micro:bits for good
At the beginning of November, 2019, I had the opportunity to travel to Singapore to attend and present at Edutech Asia 2019. During that time, I had the opportunity to hear about their initiative to use micro:bits to help students learn technology in authentic ways. An article from 2017, Micro:bit launch: What you need to know about the coding gadget Singapore plans to introduce, explained it as:
School-going children in Singapore will soon be using a pocket-sized, codeable computer, called the micro:bit, to pick up coding skills. The move is aimed at instilling passion for technology among young Singaporeans. The Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) will work with the Ministry of Education (MOE) to roll out micro:bit as part of its new Digital Maker Programme over the next two years.
In the exhibit hall at the conference, IMDA showcased the micro:bit-for-good projects that groups of Singapore students created. The following video provides a sampling of students explaining their projects.
micro:bit Global Challenge
The Micro:bit Education is sponsoring a challenge to use micro:bits to address two of the UN’s Global Goals: Life Below Water and Life on Land. They provide lots of resources on their website:
- Resources: By completing any of these activities, young people will gain insights into two of the UN’s Global Goals. They can then complete the Design Activity, designing their own prototype solution to a real world problem which they can enter to the do your :bit challenge – https://microbit.org/do-your-bit/resources/
- Inspiration: Looking for some inspiration to get started? Have a look at some of the devices that the winners of our last Global Goals challenge created – https://microbit.org/do-your-bit/inspiration/
Previous micro:bit Global Challenge
In 2015, world leaders came together to decide on a series of “global goals” to build a better world. We challenged students aged 8-12 across the globe to consider how these goals could change the lives of themselves and others, and to design solutions to these goals using the micro:bit (https://microbit.org/global-challenge/)
Although this contest/initiative has officially ended, it could still be used by groups of students as a reference to create micro:bit-for-good projects. Some resources from this challenge follow:
- Global Challenge Resources for Teachers – https://microbit.org/global-challenge/lessons-landing/
- The micro:bit Global Challenge – the winners! – https://microbit.org/global-challenge/winners/
The following is a guide developed by Canada Learn Code to help students prototype their micro:bit global challenge idea.
A Maker Education PD Workshop
I had the privilege of presenting a day long maker education workshop at Edutech Asia on November 7, 2019. I was excited about having teachers and other professionals from Singapore, Thailand, Philippines, Cambodia, India, Malaysia, and New Zealand attend. What follows are some details and highlights.
As they arrived in the morning, I asked them to access the workshop slides and create a name card lit up with an LED.
They then used these name cards to introduce themselves.
Next, they were provided with copper tape, coin batteries, LEDs, and Chibitronics’ circuit stickers along with instructions about how to make series and parallel circuits; and asked to create pictures from their circuits. Here is a video of some of the participants sharing their processes:
Then, they were asked to further reflect on their learning by playing my Maker Reflection Game.
They were then introduced to their next making segment in which they could pick to do one or more of the following projects:
- Bristlebots
- Gami-bots
- More advanced paper circuits
- micro:bit books
- Makey-Makey Characters
I repeatedly encouraged them to take pictures throughout their making processes in order to document their learning.
To reflect on this making segment, they were introduced to several types of online educational technology creation tools to use for their reflective piece. I believe that reflection and assessment should be as fun, exciting, valuable, and informative as the making process itself. Here are some examples from the workshop:
Finally, they were instructed to create a poster using visuals and LEDs in their small groups about their day and how they can apply their learnings when they return to their work environments.
. . . and here are the slides provided to the participants:
Language Arts Lesson Using a micro:book
In Learning in the Making I discuss the importance of and strategies for integrating technology into the curriculum.
Maker education needs to be intentional. It follows, then, that if we want to bring maker education into more formal and traditional classrooms—as well as more informal environments such as afterschool and community programs—it needs to be integrated into the curriculum using lesson plans. This chapter begins with a discussion of the characteristics of an effective maker education curriculum and then suggests a lesson plan framework for maker education– enhanced lesson plans. A powerful maker education curriculum includes the following elements:
- Instructional challenges are hands-on, experiential, and naturally engaging for learners.
- Learning tasks are authentic and relevant, and they promote life skills outside of the formal classroom.
- Challenges are designed to be novel and create excitement and joy for learners.
- Learner choice and voice are valued.
- Lessons address cross-curricular standards and are interdisciplinary (like life).
- Learning activities get learners interested in and excited about a broad array of topics, especially in the areas of science, engineering, math, language arts, and fine arts.
