Every time a new tool or device comes along we reorganise our lives in someway. Take moving to Apple devices as an example: when you got your first iDevice everything was different and most of us hated/fought it to begin with. Soon enough though we were converted and loved the ease of everything syncing and the access to a multitude of tools at the touch of a button. A few years later we line up to do it all again with the next best tool/device. Tools and skills that were previously only acquired by experts who had devoted their life to mastering them, are now all located in the palm of your hand.
I have tried many times to get students to think more critically about their choices by evaluating the purpose and tools available, and then selecting based on their analysis. However like the rest of us, students can be creatures of habit... selecting tools that they know, like or find easy to use and can I blame them? Needless to say I want to cry every time I see a PowerPoint or Prezi! Okay so that is a slight exaggeration but you get the point.
- Mindset - Inquiring thoughts: What should be the topic of my presentation? Why is this information important?...
- Skills - Researching, analyzing, evaluating, connecting...
- Tools - Books, videos, internet, experts...
- Mindsets - Creative and self-managing thoughts
- Skills - Taking risks, persevering, organising my ideas and time, thinking about problems...
- Tools - PowerPoint, Prezi, Powtoon, Haiku Deck...
So by focusing on the mindset required for the stage/type of task being undertaken we can then consider the skills required and finally, and where it should be, the tools.
Having thought about this idea I immediately tried to work out what were the necessary Mindsets, Skillsets and Toolsets in my classroom. After considering this for some time and not knowing where to start I remembered a set of Thinking Hat posters that I came across earlier in the week. Using these posters and my understanding of the Design Thinking process I began to collate the thoughts, skills and tools in a table that teachers could refer to. Next I turned my attention to how I could share this with my students. I began to think of ideas and then prototype classroom displays. I love interactive classroom displays that can change as our classroom and students change and so the student silhouette and icons were created. Students will be able to change the icons depending on the tasks they are engaging with.
I will be adding the teacher and classroom displays to the resources page when completed but please let me know what you think of my prototypes so far. As I would say to my students; please remember when critiquing to be KIND - SPECIFIC - HELPFUL so that I may improve my learning!