Getting Connected to Coding with Dash & Dot

This project has been such a positive and emboldening experience for me.  I feel more enthusaistic about and way more prepared to introduce coding in our school. Familiarizing myself with online Coding courses by participating in two myself definitely boosted my confidence to coach and manage a CS First Club of 9 middle school students.  This club will continue through the end of the school year and I will introduce a challenge opportunity for students to control their story through an object using the Makey Makey .  What I've noticed during this club is students who are actively engaged, working together, excited to share their projects with classmates and on the Scratch site, and willing to identify frustrations with encountering something that doesn't come easy and requires perseverance.

In addition to starting a CS First Club this course was the impetus for me to work to introduce programmable robots using coding apps.  This is the main focus of my project site. I collaborated with the second grade teacher to integrate Dash and Dot into several math lessons about estimation and measuring with the ultimate goal of having the students create a math lesson using Dash & Dot that they can share online via Wonder (the company that created Dash & Dot).

My site includes sample lesson plans to introduce Blockly and coding, the first lesson in the Estimation and Measuring unit, resources I consulted, and an implementation timeline.  I'll be adding more to it today on our last day, but this is a work in progress and I am continuing to develop the math lessons together with the second grade teacher.

My video includes the overarching theme of my project which was to understand and experience coding to see if and how it connects and engages learners, encourages computational thinking, promotes problem solving and perseverance and can be embedded in content areas. I basically tested out much of what Papert, Kafai and Burke discussed in our text this semester.  I am pleased to report that I observed and experienced first hand how teaching and connecting kids with code does truly connect and engage learners in more concrete, personally meaningful and hands on ways .

Here is the link to my project Connecting with Code