Menu
The COMPUTING Curriculum
Makey Makey - Fun with circuit making, problem solving and a little bit of coding hidden...6/15/2016 Year 4 have been experimenting with the Makey Makey to develop their understanding of circuits and conductivity, as well as a little problem solving/testing connections etc. We started with a session exploring the circuit boards and their connections then created our own paper musical instruments, using the ideas from this link to the Makey Makey guides HERE and using the Makey Makey Piano link. The slideshow gives a few ideas of what they did and the QR code alongside gives a video of them playing their 'paper' instruments! Developing coding within the lesson.Following the experimentation and discovery in using the makey makey boards, the children were then introduced to a Star Wars Hour of Code Activity to develop their understanding of linking the makey makey controls to a series of commands in scratch. The children had to program R2D2 to move up, down left and right in order for the makey makey controller to be useful. The children were given some card and thick graphite pencils to draw arrows on and connect their board to. They were then encouraged to add other elements to their games, such as extra characters, and a way of winning and losing the game. (a help video is given below) The children were highly motivated engaged and creative when discussing and making their personalised games and did very well indeed! Next Steps As the children are planning and resourcing ways to control the games themselves (there has been talk of fruit and veg and glove controllers!) we will allocate time to design and create these and then give greater focus to develop the programming of the Star Wars game to enable them to enhance their knowledge of Scratch and the programming that runs in the background of their favourite games!
0 Comments
What you need... to start with...
iPad with Do ink Green Screen App & iMovie
Green screen (Curtain fabric) or these little beauties... http://www.ikea.com/gb/en/catalog/products/50295288/ A Space to work in, some hooks and green tape to stick things together, should we need to...
Throughout all of KS2, all classroom doors have 2-3 hooks above them to allow for 5 green screens to be created within each year group area. The screens can come up and be stored carefully in a matter of seconds and provide the opportunity to do some photo editing (see Photoshop Mix) as well as video editing. There are plans afoot to paint a part of the wall and put down a large (green) rug in the school to create a green screening area... We'll keep you posted!
Our Journey so far!Nursery
As part of a project for Handa's Surprise, the nursery area had it's very own green screen put up at great expense... 5 whole picture hanging hooks and two 15Dhs shower curtains! (I even threw in a green box to store them in, which in itself could come in handy!!) I had planned on creating a more professional area for green screening, and might still do, but for now this is the perfect quick fix for anywhere in the school! The teachers were brilliant in their use of their iPads and took to filming their children and using the green screen features to teleport them to a scene in Africa. The children themselves were delighted and then had some of their 'modelling catwalk struts' uploaded onto SeeSaw, which gave them a place to store content and to share with their parents safely and securely. It also gave the children a GREAT starting point for discussion and placed them firmly at the heart of the book. (SeeSaw - I talk about this amazing app/service later on in the blog, Shameless link/plug).
The picture below shows the screen itself, and I'll put a few examples of the videos created on here just as soon as I can. Year 4
As part of a project on saving Endangered Animals, Year 4 used the iPads and Green Screens to create a persuasive advert to encourage people to stop hunting and killing endangered animals.
The research done to create these was very good from the children and they really thought about the language features they would use to make it convincing. It was our first go and we soon realised that when working at the same time as other year groups, and when recording in full frame quality, we would quickly run out of useable space on the iPads - cue lots of frustration. We got around this by reducing the video quality and systematically deleting video or content that were 'mistakes'. We were also able to save aspects onto our dropbox accounts, although in the time constraints of lessons this proved to be problematic, as was accessing or uploading the videos afterward. I soon realised we needed a much more efficient way of saving and accessing the work for everyone concerned, and that a shared area accessible to all is something that we needed badly in the future. (well... yesterday really, but you know what I mean!) Below are a series of videos that I created to help structure the lessons, have a look and see if they're of any help to you in creating things... I think I confused things by alternating apps along the way, but certainly this multi app multitasking is a skill that can easily be mastered by those digitally savvy children... of which there are many!
After doing the unit in the first term, the children left at the chance to act in front of the screens again to deliver their Humanities content, shown in the very entertaining videos below!
Year 5
Year 5 had a ball using the green screening technology and adapted really quickly to its use. The examples below show the content they were able to produce and their levels of enjoyment and enthusiasm seemed always very high when I observed them at work. (Particularly when they showed visiting children from the Japanese School how to use it!)
I think it's a fantastic tool to put the children at the heart of a scene, or to role play and excite the children. the links to Geographical and Historical application, as well as the link with english, give the opportunity to really enhance their learning experiences, and should be something each year group attempts at least once a term! PlanningThe build up to what is hopefully going to be an excellent week of computing and ICT within BSAK was interesting, with myself and Mr Collings involved in a bit of amature dramatics, getting a video ready for an assembly, meant seeing some green screening and being directed by the Computer Explorers team, which was good fun!
The children will be treated to a carosel of activities from coding to movie editing and will be a great opportunity for both children snd staff to experience something new. :) watch this space!
BeeBots have been the staple of the KS1 computing curriculum due to their ease of use. and children and early years practitioners alike know all about the fun had when using them. The more grown up ProBot is another fantastic tool and allows for programming to be an instantaneous hands on experience. and can be linked well into maths when discussing properties of 2D shapes and angles for example.
The development of Apps using BeeBots also gives another experience of coding in the guise of playing a game and are easy to use and user friendly, as you can see in the links below
Probots are the more mobile and more reliable 'Roamers' and more or less function in the same way. Year 4 use these within maths shape and space lessons and also when working on angles, but also have a unit in Computing that works on sequencing, problem solving and debugging and editing given code.
The videos below are very early sessions on using Probots during our maths sessions!
There's no getting away from it, Minecraft is POPULAR! As well as being downright addictive too it does give scope for a lot of collaboration and also provides a platform that allows children to become very creative. As a self confessed Lego enthusiast, the idea that children can create things, block by block, got me thinking about what children could actually achieve using this program and I'm looking forward to finding that out!
Minecraft PE - iPad Version v Minecraft EDU
While Minecraft EDU is without a doubt the easier to get going and is the standard route to go IF you have the money to spend on it, I found an alternate, and cheaper method of doing this running Minecraft PE. (Although ultimately much more time consuming in the initial set up!)
I'll post more details on how to set up a server (going through the details using envioushost) to run and how to configure it to be in creative mode and installing the Plug ins later on, as well as details on how this is going in class! Stay tuned!
Check out what they've accomplished so far!
|
AuthorWith the computing curriculum becoming more about coding, creation and collaboration over the basics of word processing and document making, The curriculum we deliver needs to change. Here you can see what we are doing to work on and develop this using what we have available to us. . Archives
June 2016
Categories |
Proudly powered by Weebly