What a wonderful day of learning and sharing! Oakleigh State School in Brisbane has a very active MakerSpace with plenty of resources and ideas. I was so excited to browse and delve into their library.
Nicola Flanagan prepared a very informative program full of ideas and ways to connect with the Digital Technologies (DT) curriculum, with speakers and presenters sharing their expertise in their field of interest. Grant Baker, Principal, spoke how his school has implemented the DT curriculum across the whole school and in all areas of the curriculum. Year 5 teacher Chantelle Sansness, shared her integration of DT curriculum in geography where students create digital solutions in their inquiries. This approach is not unlike units I have spoken about in past posts.
During the break out session I was presenting the journey Megan and I have taken in creating our Makerspace (which can be found throughout this blog) along side Anne Weaver, who has an amazing MakerSpace in the middle years and has recently created a Cre8 Lab in the senior library. Megan Wallace, from Eamshaw College, spoke about her recent trip to Europe to look at the innovative learning designs and spaces which enables authentic learning to be practiced in a creative and inspiring way….loved the schools in Finland!
Other sessions included Coding, Designing and Making and CSER Digital Technologies MOOC’s (which I rave about all the time!) fabulous free MOOC’s to understand and share the DT curriculum. I have spoken about these MOOC’s here and here.
An extremely valuable presentation was with Anna Kinnane from Queensland College of Teachers who led a session on addressing how to incorporate the DT curriculum in all KLA’s and understanding how the descriptors and ICT capabilities can be integrated. Anna’s presentation can be found here.
Oakleigh State School run an after school ‘Young Innovator Program’ which we were honoured to observe. Children were organised into age groups and worked in an area for 6 weeks. This term the children had the choice of LEGO Bricks4Kidz, movie making and designing a game with Makey Makey.
The day was enjoyable, beneficial and great for connecting with like-minded people!
Thank you, Nicola Flanagan.