I teach math as well and it is frustrating that it is so hard to find students that love math for the sake of math. It is such a beautiful thing. They always want to know “when am I ever going to use this?” and no matter how you answer it they seem to have a come back about how that doesn’t apply to them. Even when you tell them it teaches problem solving skills. I also try to incorporate science as well as engineering and technology into my class to challenge my students. STEM is so important to the future of our students and I love the idea of your weather balloon!
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I am a former math teacher as well and I designed this new lesson titled “Pixel Art with the OLED” with that in mind. It is heavy on the coordinate grid and using coordinate points to make images on the screen! It would be a nice next step after Hello World. If you have time, check it out: https://ehub.ardusat.com/experiments/5135
That is a very cool program. Depending on what I am teaching next year, and if I can get enough Arduinos, I will have to see about doing this. Budgeting is tight!
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Where does this lesson fit in with your curriculum (if the lesson is not a fit for the class you teach, how could the lesson be modified so that it is applicable to your curriculum)?
This would be a nice intro coding lesson for students. I can see them getting really excited by displaying their names on the OLED display. I would definitely challenge my advanced students with some of the animation modules. -
Which part or parts of the lesson would your students need extra support in order to be successful?
What does a successful teacher actively do during this lesson?
Most of my students are comfortable with block style coding (scratch…) but actually typing lines of code might be a bit challenging for them. I like that the code is supplied for them to run but I really want them to understand what exactly is happening and why. I might spend a little time going through some of the lines of code and highlighting the functionality. -
If you were to teach this lesson to your class, describe your role during the class. What does a successful teacher actively do during this lesson?
I would definitely model this activity first. I think students would be really excited to jump right in and try it themselves after they see what can be done. This is an excellent opportunity to allow students some time to explore and make mistakes on their own. -
If you were to teach this lesson to your class, describe your student’s role during the class. What does “student success” look like?
For the most part, students would be experimenting and something new out. As some students become more comfortable and get beyond just displaying their names, I would encourage them to assist their classmates. I often find that my students learn just as much from each other as they do from me. A successful student is an engaged student who has fun with it and doesn’t give up or get too frustrated when things don’t quite go as planned.
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Where does this lesson fit in with your curriculum ?
Coding and basic electronics are a critical part of my curriculum. This activity is a great intro to this part of my curriculum
Which part or parts of the lesson would your students need extra support in order to be successful?
Any time you work with technology, students will need assistance. Even if it worked perfectly for you during preparation, don’t ever assume that it will work for everyone else.
If you were to teach this lesson to your class, describe your role during the class. What does a successful teacher actively do during this lesson?
A successful teacher facilitates the needs of the students. This can be downloading software, finding another outlet or cable, or asking questions to continue interest in the activity.
If you were to teach this lesson to your class, describe your student’s role during the class. What does “student success” look like?
Student success will be the laughter and joy that are a direct result of making words appear on a tiny screen.
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One thing that I try to do with every project is to allow the students to personalize the activity. For example, I did a simple woodworking project where they make “skateboards”. The project was not a functioning skateboard but it was a similar shape and can be hung on the wall. We then personalized the board by painting the style they choose and then creating custom vinyl in Illustrator. It was a fantastic project because it is something they chose and designed themselves. Same for this project. They can make their own words or names. There is a little more intrinsic motivation when students are doing something they “chose” and are not being told what to do.
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I think this is such an important point. Completely agree that student engagement gets a huge boost when they get to choose, personalize, make it their own. I also think that autonomy in the work place makes for engaged employees and good business.
Always interested in hearing how our lessens can be re-mixed to add student choice! Thanks for sharing this cool project.
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- Where does this lesson fit in with your curriculum (if the lesson is not a fit for the class you teach, how could the lesson be modified so that it is applicable to your curriculum)?
This lesson would fit into my robotics class but not really my physics class. I can use this lesson to help teach basic coding. This lesson is simple enough that students with no programming background would be able to understand what to do.
- Which part or parts of the lesson would your students need extra support in order to successful?
I think that this lab is relatively straight forward. I think I would get the most questions about changing the color of the font. It was interesting to play around with the size and location of the font on the OLED screen.
- If you were to teach this lesson to your class, describe your role during the class. What does a successful teacher actively do during this lesson?
This lab, I think would best if you have enough equipment for the class to work in pairs. I think the class would be board watching me change the code. Assuming there are enough class sets, my job would be to walk around and answer questions.
- If you were to teach this lesson to your class, describe your student’s role during the class. What does “student success” look like?
No, this will be a lesson that I teach next year. It would be a great lesson to do at the beginning of the year with the robotics class to teach some basic coding principles.
I think that this is a great idea “I would definitely challenge my advanced students with some of the animation modules.” That would be the a great to make this lesson easy or harder depending on student ability.
Sorry for the late replies here!
Where does this lesson fit in with your curriculum (if the lesson is not a fit for the class you teach, how could the lesson be modified so that it is applicable to your curriculum)?
