Today we looked computational thinking. We explored different websites such as TKI, Bee Bots online, code.org, scratch jnr that can open up the window for learning using coding/programming activities.

This was all new to me as I hadn’t explored any coding activities before. I found the online bee bots very frustrating to start with. I am terrible with my left and rights to start with so this just added a whole new level of concentration. I can see how the different coding activities would capture the students in and have lots of potential to create computational thinking.

I opted into learning more about scratch jnr as I work mainly with junior classes. It was a really cool app and once you get the hang of it and the buttons to use it becomes easier and fast. I can differently see ways I could use it in the classroom. Just need to remember about the stop and start buttons to put on my code.

Below is my little coding animation that I made on Scratch jnr. I also learnt how to screen record from going into settings and making sure its an option then dragging down the top right corner to start and finish the screen recording. The video isn’t perfect there is a few tweaks a can make to make it look cleaner and less glitchy. Cant wait to have more of a play around and hopefully plan some lessons using coding before the end of the year.

Technology is intervention by design!

New Zealand Technology Curriculum has 3 strands: Practice, knowledge and nature of technology. These strands help technology teachers plan and teach technology projects by planning, comparing, developing, designing, and testing.

I found this session very useful because it helped me to consolidate my understanding of computational thinking – there were some new resources and sites which I hadnt heard of before like Compute it, studio.oce.org, etc. The highlight for me was cracking the binary code with Makaore Wilson. There was no other participant so I got the whole hour of instructions and hands on session with Makaore who generously shared his knowledge and expertise. This journey was interesting because while he was talking and demonstrating, the information wasnt sinking in my head. He asked me twice how its going, my first response was “Its just another another language.” My next response was “Its all going over my head.” The expert that Makaore is, he changed his teaching style to suit the hands on learner and lo behold, I was able to understand binary numbers in a flash!!

The magic to understanding the 5 digit binary code was

1. Use all grids in the block
2. Do not leave any grid blank in the block
3. 1 = Yes, 0 = No

Tell me and I forget, teach me and I may remember, involve me and I learn!!

Here is my name in binary code!

Dorothy Burt’s session was very inspiring as usual. Young people do benefit in their learning if they are digitally empowered. Unfortunately due to lack of facilities and basic necessities for the learners from low social economic areas, there is a lot of struggle which gives them a life time of no choices, even the fundamentals are lacking. Whanau’s struggle. Having taught in decile 2 schools, I have seen how students are affected even not having warm clothes or shoes in winter. So though focussing on a BYOD maybe a big ask, it does empower them for their future! In these families because because of either absence of parents who may be working or not having too much time to read or chat with their kids, or maybe their focus is different to gaining education, the school going kids lag behind in their vocabulary and conversational skills.

Phil’s presentation on the future of technology was interesting! Driverless cars, self drive vehicles, pilot less planes and all the issues that could arise if there are mishaps is perhaps what the society needs  Lots of moral controversies and responsibilities to think about. Will artificial intelligence outsmart humans one day . . . .

Digital technology expands human possibilities. However, we need make our learners cybersmart and so that they are learning and using the right digital tools to get the end results. There are alot of resources online to teach computational thinking and today’s session was very useful for me.

Look and Comment Section

We have had a look around the new NZC in Technology which we have also been having talks about in school. It was interesting to see other examples including from one of my bubble group members, who shared their Google site with us on how they have gone about providing some information to their users, we can take some of this for our own program I think.  We also hunted around other sites and tried some out such as Moral machine, Code.org, and the Minecraft coding options (not educational Minecraft).  I spent a long time on the Minecraft section and some basic programming apps which although basic, are engaging.  I took notes for using them in class in the future, Moral machine was interesting, not sure if I totally agree with some of the results it gave me, it was a weird concept of who we rather kill but I see you can create your own “would you rather” instead which would work better for me and my class as a fun side game maybe on friendship or some other hot issue topic.

I think with the digital curriculum, I would like to see a focus on fluency in being able to take their knowledge to other apps or software, we seem to focus a lot on what we know and less on letting them find their own apps that suit them and then giving them the knowledge to manage if this is the right app or not themselves.  Give them a range of options and let them work out their best uses, what the benefits are, etc. Fluency is being able to use technology and apply it to other areas, not just be stuck on what we have taught them, and allow them to be technology confident.  It’s too deep of a subject to discuss here, and it won’t make much difference when the curriculum has been designed, and outcomes supplied.  It has a heavy dose of problem-solving and giving/following instructions, even coding is heavily prescribed and I am not sure this should be our focus for students. Maybe for secondary and University as options, but I feel software/hardware is more fundamental for primary and lower secondary so they can be truly fluent across the technological field.

I loved the videos on creating instructions, following them, and solving any issues found.  Removing common sense as it’s not so common and getting very basic, like cooking instructions, very step by step to the basics. This is an important building block for all students to have at all levels. Problem-solving is one thing our students struggle with and if anything, I think they will get the most out of all these programs from this standpoint or focus more than anything else.

