Passion Project: What Problem Are You Going to Address?

The nature of this course means that we cover lots of topics in a sometimes superficial way. The final project gives you an opportunity to explore a topic that interests you in more depth and, as you do the exploration, you’ll be using technology to complete the research, curation, and final presentation.

Part of this assignment is ongoing: You will be prompted to reflect on the project three during the semester. We will use flipgrid. The site is here: https://flipgrid.com/urfall2019 and the code is urfall2019.

During a recent conference, I had the opportunity to hear Jaime Casap, Google Evangelist, speak. One idea that really stuck with me was his comment that rather than asking students what they want to be when they grow up, instead we ask them what problem they want to solve.

That’s the question that will form the basis of your individual project this semester: what educational technology problem in your school, school division, or larger community do you want to solve?

You’ve been invited to write an article and produce a short video for Edutopia, a website that focuses on innovative educational techniques.

The problem will be presented as a question:

• What steps can our school take to ensure digital equity for all students?
• How can we implement a BYOD program?
• What issues do we need to consider as teachers begin using open education resources?
• We’ve heard a lot about gamification. What does it mean and how is it being used in the classroom? Is is the right “fit” for our school?  (You can change to gamification to lots of other words: personalized learning, blended learning, flipped learning, and so forth).