Coding Prep for my Y8 class

 I started teaching coding with my own class (not team teaching), last year. My two Y7 classes played with the mBot robots (sorry, we WORKED really hard, no playing *cough*). When we went into lock down last year (twice), my lovely class were still coding with me via Google Meet and they were sending me the code to check on my mBot at home. Crazy, crazy lessons. 

Blog posts with Digital Technologies as a label,  

Blog posts with Distance Learning as a label,  

link to particular blog post about coding the robots in lockdown

Those lovely teams are now in Y8, so we are moving on with our coding. We have done some refresher work from last year (as it was last year and I only see them once a week) and now are moving on. My Dunn wants us to try using a Microbit to code, so I took one home over the long Easter weekend to play with. (*cough*.. work with). There is a simulator on the Microbit coding website with some great step by step activities. I decided to use the TInkercad Microbit simulator though, as it is in the electronic circuits section and we can connect the microbit up to lots of external components and control them them.  I used the learning activities from the microbit site, worked my way through them and then made screencast videos myself as I did the activities on Tinkercad.  Another good reason to use Tinkercad is that I can put my students into a class and they can use the programme without having to make an account themselves. I had used this feature last year with my Intermediate graphics class last year on lock down and it was great and really easy. Blog post here

Link to coding section on my class site.

I have given the coding section on my class site a bit of a spruce up, sorting into sections ( we also had a go at coding the drones round an obstacle course last year  - what chaos that was!!)

I have put a section on for the microbit coding page as well as Tinkercad so the students can have a go at both when they are confident (they don't need a log in for the microbit one, but I cant spy on them either).

On the Tinkercad Coding page on my class site, there are 2 sections, Codeblocks and the Microbit Simulator.

We all had a go with designing with codeblocks to get them confident in using Tinkercad. It also gives them another place to use there great coding knowledge.

On the Microbit Simulator page, I have split it into some Basic Skills, for them to get used to coding and using the simulator. We went through these together last week and then the videos are there for when they forget what I said in the class and look back on it again when they are out of the class. 

Then there is a start at some activities. The first one is to make the simulator play Rock, Paper, Scissors. The students flew through all the skills and were soon on challenging each other with Rock, Paper, Scissors. I had coded the one microbit we have so far with that code so they could play it with a real microbit too.

We are ordering and getting a class set over the end of term holidays s they can all have a go with putting their code on a microbit when we get back in Term 2.

The great thing about the simulator on Tinkercad, is that if we have to go back into lock down, the students can get their code ready at home, check it out on the simulator that it works then load it up when we get back into the class room.

This also fits with my inquiry this year. Even though the intermediates are not part of my inquiry, this way of working, using rewindable learning style videos, is very much part of what I am doing this year.

At the end of the lesson this week, the students had discovered between them that they could make animation on the little 5 x 5 LED screen of the microbit.

Here is a screen. recording of one of them that they made.