10:00-11:00am - Roll with It: Spheros in Education (EYES)

Sphero is an app-enabled robotic ball that provides endless opportunities to be creative and have fun while learning. Program with the Sphero Edu app from nearly any mobile device, discover awesome community-created activities, or just drive and play. Spheros are great for so many grade levels! We have seen them used all the way from grades 2 through 12! You can create and customize games and learn to code by drawing on your screen, using blocks, or writing JavaScript text programs depending on the age level! Our Sphero Bolts use advanced sensors to keep tabs on BOLT’s speed, acceleration, and direction, or orient and drive BOLT with the built-in compass. In this session you will get to explore all the different ways you can code Spheros while also learning how to connect these features to the curriculum! 

11:00-12:00pm - Join us for our hybrid session in ED 228. See the hybrid stream for more information.

12:00-1:00pm - Lunch Break

Visit our on-campus amentities for lunch or bring a bagged-lunch to enjoy in ED 189.

1:00-2:00pm - Tent Talk - The Slippery Slope Between Technology as Novelty & Technology as Critically Integrated Tools in Teaching & Learning

A conversation between Kathryn Ricketts, Ehsan Akbari and Kirsten Thompson on lawn chairs in a tent! This is broadcast live and can be joined in ED 228. 

This talk series hosts dynamic conversations with chosen themes/issues around teaching and learning, in a tent on lawn chairs. Controversial topics in teaching and learning are discussed between two people with a third person who keeps the ball rolling! Going inside a tent, just as we did when we were kids with homemade forts, becomes a catalyst for bold and thoughtful conversations. The tent provides an environment that is both private and cozy and yet public with the live broadcast to the conference community.

This particular conversation is between two people Ehsan Akbari and Kirsten Thompson who both work full time in the educative realm with Digital Literacies and Digital Citizenship. We will be exploring the slippery slope between technology as novelty and technology as critically integrated tools in teaching and learning. We will ask questions such as when does it become sloppy, hurtful and dangerous and when does it become a means to enhancing curiosity and rich healthy inquiry.

This series is funded by the Faculty of Education’s CERCD fund

Closing Remarks