The Value in Edtech Research
How do we know if the technology we have in our rooms is making a difference? Thankfully, more and more research is coming out on the effectiveness of technology on students. I had the opportunity to peruse through several sites to learn more about the ed-tech trends that are occurring in and out of the classrooms today. It has helped me get a better sense of my students and how I can change or modify my curriculum to help better prepare them for what lays ahead.
One site that caught my interest was Project Tomorrow Speak Up. Their website had a report focused on coding in classrooms. One of their main takeaways was that a majority of kids identified creativity as an important skill to be prepared for the future and that coding was a way to help students develop creative skills. I knew my students always loved it when we had the opportunity to code, but I could never pinpoint why. I just assumed they usually liked it because most of the coding came in the form of games. I honestly never connected coding to the idea of boosting one's creativity. It makes so much more sense now. Perhaps because I was so set in teaching the basics of coding, I never took the time to see how that knowledge could grow into limitless possibilities of things that they could create. But, it totally makes sense now.
Another key takeaway from the report was that an interest in coding wasn't tied to a single gender, grade level, or home poverty. During our coding classes, it is always a joy to see all the students get into the coding. I especially loved it when I saw a few girls who really got into it and commented to me that this was something that they could see themselves doing as an occupation, and get paid for it! The way they said it...the revelation that they could actually do work/get a job that was fun as an adult was music to my ears.
The research helped validate and put a new lens of focus around fostering creativity as I try to teach coding to my students. This is one reason why it is important for educators to follow up on the research. Students through the generations are changing. The technology is changing and the market for jobs is always changing. It is imperative for educators, through research, to provide and meet the needs of their students to help them be prepared for what lays ahead.
One site that caught my interest was Project Tomorrow Speak Up. Their website had a report focused on coding in classrooms. One of their main takeaways was that a majority of kids identified creativity as an important skill to be prepared for the future and that coding was a way to help students develop creative skills. I knew my students always loved it when we had the opportunity to code, but I could never pinpoint why. I just assumed they usually liked it because most of the coding came in the form of games. I honestly never connected coding to the idea of boosting one's creativity. It makes so much more sense now. Perhaps because I was so set in teaching the basics of coding, I never took the time to see how that knowledge could grow into limitless possibilities of things that they could create. But, it totally makes sense now.
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The research helped validate and put a new lens of focus around fostering creativity as I try to teach coding to my students. This is one reason why it is important for educators to follow up on the research. Students through the generations are changing. The technology is changing and the market for jobs is always changing. It is imperative for educators, through research, to provide and meet the needs of their students to help them be prepared for what lays ahead.
I'm glad to read you enjoyed looking through the research. Coding is one of those areas that tends to scare some teachers off but quite honestly in all the years I taught it there were probably only 2-3 kids that just didn't take to it. To help garner interest on how to get started I used to make "Hour of Code" guides. Here's the last one I made: http://zumpanotechlab.blogspot.com/2018/11/hour-of-code-participation-guide-2018.html
ReplyDeleteDavid, you post is very easy to read and raises some interesting topics. I do not think I would have connected the task of coding with boosting creativity. However, as long as we present it that way to our students, they may be more willing to get into coding and explore the limits of their creativity, instead of just seeing it as one more assignment that needs to be completed to get a passing grade. When you mentioned that the interest in coding was not attached to any gender, it made me wonder how fast the number of women in the coding/IT industry has grown. Back in the day it was primarily comprise of men (still more men than women now) but our schools now have a lot more women interested in pursuing these type of technological careers than we did in the past.
ReplyDeleteDavid,
ReplyDeleteI , too thought that kids enjoyed coding because of the format and not because it was a chance for them to be creative. Last year, I participated in an after school program, WozU. We had 28 K-3 students participating. The kids learned how to use Scratch and Osmo. We introduced them to vocabulary terms like, 'bug', 'loop', and 'algorithm'. They definitely were creative and they loved it! Thanks for the link, I just downloaded the report and am going to share it with my WozU colleagues!