We had the fantastic opportunity this week to visit the District Resource Centre and Design Lab, in the basement of Kootenay Orchards. If I’m being honest, I had fairly low expectations for this field trip, mainly because I didn’t know what to expect – but it ended up being amazing!
We started out by walking through a short tour of the DRC, and then we were given time to browse on our own. The DRC is like a big library stocked full of learning resources like items, books, movies, models, tools and packages that can be used to teach any unit or lesson you could ever think of. The coolest thing that I found as I was browsing around was the real digestive system of a cat. They had egg incubators, models of the human body and various animals, outdoor equipment, forensics kits, telescopes, kits for science experiments – they had everything.
After walking around the DRC and brainstorming with my classmates about how we would use the endless amount of resources here, we got to chat with the staff about how the DRC is used in the district and how it really works. We also learned about the online resources like classroom-approved ebooks and apps that they offer in addition to the physical space.
Once we had spent a good amount of time exploring the DRC, we got to learn about the design lab. The design lab is home to a huge amount of technology used to teach classes and support student’s learning. The staff told us about the many many projects and lessons that have been completed at the design lab and again, it was like another door opened in terms of lesson planning. We got some time after learning how the space is usually used to play around with some of the technology available here – this is where it got really fun.
I started by trying out these tiny robots and learning how they could be used to teach students about coding at an entry level. Students would use actual coloured markers to draw on the paper, and that would control the actions of the robot. For example, one green dot and one red dot would make the robot turn left.
I also got to see my classmates try out the green screen during this time and they created a cool video. Something that really surprised me was how quickly they were able to create their video here, they didn’t have to set up or troubleshoot any of the technology – it was all ready to go and worked flawlessly.
It was really great to actually see how something like the design lab would be utilized and how many curricular connections student’s can meet just by playing around like we did! It was an eye opening experience into what resources and support is actually available to us as teachers.
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