Week 8

Programming a Model Foundation - Year 2

During last weeks reflection I was considering how digital technologies could be included in the classroom and the pedagogy that could be used to promote understanding. I struggled to find concepts in last weeks material that could be used to support Foundation to year 2 curriculum. 

After reading this weeks activity of creating a set of instructions for a visually impaired students or making toast, I have realised I was thinking about the curriculum to literally. I think this task is a great way for students to engage with algorithmic thinking and it is definitely something I would use in my classroom. The pedagogical approaches to teaching this would include; allowing students time to complete the activity, providing support when required, prior knowledge of the concept of forwards, backwards, left and right, support in finding alternative pathways and supporting experimenting. This is a great activity to encourage students to develop social skills as the will need to communicate with their peers to assess whether their instructions are correct or not. Lastly, I love that this activity encourages problem solving skills which will enhance their ability to problem solve in other areas of curriculum - such as mathematics. 

Programming a Robot Year 3-4

I think the most appealing thing about the Angry Birds programming is that it is a game that has already built a large following with children and they will be more engage because of it (and you get a neat certificate when you are finished). I believe that curriculum can be interpreted many ways and it is dependent on the individual as to how they see it and how it is implemented. Personally, I interpret the Hour of Code activities as way of engaging students in digital solutions and algorithms as well as extending problem solving abilities. For activities such as these, I would provide a set of instructions for the students to access the website, begin programming and allow them to explore the activity at their own pace. This will allow the student as much time as they need to understand the activity and progress with the class. 

Scratch

During our class this week we watched the video about Scratch and this ignited my excitement for the program and digital technologies curriculum. As a class we discussed the pedagogy that was used throughout the video. Some of these things  include (Holmes, 2015):

• Having conversations
• Developing processes
• Use think-aloud techniques 
• Use visioning questions
• Support sharing 
• Encourage multiple pathways

Using scratch covers many aspects of the curriculum from year 4-6, however this is a program that will take a long time for the children to get their heads around and would be something that was completed over the term or the year. I began created a game below.