A new Think, Make, Innovate is out and we are giving you a behind the scenes connection with Sara Pflughaupt, Solon Community School District's Teacher Librarian (@scsdlibraries) in this guest blog post.​

Search the Hour of Code activities page or check out our Smores that highlight ways to integrate Computer Science into the content areas. Each content area resource highlights activities for elementary, middle school, and high school learners and includes some of our favorite unplugged and online activities. 

1. 2019 Hour of Code Resources & Activity Suggestions for #CSforGood
2. Activity Suggestions for CS + Math
3. Activity Suggestions for CS + Science
4. Activity Suggestions for CS + Social Studies
5. Activity Suggestions for CS + Language Arts
6. Activity Suggestions for CS + Music, Media, & Art

Did you know that Computer Science Professionals are available to support your event in person or virtually? Grant Wood AEA schools should contact Gary Vogt from the Regional IT Sector Board at gary.vogt@kirkwood.edu to arrange a face to face volunteer from local computer science and information technology professionals. ​

- Corey Rogers (@corey_rogers)

Last year, an amazing group of educators assembled to be a part of a new course called Creative Challenges Teacher Cohort.  The goal of the course was meant to give teachers an opportunity to think and learn more about Making, STEM and Design Thinking and build up the community of teachers around the area who are working to try new things in their classroom to get their students creating.  
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At the end of our year, many of the teachers said they’d like to continue on, so we have been moving forward with more creative adventures.  And in this go round, I want to give more of a voice to our cohort members. Keep reading to learn more from a few of the teachers in this Cohort about creative challenges and the importance of student creativity. 

From Gina Miller (@GinaBeckMiller), Belle Plaine Community School District
Creative Challenges are basically problem solving and adaptability in action.  

When I think of the purpose of creative challenges it is to instill within our students the ability to recognize a problem and develop the ability to brainstorm possible scenarios or strategies to assist their current coping, with problem solving regardless of the size of the problem they are facing.  Too many times students immediately run to an adult to have them fix it, give them the answer, do something for them. 

 My largest goal as an educator is to use purposeful activities/lessons that assist in problem solving practice, critical thinking, tying it to real world applications, empathy training/sensitivity to others,  and, in turn, prepare students for their futures. We definitely do not do kids favors by doing things for them, rather than walking them through, what are your options for solving this problem? What have you done before to solve this type of problem, what have you noticed about the way(s) others have solved similar problems, or research to find how this problem has been or could be solved. I encourage students to use engineering design models or scientific process models to tackle any problem.

I also strongly feel that I push students to look at something, to not just see it, but to observe everything about something, how it works, what it was designed to do, the intended design and then encourage them to reverse engineer and / or think of new and original ways that object could be sued, or revamped to fit new needs.

My other biggest passion/and even pet peeve, is tenacity & resiliency development.  I have so many students that want something to be perfect immediately, to not have to make revisions, to believe that they should be able to make something come to fruition because they can think about how it should/could be and they cannot make the connections between their brain and their hands or their dreams and their plans. (hey that rhymes!) 

From Bridget Speer (@sewfun82) Benton Community School District
Quote: There is no end to education. It is not that you read a book, pass an examination, and finish with education. The whole of life, from the moment you are born to the moment you die, is a process of learning. ~Jiddu Krishnamurti
    As a teacher, mom, and aunt, one of the things I am very passionate about is reaching all learners. I was a typical good student. I did my homework, didn’t get into too much trouble in class, read a lot. However, the things I remember most are the times when we got our hands “dirty” in projects. One time, our class made popcorn balls and sold them to raise money to buy trees for the playground. Another time, I remember creating types of Native American homes as we learned about different tribes. One of my favorites was creating a model of the Mississippi in our 8th grade science room complete with a pump to circulate the water! I can’t believe that anyone let us (or our teacher) haul that much sand, dirt and rocks into the classroom.
As I think about my work with students in our STEAM Lab, my goals are

1. Build community
2. Connect student learning with the curriculum
3. Sharing out with community stakeholders

The STEAM Lab is a place where everyone is welcome. At Benton Community, our motto is “A Place to Belong”. One of my personal goals it to get to know and use all my students’ names. As I work with students in creative challenges, I get to know more than just their name. I also have learned in almost 15 years of teaching, there are so many students with more knowledge than myself, at least in a few subjects! Our STEAM Lab should be a space for students to share their expertise. It can also be a safe place to take a risk and try something new. Students and staff can build strong relationships and a sense of community as they investigate creative challenges in collaboration.
Often people see makerspace as an arts & crafts session or unorganized mess. However, I believe that with creative challenges, we can expose students to powerful connections to learning. I have seen students demonstrate understanding of angles and polygons while coding robots. Other students developed empathy by researching and creating realistic habitats for a skunk that was at the center of their class read aloud. Makerspace doesn’t have to be extra.

From Melissa Kane (@Abookworm813), Anamosa Community School District 
Thinking about thinking seems like a redundant statement but as I started thinking about the importance of a Makerspace that really is the key. So often we only see the product that is finished when our time is done; not the struggle it took to get the fabric to stand up to cover the wagon or the thirteen changes made to the code to make the wheel spin.

We need to take the time to talk through the process and explain the learning that happened. We need to use words like clarity, precision, empathy, and persisting as we discuss how we made it to the end product. This needs to just be part of the process and reflection as we work to and finish the product. I think of digital tools like Seesaw and Flipgrid that could allow students to create video clips about their learning and then edited together to share or review the journey of learning. 

