Post #1 how it all started

I've been in the classroom proper for the last 5 years, including the COVID-19 pandemic. None of it has been easy, but it is getting easier. This blog is for those new teachers thrown into the thick of it and need a bit of support, emotionally, technically or maybe just a friendly ear to hear about your day.

These are the days where teachers are quitting in droves. I thought about it, several times myself. I don't fault those that have. Some just can't take the politics of it all, some are weary of day to day whipsawing between administration and the school boards. Some are feeling it's not worth the risk of dying, with so many unknowns. I was really disenchanted with the lack of interaction with my students. I had no clear understanding of whether I was being even heard, much less understood for many months. I saw so many ceilings of my student's homes, if they had their cameras turned on. And as I signed off for another hour, there were always a few unclosed student panels, that were unmonitored.

Where is this going? I'm here to help teachers teach. I'm slogging right with you in the classroom. I'm here to support you with a bit of education, with projects and tips I've used myself and share my wins and losses. I'm trying to be as authentic as possible.

Let's dive in with CSTA 2022. Chicago is a much bigger town than I remember. We presented microbits in a workshop format

For my part of the workshop, I used ultrasonic sensors and servo motors connected via alligator clips to the Microbits. In the first part of the workshop, I had my participants become familiar with the wiring of the servo motors and then writing the block code in Microsoft's MakeCode Editor. If you haven't played with these credit card sized computers in your classroom you should. They bring a great dimension to your classroom. I have used them with kids aged 10-18. They are all delighted to see what they can build in an hour. And because the microbit is a fairly flexible computing platform, there's lots of room for tinkering.

After we wired up the servo motors and got a quick tutorial on the editor and code blocks, we quickly coded the pre-made solution link here . I explained how it worked and showed my pre-fabricated solution. My servo was embedded into a pocket in my play doh container and it was hot-glued to a Pikkachu sign made with print outs glued to a popsicle stick. This would be level 1 of the project. Then a quick gallery walk by the teacher around the classroom would suffice as a formative grade for this project, as it's easy to grade a wiggling sign on every desk. You'll find, that I'm big on these types of formative assessments. I can quickly spot who has it and then walk over to the students that are slow or struggling and help if necessary.

And I do a spot check on my table to understand what they realized, or learned along the way. Simple questioning as to what they did, or want to do next is a great way to get a quick feel from your students. The ones that have figured it out easily, are eager for the next part, or to tinker with it more. The ones that barely figured it out, are reticent to do much more, as they want to retain their "completion grade" and are mentally taxed and need a break.

Back to the workshop. We then did part 2, where I introduced the ultrasonic sensor and the Makecode extension required. This component is almost as easy to connect to the microbit with alligator clips and definitely requires an additional 5 volt power supply with a 4xAA battery pack. This project isn't much harder, but requires more background on coding concepts. The first is a "variable" . We create a variable in the Makecode editor and then assign the output of the ultrasonic block to the variable, which I normally have everyone rename to "distance" and set the distance in the ultrasonic block to centimeters.

Then we can display that information graphically in the makeCode Editor, or numerically as the values scroll by on the LED field of the microbit or again scroll down the page in the console area of the editor.

This is quite pleasing for everyone as they see numbers scroll down or a graph easily scroll by showing their hand's distance away from the sensor. A true sense of accomplishment is shared. You can easily read their faces light up as they "get it"

As it was a workshop, we were time limited, and we had all the participants do a gallery walk of the other types of lessons, in robotics, python coding and beginning microbit coding. But as a teacher, this is where you have them a) confirm the ultrasonic sensor is indeed measuring centimeters accurately with a table for them to fill in with a ruler, and for the servo motor, have them point their sign at fixed angles , ( 0-90-180-45-60 degrees) pausing for a second in between to ascertain their programs work properly.

And as a stretch goal for the quick workers, have them produce code that has the sign wiggle in relation to the distance their hand is away from the ultrasonic sensor.