Garcia Center Service Project

     For Saturday November 6, 2021, my teammate and I taught at the Garcia Center. We taught a lesson on recycling to spark the community to want to recycle. The TEKS we used was 4.1B: make informed choices in the use and conservation of natural resources and reusing and recycling of materials such as paper, aluminum, glass, cans, and plastic. We taught them about recycling terms through Quizlet like eco-friendly. We also had a AR game where they could practice sorting things for recycling like plastic and glass. Jasmine created a story for recycling with a hero that encourages recycling. At the end of the lesson, we had the students fill out a Google Form that tested their knowledge. At the end of the form, I had put a link to the Corpus Christi Recycling website about what you can and can't recycle here in Corpus Christi. We even explained that different cities might have different regulations on recycling.

      We did have the students do a scavenger hunt with a movement wheel. We ended up skipping over the wheel and let the students pick up as many recyclable material off the ground as possible. Despite this, my overall experience was great. The information was simple for the students to understand, and they learned something new about recycling. They also appreciate the link about what you can recycle in Corpus Christi because they didn't know about everything you can recycle. I would definitely do this again if I had the chance.

    

One student picking up plastic.

    Our ITSE standards were:

   2c. Choose teaching approaches that help to foster an inclusive computing culture, avoid stereotype threat and equitably engage all students.

3c. Plan collaboratively with other educators to create learning activities that cross disciplines to strengthen student understanding of CT and CS concepts and transfer application of knowledge in new contexts.

4a. Design CT activities where data can be obtained, analyzed, and represented to support problem-solving and learning in other content areas.

4c: Guide students on the importance of diverse perspectives and human-centered design in developing computational artifacts with broad accessibility and usability.

5d. Establish criteria for evaluating CT practices and content learning that use a variety of formative and alternative assessments to enable students to demonstrate their understanding of age-appropriate CS and CT vocabulary, practices, and concepts.  

    Our activity was inclusive to all students and helped to foster an inclusive computing culture. Jasmine and I both worked on the lesson and exchanged ideas. This did contain problem-solving and learning about recycling. We did give a diverse perspective on recycling including what Corpus Christi does for recycling even if it wasn't the same as another city. We did have a rubric that went with the lesson which had the criteria for the students to be able to do.

ICreate lab day with ECDC students

    On October 4th, 2021, my teammate and I taught the 4th graders from the ECDC school about recycling. We collaborated on the use of technology with a 4th grade TEKS. The TEKS we chose was (1b) which is to make informed choices in the use of natural resources and reusing and recycling of materials such as paper, aluminum, glass, cans, and plastic. 

 This is the race that the first group did.

Our Activity

    We had made two recycling trucks with the Lego WeDo 2.0 kits. Our goal was to use them to teach recycling and coding. We opened up the lesson by asking questions to see the knowledge they had about recycling. We then explained how they could code with the trucks, and I gave an example of the code by instructing the truck to move. We then let the students do their own code with the IPads we had. The first  group wanted us to give a code for their race. They also made a code to have the Smarthub change to different colors. The second group coded the trucks to go forwards, backwards, and make noises. The last group wanted to race with speed by setting the trucks to the highest speed possible. One of the students figured out how to do it first before explaining how he managed to do it. 

The students getting ready to code.    

My Experience

    Overall my experience was great from the students. I had the opportunity to teach them, and I also learned from them. I got to see their creativity, and I learned that the speed could be set higher. I haven't worked with a 4th grade class before, so I didn't know what they would do with coding the trucks. It was also interesting to see them find out how to change the code to do something new. I wouldn't have thought that the speed could be manipulated more. I thought it went up to only speed 9, but the students put in a bigger number than that. 

    The ITSE standards we used are:

    3c: Plan collaboratively with other educators to create learning activities that cross disciplines to strengthen student understanding of CT and CS concepts and transfer application of knowledge in new contexts.

4a: Design CT activities where data can be obtained, analyzed and represented to support problem-solving and learning in other content areas.

    I helped to collaborate with Jasmine to create this activity and transfer our knowledge of technology and recycling into new contexts. Our activity was designed with WeDo 2.0, so students could problem-solve with the code and learn with coding. This will be important for when I do teach. I can design activities to support problem-solving and learning, and I can discuss with educators about similar topics as well. 

Jasmine teaching the students about coding.

Digital MakerSpace Intro Week

I explored Basketball Coding today. The game allows you to move the hand to catch the ball and shoot it towards the basket. You can also create your own form of the game with the code like making new balls appear every time the ball hits the player's hand. It was a fun game, and I can use it as a teacher to allow students to use code and use creativity to make their own version of the code.

Video of the Basketball Coding game.

4d: Create CS and CT learning environments that value and encourage varied viewpoints, student agency, creativity, engagement, joy, and fun. 

     With this game, you can create your own version with the code to do different things. This encourages creativity and joy from students to make their own version.

Picture of the game and code.

You can find the basketball coding game on Code.org or you can use your phone and scan this code.

iCreate Lab Exploration

Standard 5: Computational Thinker. Students develop and employ strategies for understanding and solving problems in ways that leverage the power of technological methods to develop and test solutions.

Today we visited the iCreate Lab in the library (room 217). We were shown a room for laser cutting. There was also an embroidery machine, sewing machine, and Cricut Maker on a table. I ended up watching how to use the embroidery machine to make a design on fabric. The lady was having issues using the embroidery machine because it kept stopping and saying error. She kept trying to change tension and find out how to fix the issue. 

Embroidery machine making the pig design.

Someone came and helped her fix it, and the pig design finished. Then she did the letters KF, and the whole design was finished. It was a cool thing to see because I have never seen an embroidery machine before.

