STEAM in the Early Years: Leveraging Apps and Digital Devices

Purpose & objective

My presentation will show how mobile technologies like Stop Motion Animation, Minecraft, Drawing, Coding and Robotics can be used to explore learning in STEAM. Participants will have the following outcomes.

-Gain an insight of how to use the iPad to leverage technology.
-See examples of Book Creator / Pages STEAM unit templates in action.
- Gain access to resources that will give participants the skills to create their own content and tailor it to students needs.
- Given access to resources that be downloaded for participants to use in their classroom.
- Show how technology can be leveraged to give students access to powerful but easy to use tools that enables them to create, edit, display and share on one device.
- Learn how students can use mobile technology to express creativity through, visual, auditory and kinesthetic learning.
- Learn how using templates can lead to more personalised and independent learning leading to high levels of student engagement.

My program has enjoyed considerable success with elevated levels of student engagement across the K-2 year levels. Students have developed high levels of skills which has required me to redesign my program across the middle school. These skills have also allowed our students to achieve at a high level in others learning areas achieving well above the district average in A-E results. The program has also been recognised by our state Education authority - Education Queensland through the Peter Doherty Award for Excellence in teaching STEAM.

Teachers have also embraced many of the mobile technology pedagogical approach and have adopted a number of my units within the Maths / Science K-2 program. My STEAM templates have been downloaded by teachers from all over the world and have been featured by Book Creator on their website. However I fell that the programs most notable success is witnessing students engaged, achieving and creatively expressing their thoughts, feeling and emotions aided by mobile technology.

Outline

My presentation will have the following sections.

- Introduction and welcome (5min)
- Introduction to Book Creator and Pages (5min)
- The importance of STEAM (5min)
-Prep (K) STEAM templates (Photos, Drawing, interactivity) (10min)
- Year One STEAM templates (cooperative learning, virtual learning, construction)(10min)
- Year Two STEAM templates (Coding, Data collection, Digital Creation)(10min)
- Teachers resources (10min)
- Questions (5min)

Participants will be supported throughout the presentation with links throughout the session to resources that will allow them to use these lesson in their own classroom.

Supporting research

What is STEAM education
https://xqsuperschool.org/rethinktogether/what-is-steam-education/

Why STEAM Matters
https://www.research.ed.ac.uk/en/publications/why-science-and-art-creativities-matter-steam-re-configurings-for

STEAM for Student Engagement
https://www.learntechlib.org/p/48602/