We have been busy as usual in the Innovation Lab. The fifth graders wrapped up their how to videos and are currently finalizing CS Heroine and CS Hero posters to celebrate CS Ed Week. In sixth grade we are talking, exploring, and writing simple programs with the MakeCode.microbit.org coding platform and Micro:bit. They will use the radio feature to communicate and identify a CS Hero or Heroine as well.
Grade 5
For the video production project students selected a simple Google Slides task to demonstrate. They captured this demonstration on the school issued Chromebook. Recording and editing were done using the screen recording application Screencastify. Earlier in our course, they learned how to edit an imported video. For this project they created everything from scratch, even the prepared slides. Click a link below to sample an example. They are FANTASTIC!
Grade 6
We have just begun working with Micro:bit. So far, they have made a simplified version of "Magic 8-Ball" but with 3 inputs and outputs to represent yes, no, and maybe. Students who finished early were encouraged to try showing all 20 outputs as character strings. Now we are exploring the radio feature learning about transmitters, receivers, conditionals, loops, and a variety of inputs to communicate secret messages.
| Magic 3 Ball Click to try. |
Marco Polo Click to try |
|---|---|
CS Ed Week
CS Ed Week always falls on the week of Grace Hopper's birthday, December 9. This year it kicked off on Sunday, December 5. To celebrate both fifth and sixth grade students are making posters about a CS Heroine or CS Hero. That said, they are approaching this task differently. In fifth grade they are reinforcing Google Slides skills used to make their avatars by learning how to trace images. They reviewed a list of influential people in CS to help identify a person of interest. Some students picked family members they looked up to and in some cases they selected me as their CS Heroine.
In grade six instead of picking their person, they were assigned a part of their persons name. Now they are writing programs using MakeCode and the Micro:bit to communicate with a mystery partner so they can complete the name and begin their research. Stay tuned and look for your CS posters below.
