I am approaching my final semester of coursework and I thought I would do a check in on how things are going. Even being away from my studies for just a few weeks feels like a such a long time and I need to recenter myself to figure out what my next steps are. Although it does not feel like there is a light at the end of the tunnel, somehow, it is becoming ever apparent whether I notice it or not.

At the end of the fall semester, my partner Brittany and I had completed chapter one, most of chapter two, and began our first steps into chapter three of our final document. We left for the break feeling very confident in our ability to finish ahead of schedule. We are hoping that this upcoming semester allows us to collaborate further, and we can continue moving along with our project. So far, we have found the opportunity for us to present on one of our favourite articles that has come out of our research: “The impact of teachers’ pedagogical beliefs, self‑efficacy, and technology value beliefs on 3D printing integration in K‑12 science classrooms” by Cheng et. al (2023). We have found that while we have been writing our literature review, we have been continually drawn to their findings and their way of how to define and tackle barriers of entry for adopting new educational technology into classrooms.

In my professional life, there are 2 major components to my job that are having me push outside my comfort zone: teaching Micro:Bits in bite-size lessons, and facilitating my own professional development.

Micro:Bits are small microchips with LED displays, 2 buttons on the side, and few different sensors that can be block coded by students to perform simple tasks. I have taught Micro:Bits in the past during the pandemic and with support of the district tech team in the form of a larger project where students coded the microchips to become a component in a “build-your-own-toy” project. At the time, Micro:Bits were still an up and coming edtech tool that many teachers were learning about, yet hesitant to integrate in their practice. I too, was unsure of how to use them in my computer science class, as I had only just started my position. The project ended up being a great success and I repeated the project a few years later with another group of students to even more success. I think my students are ready to use Micro:Bits once more. They’ve been positively responding to mini lessons over larger projects at this time, and I would like to harness this positive attitude. This is where my professional hurdle lies. I don’t have a lot of resources that not only teach students about the different capabilities of the Micro:Bits, but are easily digestible in 40 minutes or less. Despite being taught as much as they are, my students often are faced with overcoming unforeseeable several tech roadblocks that impact their ability to engage in the learning – slow load times, logging into OneDrive, disconnecting from the internet etc. I have been on the lookout for really bite-sized lessons that are engaging, yet give me time to do one-on-one conferencing with students who need extra support. Upon looking at the Micro:Bits’ website, I’ve chosen to utilize their introductory lesson plans to help with my objectives. I’ve done 2 lessons with my grade 3/4/5s so far and it has been relatively successful. I’m still trying to get over that student output is less than what I am used to having them do, but these incremental changes are foundational to making the upcoming larger projects more successful.

I have also volunteered to facilitate some upcoming professional development workshops on SeeSaw alongside Nicole Cruz to help support teachers who are interested in using the platform to engage with students and families in digital spaces. Our aim is to encourage more teachers to try SeeSaw and utilize some of its capabilities with their classrooms. The presentation day is coming quickly, and although, I could get up and present quite confidently on my talking points, I don’t feel that I am entirely prepared for my very first professional development workshop. I have spent the better half of a decade attending workshops, but the idea of standing in front of my colleagues terrifies me. It really shouldn’t because a lot of the teachers in the room will be my day to day colleagues that I speak to constantly, and I have a member of our district tech team co-teaching with me. The research Brittany and I have been doing on effective educational technology has been helping inform how Nicole and I are going about tying the presentation together. I am hoping that the more I read in the upcoming weeks, the better our workshop will be. It will be interesting to see if the suggestions that the research pose will be effective in supporting and encouraging teachers in my own school district.