The Wild Robot: A Tech-Infused Novel Study with Ms. Lussier's Class

Ms. Jlee Lussier’s Grade 4 class at MPS read The Wild Robot by Peter Brown and they’ve done so many exciting learning activities connected to this awesome novel!  This novel study has become an annual tradition for Ms. Lussier’s class and I was excited to be invited to join in on some of the activities again this year.  I had the chance to visit this class for 3 sessions to help them learn about programming and how technology works!

Ms. Lussier challenged her students to create their own robot designs using recycled materials.  In our first session together, the Grade 4s learned to program the micro:bits.  Each student successfully wrote a program to display an image and a string of text on their micro:bit.  For example, students may have programmed a smiley face to appear when button A is pressed and programmed “Hello my name is ______” when button B is pressed.  Students will attach their micro:bits to their robot designs so viewers can interact with the micro:bits when the robots are put on display in the school.  

The micro:bit has 25 programmable LED lights. 

In our second session, students learned to program the Wonder Workshop robots.  Students completed different programming challenges working with a partner or small group.  They learned that the robots measure distance in centimeters and practiced programming lights, sounds and movement.  

The Dash robots from Wonder Workshop are one of my favourite and most-used tools in my tech kit as a K-12 technology coach. 

Students desiged a map to represent the island which the story took place on.  As a class, they chose key locations that were significant to the story and then students worked together to create a large map in 9 sections that was taped together. 

When the map was completed during our third session together, we photographed it and displayed it on the interactive whiteboard.  Students worked together to measure the distance between key locations on the map and we added these measurements to the map, which remained on display for the next part of our activity.  There was lots of great math practice included in this activity!

Students worked with partners to choose locations on the map and planned the steps (on paper) to program the robot to move around the map, including measurements for how far the robot would need to travel between locations.

Finally, using their planning, students wrote a program to move their robot around the map to their planned locations.  Each team tried out their program and then made adjustments if needed.  Students were all able to successfully program the robot to move along their planned path on the map and we celebrated as each team completed this fun challenge!

Thanks to Ms. Lussier and her class for inviting me to join in this amazing learning experience.  I enjoyed watching students engaged in these fun activities, which allowed them to build important skills like communication, collaboration, persistence and problem solving!

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Coding in the Classroom

In my ICT adventures this month, I spent lots of time working on coding with students and teachers around Park West School Division.   December kicked off with Computer Science Education Week.  Across the globe, thousands of people took part in Hour of Code and the staff and students in PWSD were among those participants!   During CSED week, I supported three schools in offering whole school coding events, where every student got to participate in coding activities!  I also joined many other classrooms for coding activities throughout the month.  Some classes paired up with other grade levels for their programming activities and some classes worked on their own. Whether it was single-grade or multi-grade, whole-school or single-class coding activities, I loved being part of the learning and excitement around coding in our schools this month!

Inspired by the great work I witnessed this month, I wanted to share some of my thoughts on coding in the classroom.  I created some images to share my ideas with you!

Why teach coding? 

My 5 Favourite Tools for Teaching Coding & Computational Thinking

I've tried plenty of tools and activities over the last few years and I've developed some favourites that are my "go-to" tools when teaching coding and computational thinking.   The numerical list is not intended as a ranking system, I just have 5 things I use more than anything else!

Regardless of age, I always start with unplugged coding activities.   I like to use these activities to build a basic understanding of coding concepts before we work with technology.  I've developed lessons to teach students about sequencing, conditions, loops and more.   It really helps to include some unplugged lessons to ensure students understand the programs they are writing with technology!

Code.org has so much to offer.   They have a variety of activities for different ages, including both one-hour tutorials and full courses.   Spend some time digging around on their website and you're sure to find something suitable for your class!

Kodable was a favourite in my Grade 1 and 2 classes and it has been very popular in K-4 classrooms around the division.  The free content is a great start, plus they offer paid content if you'd like to offer more coding activities for your students. 

Thanks to Kids Code Jeunesse, our schools now have micro:bit sets for teaching programming!  It's awesome when students can see their programs run on an external device and I'm excited about the possibilities for these pocket-sized computers!

I have two of each of these robots in my ICT kit and they've traveled with me all over PWSD for the last several months!