Challenge- can you create a dance mat game controller?
Using Makey Makey our lunch time coders did just that.
Slowly enthusiasm developed as participant solved problems, linked together evolving a one person game into an interactive, really physical, human interface with 4 gamers.
Listen below to the level of collaboration.
The tinkerer’s bar is proving popular with students enjoying taking things apart to discover how they work, which fully supports the recent article asking ‘how do we inspire young inventors?’
http://blogs.kqed.org/mindshift/2013/11/how-do-we-inspire-young-inventors/
First graders learned coding vocabulary whilst building a domino rally; build-test-rebuild-run/play
Immediately applying these ideas and skills in Hopscotch, students were quickly able to create a string of code, controlling their characters, spinning text and causing collisions.
9th Grade students enjoyed sharing their Scratch prowess with members of our learning community
3rd Graders were thoroughly excited about remixing their class website, picking up some html and short cut codes in the process. Here are our remixes.
http://p.webremixes.org/kmzmovuu
http://p.webremixes.org/fmtvyvzy
http://p.webremixes.org/edeovbbp
http://p.webremixes.org/xydnhrso
Mozilla Popcorn Maker
Middle School Spanish class rehashed Youtube clips to create journalistic style language classes- what I found particularly impressive was the level of language that students were exposed to whilst playing around in popcorn:)
Redefining Learning through Technology
We began the morning with a parent workshop discussing the current shift in thinking regarding technology and learning using the SAMR model.
Inspired by how David Hockney embraces new technology from poloroid and fax to iPad the workshop used Bright Spots from our school to illustrate the SAMR model and how technology is redefining learning. We kept to returning to the theme of allowing creativity to flourish, letting go both as parents and teachers of the illusion of control and that the real discussion is about how learning is changing.
We want our students not only to be prepared for an uncertain future but to have the skills to create it!
Learning Freewheel 