OLED Display Hello World #4675

I liked this activity because it was pretty basic. It took some time figuring out how to move my name around but overall a simple and easy start.

2 Likes

Nice catch with counter intuitive origin of the coordinate grid. Here is another lesson for making pictures with pixels to can be fun with coordinates: https://ehub.ardusat.com/experiments/5135

First time programmers can get some anxiety with their first experiences for sure. I remind the class that they can always reload the page and the code will get refreshed back to original working Hello World. I find most students can use pattern matching and experimentation to figure out this one on their own. I get a lot of questions like ‘should I change this’, I generally tell them to give it a try. It’s fun to see student move from the it’s ‘hard’ to “I can program” experience. This is one of my favorite ice breakers for getting into coding.

1 Like

Wow this is great. It takes time and trials to learn, but it is fun

1 Like

I loved this project as a first lesson! It was very basic and allowed you to practice and learn even while making mistakes. My elementary students have used block coding with coding various robots, but never anything like this. I walked through this lesson with my 3rd grade GT students after I had done it initially. They were very confused by this language, and the syntax used.However, they were very intrigued and curious about it. I let them tell me how to change the code to get name in center, resize, etc. They cannot wait to try more lessons out! That is student success to me, especially at such a young age… seeing them interested and excited about learning!

1 Like

Great to hear how your students are excited and chasing the learning! I think this can be a great first experience to move students from block programming to a text based language. That cycle of confusion, experimentation and learning is lifelong journey of a programmer. Thanks for sharing!

I agree that this is a great introduction to coding. My 3rd and 4th graders are just learning about coordinate grids, so I hope it doesn’t confuse them that the y-axis does not have negative numbers on this grid.

1 Like

I really enjoyed this lesson, the classic Hello World! I feel my students would also think it was cool to see their code come to “life”. I’m excited to keep learning :slight_smile:

1 Like

Good idea. I’m sure their curiosity would then lead them to build their own code!

1 Like

Fun to manipulate a display. Amazing how simple it is. I think this would be a good starting exercise when we are talking about graphing. It would align well with the idea of scale and use of a grid. I do like being able to change what shows up, the size, and location. I know students would enjoy this project.

I teach K-5 STEM, so have students in my classroom for only 55 minutes at a time. Because this is new to me, I am using my fifth graders as my “guinea pigs”! This lesson was quick, easy to understand, and very engaging when they saw their name on the display. We moved through the code line by line in order to be sure students understood the purpose of each. Changing the font size and centering their name seemed to be very intuitive to most. For those who were a little confused, it didn’t take long for them to understand with a little collaboration.

I was also thinking this lesson would line up well with graphing. As testing season looms closer, I might pull it out as a review for coordinate graphing.

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)?
I would love to do more coding with the students. I may make it part of a rotation for beginning coding. Having only six desktops, only a few of the 25 - 35 students I have in my room at a time could participate, but there are other beginning tools they could explore at other stations (i.e. Ozobots, DASH, etc.)

Which part or parts of the lesson would your students need extra support in order to successful?
It wouldn’t be appropriate for K - 1, but likely 2nd - 5th grade could easily manage as it is simply a swapping out of text. Their reading and keyboarding skills are advanced enough by then that most could participate successfully.

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 demonstrate, post cheat sheets to help them identify specific pieces of code and understand what they do, monitor to make sure they are coding properly and have additional challenges for high-achieving students to test that are not included on the cheat sheet.

If you were to teach this lesson to your class, describe your student’s role during the class. What does “student success” look like?
In my mind, because I’m not a classroom teacher but a specialist, the answer is always the same for what student success looks like no matter the activity - the student has tried the activity, perseveres, problem-solves, turns base knowledge into action and thinks creatively.

This was a very fun activity that the students would enjoy. Once the introduction on how to us the audrino student are able to modify the program to experiment with what happens when the code changes. The role of the teacher in this unit would be to facilitate and give guidelines on what is allowed to be displayed. This lesson would demonstrate how important each piece of code is in order for it to work. In math, students are shown the importance of making sure each step is mathematically correct in order to move to the next step which the detail in coding is extremely important for it to run properly.

I agree this would be a good review for the coordinate graphing. :smile:

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)?

One of the classes I teach has programming standards. It shows basic commands on how to code a display. For it to be useful, there would need to an activity which uses the sensors/other and coding to generate some display content.

Which part or parts of the lesson would your students need extra support in order to be successful?

I do not see any issues with lesson. Everything worked as described. There might want to be a discussion on different types of displays…LED, LCD, and why you can’t change the color. You might also want to address the display grid system…you also need to know this to create games.

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?

As with the rest of my courses, I act as a facilitator for learning. Students learn through exploration and figuring things out. I try not to spend too much time in front of the classroom. I setup the initial lesson, explain requirements, monitor, and assist as required.

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 is in charge of their own learning. Success would be a student being able to complete activity, understand, and be able to apply what was learned to future lessons.

It is difficult to do coding as a class with only six desktops. Using it as a station would be good. You would have to have enough stations and materials. I used to do 12 stations with 2-3 week rotations and it worked well. Now, all students in a class learn the same content. It’s more work, but I think the students enjoyed the rotations.

2 Likes
  1. Fit - My classes do not have coding standards however there is great value in teaching students coding. After they understand the basics of coding you can use this in many ways in the classroom. You could have students code answers to various questions in the classroom, or have students code the display to show feedback or critques to student presentations. This would create almost annoymous feedback and would allow students to say things they normally would not. But the display also limits the amount that they can say it would keep feedback concise.

  2. Success - Getting the students to try something new or participate in standard classroom activities in a new way are great to promote learning.

  3. Teacher role - As a facilitator/leader that allows the students to do the work with a mostly “hands off” approach from the teacher.

  4. Student role - An active participant in the learning, also gives them creativity and more of a sense of ownership in their education.

1 Like

1.Where does this lesson fit in with your curriculum?
Our goal is to implement a coding curriculum at our school. This lesson could very well work in helping students understand lines of code, and how displays can work with coding. It will also allow them to change lines of code and see what happens.

  1. Which part or parts of the lesson would your students need extra support in order to be successful?
    I would need to explain to them what the words and symbols in the line of code mean.

  2. 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 participate with my students and act as this activity was something new for me as well. I would of course talk to them about computer language and go over what each line of code represents and then engage in a discussion as to if we understand the meaning of each line of code. Afterward, the students will be given challenges and freedom to explore further.

  1. 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 student, despite any difficulties, would be able to be creative and explain how the activity works in their own words.

2 Likes

I really like your idea of coding the display as part of classroom routine. As for coding standards, maybe students can explore what standards would be useful to achieve in their classroom and amount of time available.

1 Like