Monday - Today's Concepts

Communication

Throughout today, students had to learn to communicate a variety of ways. Students had to communicate non-verbally with their peers, with specificity and intent during a simulation, and through blocks of code to program an online web tool.

Programming Simulation

In small groups, students 'programmed' one of our facilitators to open a bag of M&Ms, then sort them by color. Facilitators acted as computers requiring specific and clear commands. Following this, students paired up and repeated the activity, taking both a turn being the computer, and the programmer.

Basic Programming Sequences

Each student worked with Tynker, an object-oriented Visual Programming (Graphic User Interface) online web app, similar to MIT's Scratch. Students begin basic programming through placing interlinking blocks through the story of Pixel the puppy.

For & While Loops

A basic loop function allows a command, or series of commands, to be repeated for a specific number of times. A similar loop function allows students to program Pixel to repeat a command, or series of commands, until a certain condition is met.

Keyboard Input

Students can input parallel sequences of code to allow user keyboard input.

A Variety of Additional Options

Students can use these programming blocks, or experiment with new ones, to create and command a variety of objects that can both interact with each other and with user input. Students can also try out and remix content published by other users.