Week 8: Chosen Activity

In order to create an activity for my students, I will be extending from the challenge of "creating a robot" that was provided to us in week 8 on the moodle site.

To introduce the topic to my students, I would show them a few resources and YouTube videos that are similar and/or the same as to what we have been provided with in the duration of the course. The site like Khan Academy and Thinking Myself will introduce the basic knowledge of algorithms and coding which will be used to create their game.

I would introduce my students to the Angry Bird game which teaches my students to code and program, however it doesn't have the flexibility of being able to create an activity themselves. I see this as a major fault because I believe that students learn best through doing and implementing, so I would use this game mainly to engage my students around the topic. It is a great tool to support my student's understanding of areas in computational thinking.

I would then present them with the criteria of working in groups of 3 or 4 to create a game similar to the example provided on Scratch. I would introduce them to this new site and show them the demonstrations of how to use the site, but their criteria will be to come up with their own game.

During the first week, you could get students to work in the small groups and participate in designing their game. Students will swap with other groups and give peer feedback to each other. This relates to the Aims of the Australian Curriculum: 

• investigate, design, plan, manage, create and evaluate solutions
• critique, analyse and evaluate problems, needs or opportunities to identify and create solutions

Once students have received their feedback, they can then go onto creating their game using the Scratch website. They will work together to create Algorithms and demonstrate their knowledge of coding. This section will relate to the Aims of the Australian Curriculum:

• are creative, innovative and enterprising when using traditional, contemporary and emerging technologies
• engage confidently with and responsibly select and manipulate appropriate technologies − materials, data, systems, components, tools and equipment − when designing and creating solutions

Through this experience, students will achieve the rationale of the Australian Curriculum that states, "This learning area encourages students to apply their knowledge and practical skills and processes when using technologies and other resources to create innovative solutions, independently and collaboratively, that meet current and future needs. A systematic approach to experimentation, problem-solving, prototyping and evaluation instills in students the value of planning and reviewing processes to realise ideas.

Technologies can play an important role in transforming, restoring and sustaining societies and natural, managed, and constructed environments.

Refernce

ACARA. (2015a&b). Technologies Aims and Rationale. Retrieved 1 May, 2015 from, http://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/technologies/rationale and http://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/technologies/aims