#BRESA Tech Talk

'Hour of Code' was celebrated around the world the week of December 7 - 13, 2015.  Hopefully your school participated in this event.  We were out using the class set of Spheros, purchased through a 2014 grant from Honor Credit Union, to help bring coding to life. Working primarily with fourth and fifth graders we had a set of ten Spheros we paired with a district set of ten iPads.  We made sure the SPRK app was installed and arranged the students into teams of three.  Before coming to the school I had created some mazes on cardboard that was approximately four feet by four feet square.  These mazes ranged from easy to more challenging. First we provided a brief overview of the functions needed to code Sphero using the SPRK app.  Specifically we took time to really show the 'roll' action and how to set duration, speed, and direction.  Following this it was up to the students to solve the maze - or create a self-driving car - or dock the ship - or w...

The Honor Credit Union generously donated a sum of $600 to be used for the purchase of a classroom set of Spheros .  A sphero is small, white ball that is a robot.  It connects via bluetooth to your smartphone or tablet and is supported by over 30 free apps available in iTunes or the Google Play Store. Recently John and I took our new toys into Stephanie Lear's 3rd grade classroom at Brown Elementary in St. Joseph.  Her class had used the sphero in small groups for a few days to understand how you could drive the robot before we arrived.  We introduced the app Orb Basic and the coding language behind sphero.  Her students had written some code and begun to learn about the properties of code using the website Purple Mash  to celebrate the National Week of Code. Once the students were organized in small groups and had received their sphero and iPad, John and I shared the first program with them to write.  We used the Orb Basic Lesson One found on...