- Communication, collaboration, and problem solving are built into the learning process.
- Reading and writing are integrated into learning activities in the form of fun, interesting books and stories and through writing original stories, narratives, and journalistic reports.
- Educational technology is incorporated in authentic ways; the emphasis is not to learn technology just for the sake of learning it.
Educators need to approach their curriculum and lessons with a maker mindset. With this mindset, they can figure out creative ways to integrate maker activities into existing lessons and instructional activities. Educators in these situations start with the standards and objectives of their lessons, as they typically do with “regular” lessons, and then design or identify maker activities that meet the standards and the lesson. It simply becomes a matter of “How can I add a making element to my lessons to reinforce concepts being learned?”
The micro:book Lesson
After showing the micro:book activity (see https://make.techwillsaveus.com/microbit/activities/animated-microbook) to a bi-lingual co-teacher, Natalia, she took off with it to develop a lesson to teach her Spanish-speaking students types of sentences. See the video below for her explanation of this lesson and a student example.
A Brain Science Hyperdoc Activity
Judy Willis, a neuroscientist turned teacher, in How to Teach Students About the Brain writes:
If we want to empower students, we must show them how they can control their own cognitive and emotional health and their own learning. Teaching students how the brain operates is a huge step. Teaching students the mechanism behind how the brain operates and teaching them approaches they can use to work that mechanism more effectively helps students believe they can create a more intelligent, creative, and powerful brain. It also shows them that striving for emotional awareness and physical health is part of keeping an optimally functioning brain. Thus, instruction in brain function will lead to healthier learners as well as wiser ones.
I teach a unit on the brain each year. This year I am teaching a 9th grade freshman seminar and decided to do a brain science unit with them. For this unit , I created a brain science hyperdoc for them. A hyperdoc is:
A HyperDoc is a digital document—such as a Google Doc—where all components of a learning cycle have been pulled together into one central hub. Within a single document, students are provided with hyperlinks to all of the resources they need to complete that learning cycle (https://www.cultofpedagogy.com/hyperdocs/).
The Brain Science Hyperdoc
Here is a completed brain science hyperdoc so you can see what was required and how one student completed it.
Making Models of the Brain
One of the hands-on activities was to work in a small group to create a model of the brain lobes + cerebellum out of playdoh, and then add post-it note “flags” for each part that indicates its name, function, and how to promote its health.
Creating Neuron Models
As a treat and to reinforce the parts of the neuron, students used candy to make a neuron, label its parts on a paper below, and then show as a group how one neuron would communicate with the next neuron and then to the next and so on.
Creative Writing Activity
One of the final projects of their brain science activities was to pick two activities from the list of creative writing activities about the brain found at https://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/writing.html. One of my students went all out to create a newspaper called The Brainiac News which follows. Using her own initiative, she started a Google Site to post a series of tongue-in-cheek stories. So impressive!
Creating a New Makerspace at Our School
I am beyond elated – our PreK-6 elementary school received monies, through our district’s Computer Science Resolution 2025, to create a STEAM (science, technology, arts, math) makerspace. I never thought our Title 1 school would get the opportunity to create such a space. I never thought I would get the opportunity to help create a fully equipped makerspace. A few of use spent the past few weeks rearranging our library so that one side contains our books and the other our STEAM materials.
We received the following items. Some were put out in the STEAM makerspace and some items the teachers will check out for use in their classrooms:
- Dremel Laser Cutter (in makerspace)
- Makedo Kits (in makerspace)
- Strawbees (in makerspace)
- Dash and Dot (in makerspace and can be checked out)
- OSMO Coding (in makerspace)
- Makerspace Kit (in makerspace)
- BeeBot Robots (in makerspace)
- Squishy Circuits (in makerspace)
- Makey-Makeys (can be checked out)
- littleBits Base Invent Kit (in makerspace)
- micro:bits (3rd-6th grade teachers received their own sets)
- Circuit Playground (can be checked out)
- SAM Lab (can be checked out)
- Green Screen (in makerspace)
Integrating Maker Education Activities Into the Curriculum
As we (the steering committee) envisioned adding a STEAM – Makerspace at our school, we realized that its success will be dependent on the teachers integrating these activities into their curriculum rather than an extra “recreational” activity.
Maker education needs to be intentional. It follows, then, for maker education to be brought into more formal and traditional classrooms as well as more informal ones such as with afterschool and community programs, it needs to be integrated into the curriculum using lesson plans to assist with this integration (Learning in the Making).