Finished product with embroidery machine.

The Makerspace Movement

     I can use these concepts to get students thinking and make new designs to solve problems. If we use a piece of technology that acts up like the embroidery machine, students can test ways to see how they can solve the problem. It may take a little longer to get things done, but the problem will get the students thinking. I could also let students make their own design that's different from what's available. It lets them be creative and demonstrate competency as they try something new. They would also be using the technology in a new way because it might not have ever done this new design.

Another design someone made with the embroidery machine.

DroneBlocks Lab

 

1d: Develop resilience and perseverance when approaching CS and CT learning experiences, build comfort with ambiguity and open-ended problems, and see failure as an opportunity to learn and innovate.

3b: Apply effective teaching strategies to support student collaboration around computing, including pair programming, working in varying team roles, equitable workload distribution and project management.

Today in class, we explored DroneBlocks and programmed a drone to do different things. We did have a few problems starting out because the drone would not connect to the app. After a bit of coding, we managed to get Tello (the drone) to do some flips while moving around. After a bit of programming, Tello would not follow the code and would just hover a bit before landing. We did try again and again to get it to do more, but Tello wouldn't do more.

A classmate did some research and found that Tello might not be responding because of the battery overheating. Considering that the battery had become really hot, we determined that the the battery overheating was the reason for Tello to stop responding. We plan to keep that in mind when using Tello again to do more things with coding.

In this video, Tello was programmed to do some flips.

Code used to make Tello flip.

Using Tello was quite the learning experience although we ran into some issues. It was an opportunity to improve for when we use Tello again. I also did my part in being a team member with using Tello. Aleksandra programmed Tello (she had the code), Jasmine was giving Alexsandra codes to try out, and Kelly helped out in any way she could including charging the drone as we figured out how to connect it to DroneBlocks.

When Tello was just hovering and not following the code.

Droneblocks Simulator

   Today in class, we learned about DroneBlocks Simulator. DroneBlocks allows you to connect to a drone called Tello and program it to do things. We read over how to work it because class was online due to the tropical storm. The website we found the information was learn.droneblocks.io with Marissa Vickery. I went through the Introduction to Tello EDU Drone Programming with DroneBlocks module.

     Some important things to do before using the drone is to make sure the propellers are secured. The battery should be charged, inserted into the drone correctly, and you need to have a backup battery. Tello should be used in a big room if a lot of drones are used. The area around Tello should be clear, so it doesn't collide into obstacles which can damage Tello. The module also gives specifics about using DroneBlocks on certain devices to connect to Tello. 

     

This is one code that Tello can be programmed to do.

     Takeoff has Tello go up about 4-5 feet (1.5 meters) into the air. You can also use fly up or fly down to get Tello to fly higher or lower. Distance for Tello is relative to position. Tello might have some marginal errors since it doesn't have GPS. For example, you might command it to fly forward 60 inches, but it might go only 55 inches. Hover means that Tello will stay in one place for a certain time like five seconds.

This is a box technique to where the magenta arrow is the direction the drone is facing.

     Another term that I learned from the module was yaw or yawing which is an aeronautical term for rotating about a vertical axis. There was also the term loop ("repeat" block in DroneBlocks) which is used for repetitive commands to make it one command. A code with loops is also referred to as refactored meaning restructured or revised.     

This is the box technique of yaw with the magenta arrow showing the yaw or direction of flight.

Here is an example of the box technique as a code.

Here is the box technique with loop and a fly up command.

     This is very helpful to learn for when I use DroneBlocks to program Tello. I can't wait to try out some code and see Tello fly in class Wednesday.

Activity Guide WeDo 2.0

 Space Exploration/Rover

Objective: The objective of this activity is to build a space rover that can explore a surface. This is done by coding it to do a specific task like sweeping, grabbing, or moving up and down. The head also has a motion sensor that will stop the rover if something blocks its' way. This can be done by testing out how it moves until the rover achieves its' task. This will give students a better understanding of code. Students can also learn the engineering and science aspect of rovers through this activity.

1a: Set professional learning goals to explore and apply teaching strategies for integrating CT practices into learning activities in ways that enhance student learning of both the academic discipline and CS concepts.

1c: Leverage CT and CS experts, resources and professional learning networks to continuously improve practice integrating CT across content areas.

1d: Develop resilience and perseverance when approaching CS and CT learning experiences, build comfort with ambiguity and open-ended problems, and see failure as an opportunity to learn and innovate.

5a: Evaluate and use CS and CT curricula, resources and tools that account for learner variability to meet the needs of all students.

5c: Use a variety of instructional approaches to help students frame problems in ways that can be represented as computational steps or algorithms to be performed by a computer.

Activity Outline

Introduction:

    I would discuss with the students about rovers and what they can do. Then I will let them ask questions about rovers. Once questions are over, I will discuss what the activity is to them, and I would let the students ask any further questions about the activity.

Create Phase:

    I will allow the students to either build their own rover or use a template to build it. Instructions for the rover I made can be found under model library with part one being titled as 2. drive and part two is titled as 2b. Rover on the WeDo 2.0 app. The time it takes to build the rover depends on what type the student makes. 

Coding Phase:

    The students will then code the rover to do a task. The task I did was move across the surface. The students can also do that same task and practice making it move. I would remind them that it is okay if it takes them a bit to figure the code out because they are only starting to learn coding. I've even made mistakes because I am still learning. 

Conclusion

    I will have the students share what they did, so they can see the different things they can achieve. I would also recommend Code.org for students to continue to practice coding. It is very important for students to learn coding because coding is used for lots of things. This activity can help them start their journey with coding.

Here is the rover I built.

This is the code I used for the rover.