OLED Display Hello World #4675

Not only would students look at screens in a different way, but since the whole kit is “exposed” - not hidden behind a plastic case - they can see the components, see the connections - how everything fits together. The only “magic” would be how the program makes the words appear.

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I love this teacher being the “Answer-Of-Last Resort” concept so students can explore and troubleshoot amongst themselves.

Awesome to use the 4 c’s as a guide for the student conversations!

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This lesson fits in my curriculum because on minimum days (every Wednesday) I teach computer science. We do a lot of work with Google sheets graphing data and learning formulas. We have also been doing some basic coding and this will fit in perfectly.

I think most of my students will have success with this exercise due to their previous coding experience.

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Yup, that is the only way to learn. You can KNOW something but not understand it until you have PLAYED with it! Once we get over the humiliation of it all, we have to admit we learn more from our mistakes. Am I right?

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I am wondering how to make the interior of the heart RED. I suppose the OLED only supports green.

I may be digging into the lessons too deep. The OLED took me all the way to making my own custom display. I never got to the Knock Knock - am I doing something wrong?

I completely agree with the trial and error. My role as a teacher will more of a facilitator. I would allow students to explore and try various methods until they come to a conclusion or see patterns. After they have had an opportunity to explore, I would facilitate a discussion on the comparison on the relationships between the input and output. I would emphasize key vocabulary so that we share a similar language when discussing the output.

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Hi Jan–you may want to just reset from the beginning and then attempt Knock Knock. The instructions are here https://ehub.ardusat.com/experiments/4650. Let me know if you run into issues.

It only supports white and black, unfortunately. So white will be the color you will use so you can see the text.

[quote=“hcaron, post:71, topic:319”]

  • Where does this lesson fit in with your curriculum?
    Our school is year-round, so I spend a lot of time in the summer doing activities like this. I want my students to be interested in electronics.

  • Which part or parts of the lesson would your students need extra support in order to be successful?
    I don’t think my students would need any more help, just guidance.

  • 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?
    My role in this lesson would be to make sure what the students have coming across the screen is school-appropriate. They are in my school because they have trouble in school, so I would expect them to push the boundaries with something like this. I also have to explain to my students that when something doesn’t go right, they need to see what THEY did wrong. I get a lot of “I did everything right and it still doesn’t work!”

  • 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 me, student success looks like awe and sounds like, “that is so cool!” I am always happy to introduce new students to the world of programming. They really get excited when things go the way they want them to.

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One thing that I would have my students do first thing is design a way to hold the microcontroller, sensor and OLED boards. Nothing too elaborate or permanent, just something a little less floppy. Bit awkward having them flop around and the USB cable is stiff and pulls things around.

I totally agree with you on that. My screen kept scrambling because of the movement.

I like this assignment. I was thinking i could get the students in groups and have them create a message that could somewhat animate (flash or have one work come in at a time).

I would this assignment as another aspect of coding and allow them to play around(experiment) with the code to see what they could come up with.

As the students are working on the lesson I would be walking around facilitating, giving guidance and possible ideas or seeing what they come up with and maybe getting ideas.

I had trouble with getting my name in the middle. The coordinates threw me…I just couldn’t “see” it .

This is a great introductory assignment. I would use this as a group project to review vocabulary (have one student code in a vocab word then show to another student that would have to say the definition out loud then switch). I could also use it as a way to teach problem solving and perseverance. I have some students that would need extra support with reading. During this lesson I would be walking around the room checking in with groups having them explain to me which part of the assignment you are on as well as answering questions. Student success in this lesson would be experiencing both success and failure while working through the steps. I would want to see my students exhibiting perseverance and trying more than one way to solve the problem should something arise.

Great ideas here. If you go to the bottom of the lesson then there’s a link to the lesson guide for teachers that show suggested vocab words are well!

I really like this lesson as an introductory coding lesson for the students. I think trial and error in coding is such a valuable way to learn. We can teach kids what different commands do. But, if they discover it themselves then they are far more likely to understand it.

I could also see using the portion of the lesson where you try to center your name in a math setting. It’s a good review of graphing. Students could also do some simple math to determine accurate coordinates for centering text of different lengths.

This is a great introductory lesson. My students would enjoy the challenge of changing their name. It was gratifying to change the display and it was not so difficult they would give up immediately.

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I think this activity is extremely important especially for those students that are getting to know how the equipment works as well as line code. The fact that it introduces the students to line code but does not overwhelm them with having to change multiple lines is a plus for students. I also thought it would be neat to give the students a definition for a vocabulary word and they had to display the word that matches the definition.
As a facilitator my role is to give the students a chance to explore and then share what they have discovered and make a real world connections.
I think for this lesson I would find a couple of strong student to teach it to those that are struggling.

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