Hour of Code - Computer Science Week - December 7-11, 2015

For the third year our students will participate in the Computer Science Week "Hour of Code" in early December. The materials and resources that are posted on the HOC website support learning by tens of millions of students worldwide.

Our plan is for first graders to use the iPad App Kodable, gathering all the iPads so that each student has one for the class time that day. The 2nd graders will use the web version of The Foos to explore planning steps, repeating and building some programming loops. Third grade students will use the Lightbot Hour of Code site to move into the next levels of logical thinking and programming. By fourth grade students have a wider range of experience with coding and programming so they can learn to program the Frozen characters, create in Scratch, solve puzzles in a Minecraft game, build a Star Wars Galaxy and more. Students enjoy revisiting the Blockly Angry Birds Puzzles, coding a Flappy Birds game and many other activities that introduce the concepts of programming and game development.

Lego WeDo Exploration

Third graders are exploring the Lego Education materials called "Lego WeDo"during a set of class periods. The Computer Lab provides an open setting for students to work in pairs to select one of twelve projects. Working together they follow the directions to put together the blocks to make the project. Then they connect it to a computer so that the motor or sensor can follow a program students made using the Lego WeDo software.

This video shows the students working on their projects.

 

Learning with Laptops

On Friday, March 25th our high school students were invited to present what the laptops at YHS have meant to them in their learning as the Keynote presentation for a Technology Day at SAD 6. The students planned a presentation using the Google Presentation app, working on it whenever they each had a chance. Alice Barr worked on getting the students, coordinating their ideas and making sure that all was ready for Friday. With the entire faculty of SAD 6 gathered the team of students spoke clearly and eloquently about the power and importance of having laptops and technology as integral parts of their high school lives. This is one short video clip, the full video is available.

The rest of the day was sessions for teachers and the students helped me and Alice Barr teach creating Google Sites. While this isn't blog post isn't about Elementary students it is about the investment that Yarmouth students have in incorporating technology into every aspect of their learning. Seeing what that can mean in high school gives me even more impetus to give every elementary student the experiences that will lead them to creative, independent learning with technology.