This is a great intro/refresher to coding for my 8th grade STEM students. Up until this point they have had some coding in various forms and this is a great way to ease them back into it.
Which part or parts of the lesson would your students need extra support in order to successful?
I think this is really easy to follow along with as long as the students are actually reading the directions. One thing that might be useful is to have some kind of a reset button on the code window so that if kids really start experimenting they have an easy way to go back to the beginning.
If you were to teach this lesson to your class, describe your role during the class. What does a successful teacher actively do during this lesson?
I would probably have one arduino per table of four to start while I demonstrated hello world. Then, students could break into pairs and do the rest of the activity together. My role would be circulating the room and helping any groups that got really stuck.
If you were to teach this lesson to your class, describe your student’s role during the class. What does “student success” look like?
The students will be helping each other get to know the ropes and really play around with the display and the commands. Student success to me is when students feel comfortable enough with the arduino to play around and create something crazy that I might not have thought of doing.
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I love this idea! Maybe the clue before would give them either the word or a clue to the word that they would have to center!
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I think the Hello World lesson is a great introduction to coding. It’s not threatening and it encourages the students to try things over and over again. I can see several ways to use this lesson other than an intro to coding. I like the idea of using it as vocab review and having one student program a vocab word in, the second student giving clues for the word and the third person guessing the vocab word. I also like the idea of tracking how many attempts it took to complete each task and accumulating that data through Google forms and analyzing the results. It would be a great growth mindset/math lesson. I also love the idea that was shared to incorporate it into a Breakout! I think I would just need to provide extra support in reassuring students that they can’t “mess it up” and to try things. Once they understood that, I’m sure they would be off and running! During the lesson I would be the guide on the side. I want the learning to be student centered. However, I would be available to step in to assist before frustration levels got to high for some students. I think student success would not only include being able to accomplish all tasks but also being resilient and keeping a growth mindset throughout the lesson.
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I teach a unit on cryptography and I think your idea of using a simple cypher with this lesson is WONDERFUL! A Caesar Cipher (Shift Cipher) or a Vigenere Cipher would work great. You could even create a simple equation with some changing variables to increase math involvement. This would be a great way to introduce the types of cryptography used to send information securely through the internet.
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My students already have 2 years of coding experience (or more) when they get to this class. I think this lesson would be great as an early lesson in the year, a way to re-introduce the concepts of Syntax. As the programming language used in this lesson is a different language than they are used to seeing, I could use this lesson to encourage them to try to figure out the basic syntax. A basic understanding will be helpful later when they are manipulating more code as well.
The biggest support issue I anticipate with this lesson will be the fact that students will inevitably mess up the code as they are playing with it. It’s actually a good thing if they do as it gives them a chance to practice debugging. The debugging process almost always challenges their patience and requires a little more support than usual.
I think my role will be to encourage students to play with the code and help them debug when they mess it up. LOL.
I love that this lesson helps the students realize that they can and are expected to change things. I think the concept of changing the code is a great one for demystifying how the code works and which parts of the code do what things. My very first foray into coding was taking a code that was already written and changing it to make it do what I wanted. This lesson brings in the same concept.
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I loved the animation modules and can definitely see my students going crazy over the googly-eyes!!
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FIT???
My digital electronics class learns about segmented displays. This provides an excellent transition to more advanced digital displays which allow them more flexibility.
SUCCESS???
Students can try things, fail and try again. They also have the opportunity of sharing their activities with peers. Additionally, if combined with digital media, messages could be uploaded and shared with the larger school community … great for project recognition.
MY ROLE???
Guide - facilitator - provide ideas for students to try out and help them find new ways to use what they’ve learned. Also to help students understand why their code sometimes doesn’t work.
STUDENT ROLE???
Experiment! Try things! Think of ways the class could use this to enhance current projects and make learning more enticing and challenging. Some may need concrete ideas to try out, but more advanced students should have no problems challenging themselves and others.
Personalization is key … in this age of selfies, students love to find new ways to express themselves.
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This was a great lesson to get used to reading code and learning how to manipulate the code to do what you want it to do. I loved that you had to not only list the line number for the code, but to also explain how you changed it and why it reacted the way that it did. It was a perfect first step with coding!
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I liked this experiment as a first experience for students since it didn’t require any breadboarding but it gave students some immediate feedback on what they did. Changing font size, location, message were easy modifications that would be highly visible to students. I would want to walk through an example of this code with them to show what the comments all say (telling us what each line of code tells the computer to do) at the beginning of an experience. Most of my students have had some kind of coding introduction but very minimal; they will be overwhelmed by the cryptic nature of all that punctuation and funny words, so I will need to demystify as well as encourage them to not worry about how “hard” it looks.
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I think that this activity is a great introduction to coding and makes changing the code easy. It is a great introduction to showing that small changes in the code can completely change the outcome. I think it is interesting that the coordinate grid starts with the origin in the top left. It also is great for my 5th grade students to practice identifying coordinates on the coordinate grid.
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