The capstone project was a great opportunity to create something I’ve been thinking about for a while. I began noting down resources and ideas as soon as I read the capstone assignment at the beginning of the course, and I began talking to staff at the school to see whether they thought a virtual makerspace would be useful. I also sent out a few questions via email to ask what they notice students gravitating towards now, what they would like to see students doing, and if they or their students had suggestions for tools to include. This was a challenging moment, because the responses I got did not necessarily support my plan. When students had free time on computers, most of them chose to play games, not use creative tools. However, the one creative tool that was introduced and taught to several classes this year (Book Creator) was widely used.
I wondered if the results meant that a virtual makerspace was not needed, or if they weren’t using creative online tools because they didn’t know about them. Further conversations with classroom teachers showed that they were very interested, so I decided to go ahead. Our school year is wrapping up now, but I am eager to see how much use the makerspace gets next year.
The project gave me the opportunity to use tools like Padlet and Canva in new and creative ways. These are both tools I have explored a little bit in the past, but the way I’m using them now is more interactive and community oriented. One thing I learned is that I need to find a list of criteria from the school division for choosing online tools and creating student accounts, especially if I want to add more tools to the makerspace in the future or broaden it beyond “maker” tools.
This course has pushed my thinking in a few different ways. A couple years ago, I stepped back from social media, finding that it was taking up too much of my time and I wasn’t happy with what I was getting out of it. However, a few of my classmates posted on their blogs about using social media as part of their professional growth, and it made me want to try again. I’ve started a new social media account (on BlueSky) with some very specific boundaries and strategies to keep things balanced while also hopefully connecting with other TLs. I would love to know if any others from our diploma program are on there!
One key takeaway from the course is that technology has to be used deliberately. Ignoring new media may be a disservice to our students, but throwing tech tools around without thinking them through isn’t helpful either. I also really appreciated the inquiry format. I found that it took more time, but I also felt that I learned more and that the conversations with classmates were more authentic and interesting. This has me thinking about how to use more student-driven inquiry in my work with younger students. All in all, I really appreciated this course, as well as all the hard work from both Darcy and my classmates.