To assist our teachers with integrating maker education activities into the curriculum, I created the following Pearltrees aggregate of possible classroom lessons and activities for each of the materials – products we purchased for our school:
In this post, I am also including the following lesson plan template from my book, Learning in the Making that can help with integrating maker education activities into the curriculum :
Cross-Curricular Lesson: Communicating with Parents
As someone who has been in teacher education for several decades, I often think about – teach about how to make curriculum engaging, fun, effective, authentic, and relevant for learners. I believe interdisciplinary or cross-curricular lessons have the potential to do so. I also add, when I am working with pre- and inservice teachers, that there is not enough time in a day to teach-learn everything that is desirable. Cross-curricular activities can help “create” more time as several content area standards can be addressed in one lesson.
Multidisciplinary or interdisciplinary learning is a “whole” or “comprehensive” method that covers an idea, topic, or text by integrating multiple knowledge domains. It is a very powerful method of teaching that crosses the boundaries of a discipline or curriculum in order to enhance the scope and depth of learning. Each discipline sheds light on the topic like the facets of a gem.
I created the following graphic to show the benefits of interdisciplinary standards.
An Example: Communicating with Parents
This past week I asked my freshman seminar class to do a few activities related to communicating with their parents. The goal of this lesson was, obviously, to have to students develop some more effective communication strategies.
Social Emotional Learning and 21st Century Standards
This lesson, at its core, falls into the areas socio-emotional learning and 21st Century Competencies. Ohio established their own set of K-12 Social and Emotional Learning Standards and the following are related to the goals of this lesson.
- Actively engage in positive interactions to make connections with peers, adults and community to support and achieve common goals,
- Establish and actively participate in a healthy network of personal, school and community relationships.
The Framework for 21st Century also identified communication as an important skill with the following standards.
- Articulate thoughts and ideas effectively using oral, written and nonverbal communication skills in a variety of forms and contexts,
- Listen effectively to decipher meaning, including knowledge, values, attitudes and intentions.
English Language Arts Standards
Because the learners were asked to do research and write a letter to their parents, English Language Arts standards were also addressed:
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.9-10.7
Conduct short as well as more sustained research projects to answer a question (including a self-generated question) or solve a problem; narrow or broaden the inquiry when appropriate; synthesize multiple sources on the subject, demonstrating understanding of the subject under investigation.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.9-10.2
Write informative/explanatory texts to examine and convey complex ideas, concepts, and information clearly and accurately through the effective selection, organization, and analysis of content.
Communicating with Parents Poster
Learners were asked to review some online articles about communicating with parents and then make a poster that reflected strategies they believe to be important.
Letter to My Parents
Next, the learners were asked to write a letter to their parents that discussed:
- What types of communications are going well,
- What types of communications are not going well,
- Suggested goals for improving communications.
They were told they were not required to share the letter with their parents. Some examples follow:
Design a Cardboard Chair Challenge
In Learning in the Making: How to Plan, Execute, and Assess Powerful Makerspace Lessons, I discuss a Framework for Implementing Maker Experiences as depicted in the following diagram.
I recently asked my 9th grade students to do a cardboard chair challenge. What follows is how the students went through this framework.
Framing or Frontloading the Experience
Framing or frontloading a maker education experience increases the chances that transferable skills and knowledge result, is framing or frontloading the activities as part of introducing them.
This activity was framed as a continuation of the team building and group communication activities in which the students participated the previous week. They were told that they needed to practice the effective communication skills they identified during the previous activities.
The Experience
The experience is, obviously, the doing or making part of the framework. Below is a cardboard chair challenge guide I found from Creativity Lab and which was shared with students via Google Classroom.
Materials
- Zip Snip Cutting Tool
- Makedo screws and mini-tools
- tape measure
- lots of cardboard
Designs Created in Tinkercad
In their small groups, they created their chair designs using Tinkercad.
Chair Construction
In their teams, students built their cardboard chairs using the Zip Snip Cutting Tool and the Makedo screws to connect the cardboard pieces (worked wonderfully I want to add).
Reflecting on the Experience
To reflect on their maker experiences, student work groups were given a set of cards (see below) to, first, pick cards from the deck to verbally answer, and to, second, choose three of the cards to answer in a blog post.
Example Verbal Responses to the Reflection Questions
Reflection Card Blog Post Examples
The Conceptualization: Researching
Finally, students were asked to create a infographics
Jackie Gerstein, Ed.D.