I also like the idea of sharing this learning out to others. I think it would be great to try and share the process with an engineer or professional in the field of what is created to get some feedback on the connection to real life could be a powerful tool for students as well. Tagging on Instagram and Twitter could be a way for students to get this interaction outside of the school walls.

If we allow these things to happen as we are using the Makerspace the importance may be seen by others outside the space as well. What are some ways you use to help your students think about their thinking in the Makerspace? 


A big thanks to Gina, Bridget, and Melissa for sharing!
Amber Bridge
@abridgesmith
Digital Learning 

At ITEC 2018, I had the lucky opportunity to meet ITEC student volunteer and Iowa State student, Dagney Paskach, when she crashed our Makey Makey session, because she just wanted learn more.

Through our conversation, she shared with me that she was part of a team that wrote curriculum connecting Beebots and the NASA missions.  She asked, "Would I be interested in learning more?"  Um...YES!! 

So, please read on to learn more about how how this group of engineering students wrote Creative Commons licensed curriculum for elementary students that you can use with your students to fuel excitement around space missions.
Enjoy!
​~Amber Bridge

I recently returned from the ITEC Fall Conference in Des Moines. I was lucky enough to be able to present, and attend a number of great learning opportunities. The keynote speakers, Jenny Magiera and Joe Sanfelippo, were inspiring and energizing. Overall, it was a fantastic couple of days. However, it made me reflect on the types of sessions that I have seen at edtech conferences all over the country, and how they have evolved over the last few years. This blog post is a summary of that reflection.

When I first started going to conferences, there were a lot of tool based sessions. They were designed to give you as many options as you could possibly want in one sitting. These kind of sessions reached their height with the somewhat infamous 60 apps in 60 minutes format. iPad apps, Chrome extensions, web 2.0 sites, AT apps, and more would seemingly lend themselves very well to this kind of information style presentation.

However, in recent years, there has been some pushback against this format. The criticism being that we don’t need more tools, we need better pedagogy. We, as educators, need to spend more time on a more considered approach to technology integration in order to ensure that it has the right impact on teaching and learning. After all, the tool is just a tool. The state standards and the learning outcomes for your students are more important. The app, the extension, or the website you use, is just a vehicle to help you get there.

Of course, it is hard to argue with that notion. Technology has to be used purposefully in our classrooms, and we need to be sure we are using it for the right reasons. We won’t improve as educators if we don’t have opportunities to learn about best practice and what that looks like. There are frameworks that can help us with that, (SAMR, TPACK, T3, Four Shifts, etc.), and although we might not all rally behind the same one, I would bet that you could find at least one that fits the way that you like to teach. Good edtech conferences will have sessions like this for those that need it.

Is there a third path? A way to talk about new tools and new ideas for how to use them. Personally, I see more and more sessions that combine these two approaches. Sometimes it is a deep dive into one tool like Flipgrid or SeeSaw. The presenter shows how they work as well as how they can be used intentionally to support learning outcomes for students. Other times it might be tech tools that revolve around a theme or a particular teaching strategy.

At different times in my career, I have given presentations in all of these formats. Which one is best? That’s not really the purpose of this post, but what I will say is that different people have different needs. Beginning teachers who have less experience in the classroom are going to want to find some new tools for their toolbox, but unless the college they went to was a big proponent of technology in schools, they are probably going to need those best practice sessions first. However, experienced instructional coaches, the model teachers, the TOSAs and the tech savvy trailblazers who know what good instruction with technology looks like, well, they are looking for new tools that they can use to maximize engagement and give students new opportunities.

At the end of the day, I think that there will always be a thirst for what’s new in edtech. Free apps or services that teachers use, and love, do have a habit of going out of business, or they end up introducing paid plans that limit the features that were previously free. I’m not saying we should return to the days of 60 apps in 60 minutes, nor am I saying that the preferred format for an edtech session has to be a deep dive into teaching frameworks, but, if done well, a compromise is not always a bad thing.

As attendees, the onus is on us to make good choices. We are professionals in one of the best professions that there is. If we want to be better at what we do and create the best possible experiences for our students, we need to look at our practice and think about what you need as an educator. Be honest with yourself. If you attend a session and it isn't going in the direction that you thought it might, there is nothing wrong with getting up and walking out to find another that would better suit your needs. I will often pick two or three sessions in one time slot for that very reason. Good presenters know that this is not a slight against their content. It's just not the content that you need right now.

As presenters, we have a duty and a responsibility to ensure that we are trying to meet the needs of as many people in our audience as possible. This can be a fine line to walk, but it’s an important one. These people are giving up their time to learn from you, so give them the best experience you can and model what you would like to see in their classroom. Technology can’t be separate from pedagogy. We want students using technology as part of an integrated learning experience that is part of a rich and varied curriculum, but some people are going to need help getting there. That’s our job as presenters and facilitators of learning. Some days we do this better than others, but if we hold on to this as our guiding light, and we make ourselves accountable to this philosophy, we have a chance of making a real difference in schools.

I’d love to hear more about the types of sessions that you like to attend at edtech conferences or any thoughts that you have on conferences that you have been to. Are they meeting your needs? Do they give you the inspiration that you need to make learning better in your classroom? Send me a tweet or leave a comment below.

Jonathan Wylie (@jonathanwylie)
Digital Learning Consultant, Grant Wood AEA