About Deb Carter

Research Project Coordinator at the Innovative Learning Centre at UBC's Okanagan campus and IGS PhD candidate housed in Faculty of Education.

2014 Conference on Design Principles and Practices

 

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At the Eighth International Conference on Design Principles and Practices, Serveh Naghshbandi presented our initial findings from Maker Day 2013. A short video explaining the day  and our abstract below provides more information. Looking forward to your comments, Serveh, Susan and Deb.

Drawing from the Maker Movement and design thinking, we hosted Maker Day 2013 as a professional development activity for K-9 educators. The goal was to introduce educators to design thinking, making and tinkering. Maker Day was an opportunity for educators to experience fully the participatory design cycle by engaging in the iterative Stanford d.school’s design thinking model. We created a problem scenario and asked facilitators to guide the educators through the design process. The educators used the main scenario in collaboration with each other to gain empathy for the person they were designing. Then, they made one prototype per group, using the materials provided. Prototypes were the solutions to the problems that participants identified and defined. After engaging in the participatory design project, each group displayed their prototype and shared their design process and ideas on how this experience could integrate in their own professional practices.

 

The Graduate Student Learning Journey

On January 9th, 2014, Dr. Margaret Macintyre Latta hosted a Graduate Student Colloquium in EME 1123, the classroom / learning lab of the ILC. Graduate students, faculty and staff enjoyed ‘new year / new term’ conversations, connections and refreshments before and after a short agenda including:

Dr. Annette LaGrange, associate dean, welcoming the new graduate students and providing her “best advice — for today — for a learning journey”.

Dr. Leyton Schnellert, coordinator of Professional Development, reflecting on his PhD journey which was completed not that long ago.

Dr. Wendy Klassen, director of undergraduate programs, and Desiree Marshall-Peer discussed their learning journey together as Wendy supervises Desiree’s master’s program.

Rhonda Draper, a master’s student, explained the beginnings of her learning journey.

Lindsay Cox, assistant to Dr. Macintyre Latta, provided ‘pitfalls to avoid and practices to embrace‘ as graduate students journey through their programs.

Angela Finley, graduate student representative, welcomed new students and provided some information about the E-Grads network.

Five graduate students presented their learning and research journey in 3-MINUTE THESIS PRESENTATIONS:

Cindy Bourne: Toward Responsible Community-driven International Service-Learning Projects for Pre-service Teaching Candidates – A case study approach.

Vania Chan: An Assessment of Post-Secondary Technology Readiness

Mary Clark: The Use of Interactive Digital Media to Engage Youth with Science and Nature

Rhonda Draper: When we are One — The Individual/Collective Terrain of Creating A Large-Scale Arts Experience

Angela Finley: Fostering Success– The Question of Belongingness at the Graduate Level

Desiree Marshall-Peer: Challenging Teachers to Change the Norm

 

Some ideas about technology projects for 2014…

Bloggers sharing some interesting projects …

Sharing some blogs I found…

Apple in Education: Education Apps

TeachThought: 10 tips for a Smarter iPad-based classroom

Leap Motion Controller (LMC) — 2013 Retrospectacular

Livescribe: New Year, New Year Resolutions

Raspberry Pi: Getting started with Raspberry Pi

And finally, Jane Hart’s Top 100 tools for learning

Enjoy!