Week 7: STAR

         LISTEN TO THE WILD PROGRAM HERE!

         https://anchor.fm/wildcats2022umu/episodes/The-wild-programme-e1g6n1a 

REGARDING THE USE OF “THE HOUR OF CODE”…

What level would be appropriate for this?

Our games were established to fit students from grade 2 to grade 5. Since it is about being in contact with technology, which is a difficult area if you are new to it, I consider the right age to play these games is 9+ years old. 

What is the objective of this task following the bloom taxonomy?

Bloom's taxonomy has several characteristics that are very useful when you want to complete a learning process from the beginning, so we can say that these technological games follow it perfectly. The last step of this taxonomy is about creating something, in this case, the objective we want to achieve is that the students manage to create their own game. Besides, they are able to analyze and evaluate the mistakes they have made by programming, so that they correct them and are able to play it in a comfortable environment for them, and to apply their logical thinking and coding skills to complete these activities.

What content from the curriculum would be suitable to be developed with this activity?

The parts that are more developed using these kind of activities are, clearly, all the ones related to technology, which we can find in:

-Objectives

i) Desarrollar las competencias tecnológicas básicas e iniciarse en su utilización, para el aprendizaje, desarrollando un espíritu crítico ante su funcionamiento y los mensajes que reciben y elaboran

-Competences

c)Competencia matemática y competencia en ciencia, tecnología e ingeniería. d)Competencia digital

Nonetheless, the good thing about this website is that the different games you can play are very different from one another, so there are some of them which could be used  in a music or maths class, for example. For instance, one of the games we played, called Kriss-Kross Puzzle, was aimed to develop rational and logical thinking by completing a crossword, but the truth is that, with the activity, you are practicing linguistics as well, both your mother tongue or a foreign one, since you can choose the language of the games.

What is the added value using digital tools in this case?

In the hour of code website, activities are divided into several categories, finding among them “Poor or no internet” and “no devices”, so that some of them do not necessarily require using digital tools beyond “the hour of code” itself. However, we think that, if possible, using digital technologies is way better, because it adds the value of developing computational and technological skills by testing the website, as well as approaching coding in a way they can truly see it happening.

What ethical problems could you find doing this activity in the classroom?

From my point of view, I do not consider that carrying out these technological activities can lead to many ethical problems, but it is also true that when carrying out activities with technology many children can become frustrated due to the fact that not all people master it, that is, for example if children have problems using it and see that other classmates do not, they can become so frustrated, and for that reason they maybe do not want to use it any more. Also, even though not all the coding activities included on the website require electronic devices, kids who can not afford these may make them feel they are less than the other children. Maybe the best idea would be to use electronic devices inside the classroom that are provided from the school so that children don’t feel that.

What changes do you need to make to allow your students to do it from home? 

Regarding our games, the main problem children could face is  no availability to wifi networks. The changes I would make in order to be able to play them at home would be doing activities that do nor require internet connection or devices, as not all children need to have one.

Moreover, for the “no internet” games, which are mainly based on completing puzzles, a good idea would be for the teacher to print it previously so that every child can take it home, or maybe, if the children practice homeschooling, some of their relatives or friends could print it for them.

Apart from that, the activities do not need more adaptation, since we did these at home and found no problem.