Angela

This week focused on major production by all of the groups. Most worked on the group posters for the two events. Mary Claire and I looked a bit at the grant proposal for the NSF, and brainstormed questions that we could have Anezka answer that would help fulfill some of the grant qualifications. After that I helped her (the best I could) in setting up her camera in another classroom that we were using to interview Anezka. On the whiteboard walls we added some of the ideas which we had been going over in previous classes. We included design thinking, systems theory, pollution and the things which cause water pollution, plastics, microplastics etc, and drew the diagram of the earth day project set up. We also included the relationship diagram between LCCS, our Parsons class, and the Baykeeper. It worked as a nice backdrop for where Anezka would be interviewed.

During the interview, Mary Claire asked many of the questions from the narrative sheet she had sent me, including a few we had collaborated on. Overall, the conversation flowed nicely, and it was very informative for when I begin to write some of the grant proposal. I did ask a question regarding education technology, and how this class and design thinking promotes education technology. Anezka’s answer was really intriguing. She spoke about how there are many people who think education technology is one thing over another, such as apps or google products vs something more basic. There are a lot of opinions about what constitutes technology as educational, and what can fall into the category of educational technology. The sphere in NYC for ed tech is huge, I spoke with some developers last semester on their ideas of it and its seems as if her answer was correct in this assumption. What was most interesting about her answer though, was that ed tech can really include anything, and even things that are not completely ‘technical.’ Many of the products began as narratives, or drawings, and did not include elements of ‘technology’ at all. Her answer made me think of the discrepancies between technology and more simple resources that were once considered ‘technology.’ Can’t a pencil be considered technology? What vital technologies are pushed to the side or ignored because they do not contain an electronic element? How is this impacting what is considered educational technology, and if they are paid attention to, how can these technologies that are ignored may greatly aid in education, as they have before, once again? I began to fall into a rabbit hole of questions, all of interest, but ones that do need to be thought of within a overall conversation. These are interesting to think of for the future of education, and the future of ed tech.