I have delivered a few professional development sessions in the past. Including, small one-to-one sessions for teachers on everything from how to use Nearpod, to using Cospaces to teach English as an additional language. I have also introduced a whole-school technology session (in Cambodia) to nearly 200 people and presented a digital citizenship session at ACAMIS this year. So I felt pretty confident going into this one, it was just the timing that was hard once again which there is no getting away from.
Design Challenges
Our group chose to recreate the design challenges from this course, including:
- Creating a design artifact based on the design principles and elements.
- Reviewing an existing digital slide based on contrast, repetition, alignment, and proximity.
- Creating or recreating an infographic and self-assessing it.
- Looking forward to how they could use the design knowledge, skills, and understanding in their subjects, departments, and schools.
- Reflect on Flipgrid.
We choose the following ISTE standards:
| ISTE Standard | Why? |
| 4.b. Collaborate and co-learn with students to discover and use new digital resources and diagnose and troubleshoot technology issues | The infographic design challenge allows the participants to choose whatever platform they feel most comfortable with. There are also check-ins with clock partners so that the participants can discuss their learning. |
| 4.d. Demonstrate cultural competency when communicating with students, parents, and colleagues and interact with them as co-collaborators in student learning. | As with 4b, students can choose not only the platform in which to create their infographic, but they can choose to recreate the infographic (make it better) or they can choose to create their own type. At the end of the challenge, they will also upload their reflections on flipgrid. |
| 6.d. Model and nurture creativity and creative expression to communicate ideas, knowledge, or connections. | As with 4b, students can choose not only the platform in which to create their infographic, but they can choose to recreate the infographic (make it better) or they can choose to create their own type. At the end of the challenge, they will also upload their reflections to flipgrid. |
Growing as a Collaborator and Facilitator
I had good intentions to start earlier with this project, but I found it hard to carve out the time. My teammates were fantastic though, and all contributed amazing information, ideas, and tasks! However, I had more success at school. This course has totally reinvigorated me to collaborate with teachers in school as it was so much easier to meet and talk to people there. For example
- I co-planned the beginnings of an awesome unit using CoSpaces and collaborative learning.
- I launched Nearpod in an Individuals and Societies lesson
- I am currently working with 5 teachers and over 30 students on the Yearbook; last year it was me and my pal!
- Used flipgrid in 3 lessons with over 60 students and across 3 subjects.
- Set up two mentoring sessions with 2 former colleagues – surprisingly I am the mentor
So although I still need to be better at working more collaboratively in COETAIL, my offline collaboration has grown new roots.
I have done a lot of collaboration in the past, and it is just the best as you get to work with some great minds, and everyone brings something new and interesting to the table. The biggest difference this time, of course, is the fact that we are not in the same room. It is also different as I have been on the same COETAIL learning journey with Liliana, Reyna, and Caitlin so we knew where to pull a lot of information from.
The final project related to learning through the design challenges and collaborative/cooperative tasks we implemented in the PD plan.
Pro D Design Challenge
The challenge began with a cooperative learning structure, talking chips, where participants had to discuss what they felt made an effective infographic(hopefully making the connection to the previous sessions). Next, they will get up and complete the See/Think/Wonder structure, when investigating the infographics. The slides themselves do not contain too much information, based on the design principles from the TEDx talk by Phillips. As the slides did not contain too much information we created a Google Site, which participants could refer to throughout the session, to check instructions and access links. We also utilized different platforms such as padlet for collaborative learning and wakelet for even more links!