Sidewalk Chalk

Quote of the day: "It was one of those fight or flight things, and you cant fight a mouse." 12th grader explaining why he ran from a mouse.

We had a four legged mouse in the lab today, tiny and cute, but its gotta go. The kids have already named it Billy and want to keep it.

Considering this week started with 7 inches of snow and today it is 80 degrees they have been a bit off the walls, even without rodents.

So, for the CS Principles class we went outside today. Weve been working on Algorithm design (Big Idea # 4). To work on this we did sidewalk art. each team was given a copy of a lab we will program in C++ next month, and using pseudo-code they had to plan out a solution. We havent done ifs or loops in C++ yet, but they all came up with a correct algorithm for solving the problem.

We started this fall with BYOB Scratch, and they seem to be doing much better this year with using methods in designing their programs. They all got exactly how to call existing methods to find the solution. I am looking forward to seeing if how their labs compare to previous years students after drawing out their plans.

Read More..

Computer Science Recipe Sidewalk Chalk Prototyping

We do this while the kids are working on their Programming Portfolios in the APCS Principles class. We pick a sunny day early on when they start this portfolio and head outside.

Ingredients:

• Markers
• Blank Paper
• Sidewalk chalk - feeling crafty? Heres a recipe
• Sidewalk

Steps:
The Portfolio for Programming is a partner project. A lot of the writing they will have to do will analyze how the program came together. It is helpful for teh students to stop and draw out the program so they have a clear mental piture of what it is supposed to do.

At the beginning of class I give each pair some paper and markers.  I ask them to draw a picture of what their program does. They can illustrate it anyway they want, but no words.

I then have them do an elevator speech and present their drawing to the class. They have 30 second to give a snapshot of what they are working on.

Towards the end of class we head outside. For this drawing they are illustrating how they will create the program they described. I do not give any structure to this.

We then do a chalk walk and each team describes how they plan on solving the problem.

The main point is to get them really describing what the program does and how they intend to get there.

Read More..