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00000176-e6f7-dce8-adff-f6f7707e000090.5 WESA's Life of Learning series focuses on learning and education activities, opportunities and challenges in the Greater Pittsburgh area.This multi-year commitment to providing learning-focused news coverage in southwestern Pennsylvania is made possible by a generous grant from the Grable Foundation.

Technology, Creativity and Innovation in the South Fayette School District

Dawn Biery

Aileen Owens is the Director of Technology and Innovation for the South Fayette School District. Last year she was the recipient of two national awards for Digital Innovation in Learning.

As part of 90.5 WESA’s Life of Learning Initiative, Ms. Owens joins us to discuss her approach to teaching technology. 

Ms. Owens tells us more about the work she did with teaching technologies for k-12 education:

“I developed a computational thinking initiative and that initiative is a way to teach the thought processes of innovation for our students.”

She goes on to say: 

"There are so many ways to bring the creative process into education...The point is to be able to allow students to use their creativity to solve problems and to learn how to think algorithmically and recursively and logically in order to solve problems. ”

Owens also talks about the effectiveness of technology education in motivating kids.

"People are always looking for the answer or the solution for student achievement. A lot of times people are for looking different technologies that will improve student learning. But ... I take a different path. I find that the real true motivator that will make a student enrich their learning is their own motivation. If you can motivate a child to want to learn, that's when you begin to see the change happen."