Make it an introduction about you, your background, your status in MET, and any initial thoughts you wish to share about education, learning innovation, and your objectives in taking this course.
Howdy folks, I’m Brendan! I teach middle school math, science and maker (robotics and game design mostly), and my background is in biology and outdoor education with a minor in philosophy.
This is actually my 2nd last MET course and my 5th year teaching, and I would say that I have become much savvier as to how I can use technology to teach students, however, I am still learning how to gradually scaffold student inquiry into my practice effectively. You definitely have a range of abilities in middle school, and while technology can help students share their learning in a wider variety of ways (Google Read & Write, Scratch-based game design, AI-based adaptive problem solving, etc.), I still find myself spending most of the year in a heavily structured environment gradually developing the average student’s independence and doing “pocketed” inquiry projects analogous to Trevor Mackenzie’s “pool” analogy for types of student inquiry.
While I am reluctant to use the title of “changemaker” in my practice, I certainly consider myself an “early adopter” and I think modern teachers need to be constantly re-assessing if our methods continue to be effective in engaging our students. There are a litany of existing and upcoming technologies out there, and those I find most exciting are those that afford novel experiences to students that aren’t otherwise possible. For example, the featured photo of the coast of Newfoundland was taken from the ISS as part of a middle-school student project, which is borderline unbelievable. This is only possible because of a decade of innovation from the Raspberry Pi Foundation to make small, credit-card sized computers affordable, and because the ESA sent two such computers up to the ISS and pointed its camera out the window. Every year, both organizations run a context called Astro Pi for children from ESA member and partner states to write python code that could run on these computers, and discovering this was that true “novel affordance” from technologies that I love and I hope to be exposed to more such opportunities in this course!
Thanks for taking the time to read my diatribe; I forgot to mention that I am also a new Dad typing away madly in the wee hours of the morning, and baby just let me know it’s feeding time so I’m off! I look forward to learning with you all!
Cheers!
Hi Brendan!
You have a lot on the go, especially with your baby! Congratulations!
It’s good to know that Raspberry Pi is a positive contributor. I often mention Raspberry Pi to my students who are interested in machine learning/coding. It’s a great resource.