Scratch Sandpit

In the afternoon session, we worked through basic scratch tutorials.  We have taken a basic Pong game for bouncing a ball off a bar.  I decided to change this and play with some code to see what would happen.  I mashed in some mindfulness “bubble bounce” by adding a different ball to the mix.  There are 7 tennis balls and a basketball.  They all change directions when they hit something (Other balls of the car), when the basketball hits the man’s head, he blows a whistle and says Ouch !!! (only does this if it hits his head).   The angles are hard to manage when a ball hits an edge, I have set a range of “change angle” code but it often still goes in directions where it takes a long time to make its way back to the man again, this will be a play for another day. The finished product is below:

My understanding of Manaiakalani kaupapa and pedagogy

I work at a low decile school and it just accentuates the fact that our families are often trapped by circumstance. It is difficult to be empowered if their choices are limited because the lack of finances disempowers them due to the lack of choice.

It was a very informative session with regards to how deciles of schools are determined. Household incomes, occupations, household crowding, qualifications and income support all determine the decile a school would be awarded.

It was shocking to hear that kids from low decile areas arrive at school with the abilities of a 3 year old and they hear 32 million less spoken words than some of their peers. Restricted or no internet result in lower results.

The quotes that I can relate to the most – “I found that my learners were unintentionally brutally honest about the learning I provided. If they didn’t like it they simply didn’t do it. I am competing for their attention with Fortnite and Tik tok.”

and

“The greatest joy comes from Empowering students to discover the treasure that lies within them.”

What could improve my confidence, capability or workflow as a professional

When I hear the words Computational Thinking I was not even sure I would get through this DFI session today. It sounds daunting and coding is not exactly my forte. No actually …. I have never even attempted any kind of coding before. As I found out today it is really quite fun.  I think I could actually use this in my class. After today I feel much more comfortable with my understanding around Computational Thinking and am feeling quite excited to try lessons with my class. It was amazing learning how there are many ways to deliver lessons using devices. There is so much you can do to make their learning journey really exciting. We have been so fortunate to share in the resources that the DFI team have provided that cater to the  many learning levels. I am excited to try some of these with my class and to expand their learning in regards to Computational Thinking.

What did I learn that could be used with my learners?  Today I learnt how to code and  add sound in Scratch! It was awesome and something I really want to try with my kids.  I loved seeing and exploring all the coding sites. I took the opportunity to add those to my class site for students who finish their work early. I know that they will love having the the opportunity to explore these sites themselves.

What did I learn that could improve my confidence, capability or workflow in my personal life?

I have learnt so much! All there is left to do now is to use the skills that I have been taught to make a difference in the learning journey my kids are on.

https://studio.code.org/projects/dance/ok9rUvi_MtYhMWRt28RTOeI6POcd89-mMY-_NRYda60

Dance Party needs patience and resilience! One real frustration is initially you learn the different tiles of code (top screenshot) but it is just a step by step progression that doesn’t actually take you to a final dance, you then have to hit remix to get to create a dance. It would have been better to go step by step through and be able to see the layers of code altogether in a dance rather than having to start again in the remix screen. I can see learners having a blast with this program. I sat back and watched everyone on screen and they were all smiling and moving along to their music. Our Minecraft and coders will pick it up really easily and be able to move through with pace, others will need some support but it can also be an independent exploring task because that is enjoyable too. This activity will need hearing devices or it will be too full on in a whole classroom setting.

Preparing for the exam is this weeks job. I am anxious about the amount of knowledge required but I will do some study during the week ready for the exam. The tip about reviewing later will be a really important tool to use to ensure I have enough time to complete all the questions and I don’t get stuck on something where I waste precious brain power and energy feeling frustrated. Unfortunately, we have a few staff out next Wednesday and I may need to do my exam during the week and be at school on Wednesday.

I really enjoyed the deep dive into the future of technology. It is incredible to look back at technology in my 30 ish years and see just how it has changed. Interesting that my 3 year old talks to Alexia to ask about the weather and he can ask Alexia to play his favourite song. It would have blown my mind as a child to be able to talk to a device and it answer me! Cell phones became a thing when I was growing up and that was huge for our family and I remember it being a massive mind shift for my parents! I am excited to see what technology looks like when I have my grandchildren. The moral decision making was fascinating to look at, it is incredible to think about self driving cars. As dairy farmers we would love the price of milking robots to reduce so we could use them. We have also done a heap of research on Halter as a way of moving forward which requires no fences and the cows are moved with a necklace that vibrates. Unfortunately for us our farm has too many gullies which will effect the signal around the farm and may mean that our cows could roam everywhere. As their technology develops they will problem solve issues like that and it maybe something we use on the future. Our children may have the ability to sit on the couch and move the cows! Unreal!

