User Generated Education

I love bringing physical computing into my classrooms:

Physical computing refers to the use of tangible, embedded microcontroller-based interactive systems that can sense the world around them and/or control outputs such as lights, displays and motors. Assembling the hardware elements of a physical computer and programming it with the desired behavior provides a creative and educational experience. A variety of physical computing devices are established in the market, including: Arduino, Raspberry Pi, Circuit Playground, and the BBC micro:bit (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/project/physical-computing/)

. . . but as with all use of educational technologies, I believe that it should be used intentionally to assist learners in developing and expanding their content knowledge and life skills.

Standards Addressed

ISTE Standards for Students

• Know and use a deliberate design process for generating ideas, testing theories, creating innovative artifacts or solving authentic problems.
• Develop, test and refine prototypes as part of a cyclical design process.
• Exhibit a tolerance for ambiguity, perseverance and the capacity to work with open-ended problems.
• Create original works or responsibly repurpose or remix digital resources into new creations.

Next Generation Science Standards

• Analyze data from tests to determine similarities and differences among several design solutions to identify the best characteristics of each that can be combined into a new solution to better meet the criteria for success.
• Develop a model to generate data for iterative testing and modification of a proposed object, tool, or process such that an optimal design can be achieved.

Math Standards

• Measure angles in whole-number degrees using a protractor. Sketch angles of specified measure.
• Graph points on the coordinate plane to solve real-world and mathematical problems.

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Artificial Intelligence, the Teachable Machine, and micro:bits

Thanks, Cora Yang, for this!

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The Data Logger Spoon Race with micro:bits and MakeCode

Thanks, Katie Henry and Jacqueline Russell, for this!

The micro:bit Python editor can also be used to code the data logger for the spoon race:

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micro:bit Pal Coded with Python

Python is an excellent first text-based language to learn. Its instructions and syntax are based on natural language, making code easy to read, understand and modify. As well as being widely used in education, it’s used in industry, especially in the areas of data science and machine learning. Python is not just used by software developers, but also by people working in fields as diverse as medicine, physics and finance. Python on the BBC micro:bit brings the benefits of physical computing to students aged 11-14, learning programming fundamentals through text-based coding: immersive, creative experiences for students that help build engagement and knowledge (https://microbit.org/get-started/user-guide/python-editor/).

Here is a micro:bit pal coded with Python example that I will share with my students:

. . . and the code is:

Here are some student micro:bit pals coded with Python: