Make Create Educate

Money is conductive... The purpose of this post is to show how to create a money counter using Scratch and a Makey Makey . What does the code look like? Code for creating a money counter. What are the orange blocks? The Orange blocks are variables. When you have a value that you want the computer to store you create a variable. In this program there is one variable for each coin, one for calculating the total "checksum" and one to prompt the user for the answer. What does the stage look like? Students need a way to track how many times they have counted a coin. To do this you can display the variables on the Scratch stage. This gives a visual tally of each coin. The checksum total is hidden by default but can be displayed for 1 second to check the total by pressing the "a" key. When a user presses the "f" key the user is prompted to add the visible coin totals and enter the total it in 0.00 format. Scratchie the cat will announce if th...

This post will be referring to a publicly available and free project made by CodeClub Australia.  CodeClub Australia has some wonderful projects that are documented for beginning Scratchers. Each year they run a program called MoonHack . In 2020 there were over 34000 participants in the project worldwide.  They have multiple projects for a range of ages from early years to high school.  https://moonhack.com/projects/ The 2020 the " Space CleanUp " project focused on the problem of Space Junk. There is a 10 min video discussing the problem. There is also an additional Blog Post with some extra reading about Space Junk should you be interested. This project could be used in the Year 5 space content for Australian Curriculum. It is suitable for year 4 and up. Or year 3 with some experience coding. The projects will take an experienced coder about 45mins. But less advanced coders could take up to 2 x 1 hour lessons. Before using it in your class, be sure to complete the p...

It is possible to use the Makey Makey for than a keyboard that makes bananas an inedible mush. This project will be creating switches to collect data for a survey. This could be modified to encourage students to collect data using an alternate method to forms. Student can modify the project to collect data to test understanding or collect information for a survey. It could be used by teachers to test student knowledge when they leave a classroom. This is designed as a simple introduction to variables. There are other ways to make this more efficient code but the purpose of this lesson is to introduce the concept of variables. Target Group Year 4-6. Students have simple coding experience with block coding and ready to progress to the next step. Concepts covered: Introductory coding Variables Digital Systems Variables What is variable?  A variable is used i n a computer program, this is a named memory location where values are stored.  A variable m...

What does Possum Magic by Mem Fox have to do with computational thinking and digital technologies? Possum Magic by Mem Fox is a story about a magic grandma that makes her grandson Hush become invisible. To solve the problem they travel Australia looking for ways to make Hush visible again. Luckily the problem is solved for Hush as he consumes classically Australian foods. Strangely they need to travel to most of the capital cities to do it.  Getting children to visualise a journey and translate what they hear into a concrete experience requires computational thinking. 3 activities to integrate digital technologies in a literacy lesson. K-2 Beebot Activity Create algorithms to follow the trail of the food that Hush eats. Educational content Algorithms Procedural texts Recounts Integrating digital systems Recounts Resources Beebots or bluebots Clear mat  or cardboard ruled up with 15min grid. Pictures  of the foods consumed by H...

Updated September 2021 ----------------------------- The curriculum is overloaded, how to integrate new technologies and coding without adding additional content. The key is to integrate the ideas. This lesson took 2 hours and we completed it in one 2 hour session. Ensure you have equity with access to all tasks eg: boys don't dominate the using the technology while girls colour. Observe your students as some may need encouragement to do the coding and connect the Makey Makey. They may need some concrete scaffolding eg: provide them with a sample of code. Incomplete poster that shows the beginnings of lifecycle. Goal: Create a poster that illustrates the lifecycle of a tomato. The poster could be used to cover any outcomes or lesson ideas.  My Prelearning: 3 lessons Research on lifecycle of tomato Art lesson - still life on how to draw a tomato Design the Code - talk through with the students how to plant their code. When I press space Stop all other sounds Play ...

Educational value of coding There has been discussion on the value of coding. Does teaching coding to Primary aged students steal valuable teaching time from literacy and maths. What does coding teach? Ultimately reading, writing and spelling skills are among the most important skills students take from education. Communication empowers people to learn and do more with their life. Skills taught in coding Coding teaches Logic - work through an order of steps Perseverance -  must solve the problem Problem solving Reading if following online tutorials Group work Coding can be used to teach Procedure writing Recounts Descriptions Information Reports Expositions Maths - 2 D shapes and angles Some of my most enthusiastic coders are average spellers and readers. One student was receiving ed support and I didn't know. Coding is a motivation to read. I have other students who are poor spellers. When typing code in HTML,  codeacademy ,  pencilcode.net ...

This is the 3rd post in a series on coding with girls. See  Part 1  and  Part 2  if you would like some background. Over the last few weeks I have had consistent numbers with about 15 students showing up each time. I have launched a website for the students so my resources are in the same place and easily accessed. kodeklubbers.weebly.com . I have now added and will continue to build the teaching resources and some information on our makerspace  facilitated by Matt Richards , teaching resources and apps . These are all works in progress so check back regularly for new resources. Observations The main programs the girls like are scratch and kodu . Both visual programming tools. Some of the girls are enjoying working through the learn.code.org tutorials and blockly , both scratch style programs. I had some boys ask to attend the club last week and not wanting to discourage them I allowed them to get a computer and sit in a separate area. It was inter...

Background For those of you new to my blog. I am documenting my latest project "To increase the number of girls coding in my school". This is the second post in the series. I am not sure how long it will go. Here is a link to my first post in the series Exciting news! I have been invited to speak on implementing coding in a primary school at the NSW Association for Independent Schools ICT integrators conference in September, 2014. To be held at Loreto Normanhurst. See you there! First Meeting Last Friday was the first meeting for my new girls code club, I had about 20 students. I invited girls from two year 3 classes and one year 4 class. Each class has about 12 girls, I also mentioned it to some girls who have shown interest in my Tuesday club that is dominated by boys and only attended a few times. Coincidently there were four year 10 girls sitting near us in the library so I invited them to attend also.  So....a fantastic turn out for the initial meeting with...

In July 2013, I began a lunch time KodeKlub for our primary students (aged between 8-12 years). With the increasing popularity of coding in schools I have decided to share my journey. For the first 12 months the club as been by invitation only. I have taken recommendations from teachers and from club members. My reasoning for having an invitation only club was: Existing lunchtime computer clubs, in my school, can attract in excess of 50 students and this was too many for one person. I wanted to maintain a small club to build my skills. The students who attended the club were already interested in technology and some had experience in coding. They were very interested in building websites using HTML. I began by introducing students to codeacademy.com , students used their school issued gmail to signup. The first tutorials they completed were on HTML. In the past 12 months we have progressed beyond tutorials to self organised learning and personal interest projects. ...