  They were all made by middle school students using Hummingbird robotics.  It was amazing to witness the journey.  First, seeing them all learn the basics of programming, then seeing teams of students collaborate to sketch out their robot designs.  This was followed by the process and journey of selecting and using a variety of materials to create their team's unique robot. Throughout the process, they kept an engineering-design journal with entries that focused on what they accomplished, challenges they faced and how they plan to overcome their challenges.  They also used their phones to document their robot-building captured in photos and videos. Here is a reflection from a team member: " If you have an imagination, a computer, and a HummingBird robotics set, you can make anything you want to  make. HummingBird Robotics is a series of wires, lights, ...

This was a tremendous week for girls and computer science.  It kicked off with one of my former students winning a Visionary Girl award for her work with robotics, creating an award-winning app and technology leadership.  Visionary Girls are recognized for innovation in the community, "create new ways of engaging with the world around them, or have a unique vision that will make a difference now and in the future." It continued with the release of the preview of Codegirl, a documentary about teams of girls who participated in the global Technovation challenge.  I decided to hold screenings of excerpts of it in my middle school classroom during lunchtime.  It was great to be able to show them these stories of teens who are changing the world with their innovative apps.  After the viewing, I arranged a call via telepresence with a college student who had graduated a few years earlier from my district and asked her to share about her journey and how she decided to ...

This has been a tremendous week.  A preview of CODEGIRL was made available on Youtube Nov. 1-5 before its theatrical debut.  Here is the official trailer: It is all about teams of girls from around the world who participated in the Technovation Challenge to create apps to solve a problem in their community.  What do they do?  They persevere as they solve problems by creating, building and becoming entrepreneurs. It was so incredibly inspiring to see these teams of girls who were not only coding, but ideating, creating, iterating, and researching to make their dreams of a better future a reality.  From an app to swap items to one that mobilizes and coordinates volunteerism to one that locates sources of water, these girls have thought of ways to improve life and society with unique perspectives.  The ideals embodied in the Technovation Challenge is what I strive to bring into the classroom everyday.  Starting with ideating where they do a needs analysis...

As a teacher, I definitely take pedagogy and content knowledge seriously as I plan learning experiences for my students.  But, as we all know, teaching is much more than that.  It involves thinking about how to motivate and engage my students, how to ignite their curiosity, and how to answer that deeper question of 'so what?'  or 'why am I learning this?' I had the opportunity to read the book Drive by Dan Pink recently and it was such an interesting experience.  It put into words what I somehow knew to be true intuitively as a teacher.  What drives or motivates people to do great, innovative things? Pink hones in on three words:  autonomy, mastery and purpose.  So, after reading this book, I find myself asking these questions: How am I providing opportunities for my students to have autonomy in their learning?  Do my students have the opportunity to engage in meaningful work that requires them time and hard work to master the skills that go into ...

I got inspired by this lesson on biomimicry found here.   Before getting into biomimicry, though, I had my students first explore nature right on our schoolyard by going out and taking pictures.  I registered the class for our first Project Noah mission - Global Schoolyard Bioblitz.  We then uploaded the pictures and made observations about the colors, structures, and functions of organisms. After this, we explored biomimicry through a few resources.  One of the videos is shown above. I then introduced the quest to the students:  How can we use reverse-engineering to learn from nature and innovate solutions? I reminded them of how we used reverse-engineering when taking apart a video game to figure out how it works.  They then went on to reverse-engineer a sunflower, taking it apart into its component part in order to get inspired by nature to come up with an innovative solution based on the color, structure, or function of the sunflower.  Their ideas...

I shared recently how I came to give my first Ignite talk at ISTE this past summer. It was such a valuable process to go through - to reflect on what is really important to say (or not to say), prioritize order of importance, organize information, strategically select images to best 'show' not tell my story, not to mention work on presentation skills. Since research, speaking and listening skills are such a huge part of what I do in this class, I thought to myself, what better way to target all of these through having my students plan, practice, and give an Ignite talk?  20 slides, 15 seconds each for each of them to tell their story.  I struggled with how to pitch it to my students and kept thinking - how will I get buy-in?  how can I model this for them and help them see the value in it?  I got the aha moment I was seeking last week. I decided to start off by giving my students the same Ignite talk I gave at ISTE this summer and shared all the challenges and fears ...

I've been working on ways to have my students explore and reflect on the importance of mindset in the classroom.  To this end, they took Jo Boaler's course called " How to Learn Math " last spring.  It was definitely a highlight for many of my students. Many had never realized the importance of having a growth mindset and to not be afraid of making mistakes.  It was a freeing and empowering moment for so many of them. Image  link I really got to thinking about I address standards and practices (mathematical practices and science and engineering practices) in the classroom, but what about mindset?  So, to start off the school year, I returned to a series of videos from IDEO that I watched when I took a Human-Centered Design course.  It's a set of seven videos addressing mindsets that we must have as we design solutions:  learn from failure iterate, iterate, iterate make it empathy creative confidence optimism embrace ambiguity They can be found here. ...