Steven Johnson talks about where good ideas come from at the Tuesday Keynote.
With so many valuable ideas at my fingertips during ISTE 2013, it was hard to decide which to tackle first. However, I was by far the most impacted by the concepts of design thinking and gaming, two themes presented by keynote speakers Steven Johnson and Jane McGonigal. Their passion has clearly inspired me, as I wasn’t back for more than two weeks before I’d already implemented many changes based on what they discussed!
In the weeks since the conference, my ed tech colleagues and I have already:
- Sponsored a Kickstarter project on 3D printing to support our fledgling Design Thinking curriculum
- Begun our first Innovation and Design Thinking Unit with our 9th grade students by exploring Johnson’s video, Where Good Ideas Come From
- Kicked off our Innovation unit with our first Imagine It! Post-it Note challenge
- Purchased an educational mod for Minecraft to explore the use of gaming in education
While these are only small actions, they are huge leaps forward in promoting design thinking and gaming in my school and community. But that’s only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to what I was able to take away from the conference and share with my teaching team. Our future plans include:
- Inviting James McBennett to talk to our students about innovation, design and Kickstarter while residing here in Chile as part of the Startup Chile campaign
- Collaborating with John Kao on an upcoming Edge Finders project, which was inspired by his work with the recent Innovation Summit here in Chile
- Helping our after-school Coding Club explore the educational potential of Minecraft, using suggestions from Philip Cowell from WAB as a springboard
- Using whiteboard tables and chalkboard walls to rework our teacher training space into something more like a Disruption Department / Makerspace (as described by Gregory Hill when I spoke with him at ISTE 2013)
In hindsight, I am amazed at how many ideas we’ve been able to realize in such a short time—a clear testament to the impact ISTE has as a valuable professional development resource. Typically, the implementation rate after a conference is relatively low once the excitement is over. However, with ISTE, the opposite is true. The longer I am away from the conference, the more I end up implementing through my ISTE Twitter contacts and Diigo resources.
With this rate of return, I am looking forward to what ISTE 2014 has to offer! I hope to discover more information and resources on innovation and design thinking, as I firmly believe they represent the future in terms of combining technology, curriculum and problem-based learning. I would be thrilled to learn more from schools like the Nueva School, which is implementing curricular approaches similar to Stanford’s D-School. I would also enjoy exploring an example makerspace as a playground in the expo hall—and I’d love to see a spotlight on how to combine makerspaces and gaming through innovative tools like Makey Makey.
What lasting ideas did you bring back from ISTE 2013? Have you found it easy to implement them since your return? What will you be searching for at ISTE 2014?
