Creativity & Innovation in the Classroom

During the week I had the pleasure of attending and presenting a piece on my creativity &
innovative ideas in the classroom. It was a create experience all round from getting the
experience of dressing up and presenting to a conference to seeing all the great ideas my
classmates have implemented throughout their own time on placement. The experience of
presenting at a conference is something I imagine a lot, if any student teachers have had the
experience of doing. On reflection I was happy and unhappy with my own performance
during my own presentation, I managed to miss out on a key point of the presentation and I
feel like I may have rushed it to some extent. One aspect that I felt quite restrictive though
was that we had to stay at the podium, I myself feel a lot more relaxed being able to move
about while presenting to a class, mush like Billy and Lynsey did. I don’t know if this is the
same opinion as the rest of the class or is it just my opinion and it may be something to
consider. If I was to take Billy for example by him moving about he could make his talk more
engaging to the audience. This is no negative to the presenting of the class as I feel we have
come on brilliantly since we first began back in first year.
All the ideas that my classmate discussed I found very appealing and innovative, many of
which I will consider using in the future to further on my teaching. The use of technologies
on the classroom was a common theme and was emphasized in the keynote speech. My use
of technology in the school has been limited due to my resources on placement but it is
something I want to work more with in the future. Daniel Mareco (2017) states that
‘integrating technology in education helps students stay engaged. Most students today have
been using mobile devices like tablets and smartphones to play and learn since they could
crawl’. Tools such as virtual reality or augmented reality to help the students to visualise
their Construction Studies and DCG projects come to life. Many innovative apps where
discussed such as SketchGuru, Clips and Homestyler caught my eye as they are very user
friendly and can help students to visualise questions, especially Homestyler when dealing
with floorplan questions as it can be quite hard for students to visualise the actual room. I
will definitely be discussing these various ideas with my cooperating teachers in the coming
week.
Bibliography
Mareco, D. (2017). 10 Reasons Today’s Students NEED Technology in the Classroom.
[Blog] SecurEdge Blog. Available at: https://www.securedgenetworks.com/blog/10-reasons-
today-s-students-need-technology-in-the-classroom [Accessed 18 Feb. 2018].
https://www.homestyler.com/
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.cmcm.sketchguru&hl=en
https://www.apple.com/ie/clips/