A central challenge of developing learning technologies for K-12 classrooms is designing for sustainable use – ensuring that the technology has a lifespan in the classroom beyond the term of a research project or implementation period. Designing for sustainable use has multiple dimensions including the technical characteristics of a learning technology as well as the contextual factors at the classroom and school level.
This full-day workshop aims to bring together designers, researchers, educators, and developers, who have been developing and researching K-12 learning technologies to share and reflect on the challenges and opportunities of designing for sustainable use in classrooms. This workshop will explore both the technical and contextual dimensions of designing for sustainable use through a two-part structure.
In this part of the workshop, we seek to develop a set of heuristics to guide designers and developers who are creating learning technologies with a goal of sustainable use in schools and classrooms.
To derive these heuristics, we will discuss specific case studies of technology design and development contributed by participants, highlight the technical features of the design and categorizing these features across case studies. By sharing these heuristics with researchers and practitioners, we hope to develop a common language, design goals, and examples of successes and challenges in designing for sustainable use.
In this part of the workshop we will work to answer the following questions: What are the barriers and what are enablers for the integration of technologies in the school life? How can the school community be involved in the process? How can we engage students and parents as well to cultivate a culture of participation and collective responsibility?
To answer these questions, we will examine the contextual factors surrounding the implementation of learning technologies contributed by participants via interactive exchange. Through this activity, we will identify the common strategies for facilitating the integration of technology at the school level, the challenges and the implications.
This workshop is open to researchers and education technology designers/developers as well as practitioners, school leaders, and policy-makers. All participants will join both parts of the day-long workshop and can choose whether to take a more active or a more observational role in Parts A and B depending on the relevance of their experiences designing, developing, implementing, and/or researching education technologies.
Interested participants should submit short case studies in either PART A or PART B of the workshop, describing their work designing, developing, implementing, or researching a learning technology. Teams of people working across these roles are particularly welcomed to submit to participate in this workshop.
More information on how participate and submit your contributions can be found on the Participate page.