Social discussion of CS in K-12

[Charles Schultz <sacrophyte AT gmail.com>]

The Envy-o-meter is spiking. :) Or as in the Superman meme, I am so jelly!

Wow.....

I am going to have to schedule some days to drop by Kenwood. Frequently. :)

How can I get involved?

On Wed, Oct 8, 2014 at 8:03 AM, Travis Faust <tnfaust AT gmail.com> wrote:

All,

Thanks very much to Joe for that list!  Here are some options we have in place, as well as some background on Kenwood and my current plans for second quarter (subject to change, of course).

• Options:
  

• Joe showed me around S4A (Scratch for Arduino), and I hacked together a primitive game controller (complete with primitive game!) in about 30 minutes later that day at TUFL.
• Joe is willing and able to lend about fifteen S4A kits and some Lego Mindstorms kits.

I think the kids can handle this, and it's a good option, because:

• During our hardware sessions, students have disassembled and reassembled real video game controllers.
• S4A, on Joe's laptops, is clunky and slow.  I plan to parlay the resulting frustration - "Wouldn't it be so much easier if we could just type what we wanted it to do?" - into a transition to text-based languages.
• This can earn buy-in for both a transition to Arduino's own language, and Adriana's Raspberry Pi workshops and the Wolfram language.

I am also open to using other tools, primarily to cultivate multi-platform literacy, and also because it gives me more material for Q3 and Q4.

Please let me know any additional thoughts any of you have on these topics.  Thanks so much for starting this conversation, Charles!

Cheers!

 - Travis

On Mon, Oct 6, 2014 at 8:28 AM, Muskin, Joseph <jmuskin AT illinois.edu> wrote:

 

Here is a page that answers your question from MIT: http://wiki.scratch.mit.edu/wiki/Hardware_That_Can_Connect_to_Scratch

 

 

 

 

Arduino is a large platform, lots of possible tools. S4A interfaces with the Arduino nicely, and once on the Arduino, you can find all sorts of tools.

 

This includes direct connections between Arduino and Lego motors and sensors, see: http://www.robotshop.com/en/arduino-lego-mindstorms-shield-nxshield-d.html

 

There is also the Scratch – WeDo Lego block interface from MIT, see: http://wiki.scratch.mit.edu/wiki/LEGO_WeDo_Blocks

 

Scratch to Lego Mindstorms has another option, see: http://sourceforge.net/projects/silentprj/

 

 

 

From: ctrl-shift-bounces AT lists.mste.illinois.edu [mailto:ctrl-shift-bounces AT lists.mste.illinois.edu] On Behalf Of Todd Lash
Sent: Saturday, October 04, 2014 3:41 PM
To: ctrl-shift AT lists.mste.illinois.edu; Charles Schultz
Subject: Re: [Ctrl-Shift] "physical" etoys

 

Charles,

I did see something like this at ISTE last summer, but I don't remember the name of it.  If want, you could contact Nathan Stevens​ and I am sure he could point you in the right direction.  We follow each other on Twitter, so you could connect with him that way.  

Thanks,

Todd

 

Todd Lash

Magnet Teaching Specialist/Instructional Coach

Kenwood Elementary School

1001 Stratford Dr. 

Champaign, IL 61821

217.351.3815

Twitter:  @Todd_Lash

The Kenwood Tech Story

 

"If we teach today's students as we taught yesterday's, we rob them of tomorrow."  -John Dewey

 

#daretoshare

---

From: ctrl-shift-bounces AT lists.mste.illinois.edu <ctrl-shift-bounces AT lists.mste.illinois.edu> on behalf of Charles Schultz <sacrophyte AT gmail.com>
Sent: Saturday, October 04, 2014 7:18 AM
To: ctrl-shift AT lists.mste.illinois.edu
Subject: [Ctrl-Shift] "physical" etoys

 

Have any of you stumbled across a good hybrid of Legos and either eToys or Scratch (anything built on the Squeak platform)? I know there have been discussions about it on various forums, but not sure if we have played around with it locally or not. I am a big proponent of working with my hands (that's the way I learn), and I would love to "be a kid again" and witness the marriage of Legos and Scratch and share that unending fun with my kids and the students I work with.

 

Espeically with mobile apps and technology going the way it is, I would love to see a mobile app that can control this "physical etoy" as well. I know the technology is there, but is it accessible, yet?

 

I look forward to hearing from you.

 

--
Charles Schultz

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--
Travis Faust

tnfaust AT gmail.com

(847) 461-8728

--
Charles Schultz