Summer SAVY 2018: Session 6, Day 2 – Programming and Robotics (Rising 3rd/4th)
Dear Parents,
We had an busy and productive Tuesday! The students were excited to be back in the classroom after getting to explore programming and Sphero robots yesterday afternoon. To prepare for our afternoon of programming the robots, we reviewed concepts that we learned yesterday in class, including algorithms, debugging, loops and conditions. To make the review a little more interesting, we played a game of Kahoot (an online learning platform) where students were either on teams or by themselves on an iPad. We reviewed the definitions of terms but also asked questions about code block scenarios that the students had seen in the computer lab yesterday. This time was spent clearing up misconceptions and hammering down concrete coding ideas.
After review,we discussed the binary number system and to practice we created binary bracelets and the students also had to solve a binary message left on the board. This can be a confusing topic but most of the students got a grasp on it and we will practice it more. Parents, have your students come up with a binary code for you to solve using their key! It’s a good way to practice translation and make connections.
In the computer lab, we continued to utilize our resource of code.org where students practiced using coding blocks. Today, we continued using loops and conditionals and expanded our knowledge by putting while loops and if/else blocks to use. Additionally, we did more pair activities (students were paired differently) to practice teamwork and get comfortable sharing responsibility in code.
This afternoon, we used the Sphero robots again. The students wrote a program for the robots using several actions that we learned earlier in class. They worked in teams to write codes to tell the robot what to do. After having the opportunity to control the robots through coding blocks, the benefits became more clear. This prepared the students for the more complex programs that we will write with the robots later. The students had a great time working together and putting into practice what they learned on code.org. Parents, ask your children what it was like to code. What was hard or challenging? Did they have to debug their program at all?
We are looking forward to learning more tomorrow!
Mr. Hamid and Miss Ashanti
Learning to Program Our Spheros