Today we had a look at the Digital Technology Curriculum.  I found the decoded4learners version of the progress outcomes by Raranga Matihiko very helpful as far as breaking down the outcomes in simple terms to relay to learners.  The Manaiakalani Cybersmart alignment to the progress outcomes is another handy tool that is easy to follow.  Both of these will come in handy at the beginning of 2023 when I introduce Year 4 students to using their chrome books.  Looking at both of these resources was reassuring in a sense that some of these things I already do across other curriculum areas and some can be easily added, therefore it’s not potentially a whole lot more work to try and cover if I am able to plan digital learning across the other curriculum areas.  I love forward to checking out more of the resources on TKI and other sites provided in the slides.

During the exploring session I had a play with Minecraft as I have a few students who are keen on Minecraft and I really don’t know much about it.  It was great to have a chance to explore this and see how this could be a fun and engaging classroom activity.   When I have time I will go back and look at some of the other beginner sites for coding.

I like the idea of following scratch tutorials alongside my class so they are all following a structured lesson, rather than too much freedom which could lead to simply playing.

During the create session I joined Phil’s session squeezing pictures into codes as I was keen to look at some options that could be done off-line to teach computational thinking.  This was a fun activity where we created codes on google sheets (can be done on paper) for our names.  It was fairly easy to follow so is definitely something I could do with students.  I also enjoyed the google sheet version of hang man we played – again my class would love this!  CS Unplugged looks like a great site for unplugged activities.

Here is a link to my squeezing pictures into codes sheet.

Squeezing pictures into code.

Week 8 – almost there, today was all about Computational Thinking, in other words – coding ;P Actually there was a lot more than that, but we did spend a lot of time getting our head around coding, what it is , how to do it and why it is so good for students and teachers to do.

This weeks project that I chose  was to create a Waka Reo Mix – using Scratch Code – see below to view my amazing creation:

So idea is to click on each part of the Waka and after you hear Hiwi, the rest of the parts of the waka is said by me. I am feeling quite proud of this wee creation, and I must say my background is fitting. This week topic got me thinking about the importance of breaking things down and ensuring that our instructions are clear and precise. Thus enables the learner to complete the tasks we give them effectively as well as help them understand how the whole is made up of each individual task – important in helping students and adults create a solid foundation to build  knowledge and skills upon.

My favourite quote from this week,  “A digitally fluent person can decide when and why to use specific digital technologies to a chance a specific task to solve problems” – that was from Vicki’s presentation this morning, but it is imperative that we as educators are ‘fluent’ in technology so that we are able to effectively teach our students to be fluent digital citizens. The government obviously thinks so as the  Digital Technologies  Curriculum has included two new key areas that of   1. Computational Thinking and 2. Designing and developing digital outcomes. So as teachers it is now mandated to include this in our content which leads me to the next quote I really liked from this morning, ” that it is important that students have opportunities to be innovative designers and creators of digital solutions moving beyond solely being users and consumers of digital technologies”. We need to give students opportunities to learn this stuff so that they can come up with their own innovations and solutions  to content that they have been presented with hopefully in an engaging way from us , but more importantly taking them from being passive consumers to empowered users and creators of digital tools and products – which can only benefit them in every area of this technological world we live in

For someone who has always thought that coding or computational thinking was not in their skill set, I was pleasantly surprise at how fun I found this week. I really enjoyed learning all about Minecraft, Scratch and Flappy Bird – they are definitely going to be in my teaching bag for next year. I can see so many applications from across all my classes in how to incorporate this into my teaching. I actually can see how I can use this for a ‘fun period’ and the kids will be learning and developing  key skills in these two new areas of Digital Technologies – and they will never know how much learning they are actually doing

So that is it for this week – on to  week 9 and the exam – yikes, better go study so I have a chance of passing!

Today we were exploring the Digital Technologies Curriculum and how this can be integrated into the classroom.  Thinking about how we can enhance learning and expand the possibilities.  It’s great to be able to give the students choices and for them to come up with solutions to problems once they’ve explored tools and figured out which tool would fit best for what they’re trying to achieve.  This empowers the students and accelerates/turbo charges their learning!

We had the opportunity to explore a number of coding sites today, like Scratch, Minecraft, Flappy Game and Dance Party to name a few.  I thoroughly enjoyed having a play with all these resources I mentioned and I’m going to show them to my class tomorrow!  My class will be engaged and enjoy having the choice to look at these resources and decide for themselves, which one(s) they like the best.  I like how there are tutorials attached to all these, the students can go at their own pace and watch them again if they need to!  I’m looking forward to seeing what they create and giving them opportunities to share these with their peers, and if time this term, sharing what they’ve learnt with students from other classes too!

This afternoon I use a coding resource called Dance Party, so much to explore and fun doing so.  The tutorial was really valuable, it took me through step by step, as I completed stages, to show me what to do next.  I found this easy to follow and engaging, and I know the students in my class will feel the same way.  Below is a short example of what I created and doesn’t do this resource justice, the tutorials went into a lot more detail.  I ran out of time to take this further and I know time will fly when my class give this a go tomorrow too!

https://studio.code.org/projects/dance/Gjse6QvLXPAhW_wGbAzi5-pKzLzQSbokviJnB-yAhIk