CA BOCES Success Stories
Stories of Success from School Districts and CA BOCES Instructional Support Services
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A new course this year for sixth graders at Olean Intermediate Middle School (OIMS) is called Computer Literacy. The teacher is Mr. Penston and he’s been giving his sixth graders many new experiences with the JASON Learning STEM curriculum bringing in coding and helping them practice their keyboarding skills. Mr. Penston has been working on planning out a curriculum from JASON Learning to give students different activities in sixth grade that will hit some of the new New York State Computer Science & Digital Fluency Standards (CSDF). The kids are having a great time as they learn to collaborate and problem solve. One of the projects that really got the kids excited was having the students use Blockly software to program Dash robots to navigate a path on their classroom floor. Mr. Penston taped off a path that the students needed to try to have their Dash robot travel while not leaving the path. Mr. Penston used blue painters’ tape to construct a winding path from the front of his room to the back. Students used Blockly to create a programming code to give the Dash robot specific instructions on how to move. As the students took turns to run their program with the robot on the path they would make note of any issues or missteps and go back to their Blockly program to fix the error. When a student made it farther than anyone else, Mr. Penston would write the student’s name on the floor in pencil where their robot stopped or left the path. This added another level of competition and also motivated the sixth graders to continue to improve their code. This section of the course using Blockly with the Dash robots got Mr. Penston’s students into learning how to plan, operate their plan, and then reiterate and try again. Nothing is easy or handed to them. They can watch others try it out and learn together, all the while trying to set a new mark for the farthest along the path. This helps expose all of the sixth graders to many of the CSDF standards, all in one class. The students took a survey at the end of the Dash project and they were very positive about the time spent troubleshooting and adapting their coding. Moving forward, the students took the next few weeks to practice keyboarding in class to help them better prepare for the NYS 3-8 assessments which are moving to computer-based testing in ELA, Math, and Science. These sixth graders will be taking ELA and Math this year on a laptop and the more confidence they can have typing, the better they will do on those assessments. Mr. Penston is also going to start having the students take the next step from Blockly to Scratch programming and will be having the Olean sixtth graders working on creating their own video game in Scratch. Exciting times are ahead at OIMS! Thank you, Mr. Penston, and good luck programming to your sixth graders. By: Mark Carls, Senior Coordinator for Curriculum and Professional Development  We ask for, and often receive, suggestions from our teachers and administrators for new products to add to our warehouse. While we try to keep our ear to the ground as far as new products that have a wide appeal and are something we can actually kit, there are lots of things out there that we just don’t know about. Sphero RVR+ is a great example of this.
We have quite a few items in our warehouse made by Sphero, but most of it seemed to be for our younger elementary students and their teachers. One area teacher reached out about Sphero RVR+ and we are pleased to now have these items on our shelves. Here’s a bit about Sphero RVR+ and how these robots can be incorporated into your classrooms. All told, there 2 classroom sets for booking. Each set has six Sphero RVR+ programable robots, accessories, and an accompanying Educator Guide. The Educator Guide is in-depth and has CSDF standards aligned lessons. The robots are drivable right out of the box, packed with a diverse suite of sensors, and built for customization. RVR+ is expandable and made for novice to advanced learners in middle and high school. Here's a bit more from the Sphero website: ENGAGE THE ENTIRE CLASS: Support your learners with 6 RVR+ robots, accessories, and Educator Guides. 1 RVR+ engages 1-2 students, making it ideal for pair programming and collaboration. TEACH WITH CONFIDENCE: The RVR+ Educator Guide contains tips for a successful cross-curricular rollout of RVR+ in your classroom as well as standards-aligned guided lessons and activities. ENDLESS CLASSROOM POSSIBILITIES: The free Sphero Edu app contains hundreds of activities to teach coding and computer science with RVR+, and advanced programmers can level up with Python using compatible 3rd-party hardware. At this point, we only have 2 class sets on the shelves. If demand is high, we will certainly add more. Check them out and see if this might meet your teacher/student needs! By: Alexandra Freer, Coordinator for Media Resources |
Our TeamStories come from school districts within the CA BOCES region and are authored by our Instructional Support Services Team. Archives
November 2024
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