iTEC Scenarios, Design and Prototyping

We are planning cycle 4 activities using post-it notes

The five scenarios that were selected for cycle 4 per-pilots and pilots have been analyzed based on the comments by the steering committee and the PD workshop. Design challenges and opportunities have been identified and similarities and differences in the scenarios emerged.

The scenarios were heavily related to previous themes, namely design practice in school, building on personally relevant and local challenges, (inter-) national collaboration between classrooms and teachers, broadening the walls of schools, and, last but not least, working with experts outside of the school domain. Hence, we are designing the cycle 4 Learning Activities on previously piloted activities. Continue reading →

Cycle 3 pre-pilot teachers have been busy with their students. Five teachers have already provided links to their student design blogs. We aggregated them on our “Student Design Documentation (iTEC pre-pilot 3)” Netvibes page. View the page to see all the fantastic work that the pre-pilots teachers and students are up to! 

All teachers who have not yet filled in the google form with the links to their student blogs are warmly welcome to do so. We are excited to add even more student works to this site. 

Today, at the ITK 2012 (Interaktiivinen Tekniikka Koulutuksessa) conference, TeamUp was announced the winner of the eEemeli competition Apps4Learning. Way to go team!

TeamUp is a new media reflection tool for teachers to form teams of students based on interests, and for students to record 1 minute audio updates about their teamwork progress, challenges and next steps.

Illustration of pre.pilot 3 Learning Activities

* UPDATED 26.04.2012 *

Teachers and National Coordinators, please add your questions and improvements suggestions to the Learning Activities and Learning Stories as comments to the specific posts! THANKS!

Cycle 3 pre-pilots can start! This cycle’s pre-pilots are truly special as they will be all about learning through design (and in design).

Pre-piloting teachers can choose one of two Learning Activity Packages. Both packages include 6 Learning Activities that guide teachers through a design learning process. Both packages are illustrated by two Learning Stories, to show how the activities can be performed in the classroom. The packages and stories are:

Learning Activity Package 1: Observe and Design

Learning Stories to illustrate Package 1:

• Redesigning school
• Visualizing the planet surface

Learning Activity Package 2: Benchmark and Design

Learning Stories to illustrate Package 2:

• Designing a physics simulation
• Designing a math learning game

You need to provide your students with an initial design brief, which the students then flesh out and improve during each phase of the design process. Download: Design Brief Template (*.doc)

While the activities should be performed as closely as possible, the Learning Stories are only examples and you can tweak them as you like to make the activities work for you, your students, the curriculum etc.

When your students have their blogs set up, fill out this form so the blogs can be added to an overall view of all pre-piloting design blogs.

Reporting: What we really want to find out with this pre-pilot is what are the challenges of teachers to “teach” design and what are the challenges of students in the design process. Also we want to find out what works for you and the students and how we can support you in the future! What digital tools would address the challenges in the process? For this, we are dependent on your feedback! Rate the activities and add comments to them:

• What worked for you and/or the students and how?
• What did not work for you and/or the students and why?
• Did you observe additional learning outcomes? Which ones?

You can add comments to each activity after performing it with your class. This would give us the possibility to react to challenges that you might encounter during the pre-pilot! 🙂

You should complete your pre-pilot by the end of this spring semester. Send comments to the learning activities before the 20th of June, so they can be included when considering next autumn’s full pilots.

Any questions? Ask your national coordinator or ask us by adding a comment to this blog post!