Advanced Robotics - more pictures!

In my earlier post, I included pictures of the students at work.  Here are the robots that they made:

Declan built and programmed this rolling grabber.  

This robot was built by Cecilia, David and Declan.  

Cecilia successfully programmed the robot to avoid obstacles, detect colors,  and grab and move an object.  

This is the robot Garrett and Lane built and programmed. 

This robot moves and turns on three wheels.  When the grabber is attached on the side, it can grab objects. 

This robot was built by Christopher, Everett and Liam.  

Liam successfully programmed this robot to move around, avoid objects, and grab and move objects. 

David built this device.  This brick-less grabber uses two motors and a hand crank to turn and grab objects. 

David built this awesome machine.  The motors communicate via the wire, so it turns and grabs at the same time. 

Advanced Robotics - pictures!

For the last two Fridays, we've been working in a brand-new Friday Group - Advanced Robotics!  In order to be eligible, students must complete the beginner course, so these are dedicated engineers.

Our first two weeks consisted of review challenges.  Our robots had varying designs and students were very successful in building and programming their robots to complete challenges.  Here are some pictures of our students at work:

Updates from Technology

Hello, all!  I hope everyone has had a wonderful November!

This month has been an exciting one in the computer lab!  Here is the super-quick-nutshell version of what we've been up to lately:

• Lower Elementary students have been visiting twice a week, on Monday and Friday afternoons.  From now on I'll see them on Mondays only.  We developed great skills - using the mouse, printing, navigating kids' websites, turning on the computer, plugging in headphones, and adjusting volume - and we can do it all on our own!  We made our very own crowns with Princess Presto's Spelling Bee, read Stellaluna on the computer, learned fun bat facts, and read books using the TAG readers.  
• Middle Elementary students have started learning how to type! 
• Upper Elementary students have been learning about the Gaggle accounts. We also completed fun activities to reinforce classroom lessons about Jamestown and Simple and Complex Machines
• Middle School students completed the cybersafety unit, in which we learned about preventing cyberbullying, making safe choices, and being mindful of what we post on profiles and other online places. 
• The Japanese Culture Friday Group played Dodgebee, tried delicious foods (we even cooked the Oden! - a fish, tofu, and vegetable stew) and learned about Shinto.  

I'm so looking forward to the Thanksgiving Luncheon on Wednesday.  I think I'll bring in some fudge, made from Grandma's favorite recipe, for the potluck. Please remember that we are dismissing at 1:00pm from Hollins University!

Happy Conference Day!

I hope everyone had a productive, pleasant conference today.  I enjoyed the visitors who popped into the lab to say to hi to me throughout the day.  I look forward to seeing everyone again tomorrow!

Japanese Culture Friday Group

Last Friday was the first day of our 5-week exploration of Japanese culture.  We will be viewing movies and clips created by the famous Japanese director, Hayao Miyazaki.  We will also do some activities to immerse ourselves in the culture.

Last week students did an online scavenger hunt on the website KidsWebJapan, a great resource for information about Japanese culture.  They really enjoyed the games and activities available there.  Most students also used the Katakana chart to figure out how to write their own names in Japanese.  Students wrote their names on paper lanterns, now on display on the front window of the computer lab.

 

Technology Update

Hello, all!  Sorry I've been so remiss in keeping up with these updates.

It has been a busy month since our last post.

The Robotics Group finished up, with amazing "battle-bots" they designed and programmed themselves!  We are anxiously awaiting some photographs that were taken, and I will share them on this blog. I was very, very impressed impressed by the creativity, hard work, and good teamwork the students displayed.

Students in Lower Elementary have been doing games and activities on PBSKids.org and SesameStreet.org to reinforce classroom lessons during computer time in the last few weeks.

Students in Upper Elementary and Middle Elementary students took some photographs last week, which we will use in our activities over the next 3-4 weeks.  This week, Upper Elementary students will set up the Gaggle accounts, and learn how to use some basic tools like Email and the Digital Locker.  Middle Elementary students are doing activities using Pixie and our photographs to reinforce classroom lessons in math and literacy.

Students in Middle School have been learning about cyberbullying: what it is, how to prevent it, and what to do if they witness an act of cyberbullying (either toward themselves or others).  We watched a movie about cyberbullying and wrote our own movie review on our Gaggle blogs, and students will prepare short presentations for discussions based on real-life cases of cyberbullying.

Students in Billifer's class (third year/seminar) presented their own cyberbullying presentations to Keri's and Emily's classes this morning.  We spent about 3 weeks learning about cyberbullying and preparing presentations for 6-8 year old students.  They did a fantastic job sharing these presentations today!  I am so impressed, proud, and pleased!  They conveyed the material appropriately and succinctly, and interacted perfectly with the younger students.  (The middle elementary students were also very good - they listened attentively and seemed to learn a lot!)

The computer lab continues to be a busy, fun hub of learning here at Community School!  I'm so pleased with everyone's continued hard work and curiosity.

This Week in Technology

This has been an exciting week in the computer lab!

Lower Elementary classes watched the next episode in the online adventures of Hector and his Friends.  We learned about how to determine if someone is trustworthy or not, and ways to tell the difference.  We identified adults that are trustworthy, like policemen, teachers, and our parents.  We also colored illustrations for a storybook version of the video to add to the classroom library.

Middle Elementary classes learned about computer viruses!  Computer viruses make the computer "sick", so it stops working quickly, and sometimes will not work at all!  We learned that viruses spread quickly, with the use of glitter and a fun outside game!  Then we learned how to prevent the spread of computer viruses - by using  antivirus.  Antivirus is like soap for the computer; just like we wash our hands to prevent the spread of germs, using antivirus can prevent unwanted programs from spreading to the computer.

Upper Elementary classes also learned about computer viruses, malware, and trojans.  We played a fun outside game to learn about how antivirus tracks down and stops computer viruses.  We also learned important terminology and reinforced our knowledge with a computer game on Netsmartz Kids.  Next week we will learn about password safety and avoiding and preventing cyberbullying, in preparation for our Gaggle accounts!

Middle School classes reviewed basic skills for typing papers for class.  We reviewed how to create documents, format, use spelling and grammar check, and save documents.  We also talked about various ways to store our documents to bring them in, particularly using the Digital Locker in Gaggle, and how to turn them in using the Homework Drop Box features.  We reviewed how to open documents from our Digital Locker, both in Microsoft Word and using Zoho docs.

Seminar has started creating their own short presentations to share their knowledge of cyberbullying with students in Lower Elementary classes.  Each presentation will include a definition of cyberbullying, tips for preventing cyberbullying, and instructions for students to follow if they are victims of bullying online.  Students have used various tools to create these presentations - puppets, Pivot Stick Figure, Pixie, MS Word, and Scratch were all used this week!  We will continue working on our presentations next Wednesday, and I hope we can present them soon after Fall Festival.

This week the Robotics Friday Group is working hard on building four different robots.  We are creating the RoboGator, two different types of ShooterBots, and a Strider (spider) bot.  Last week we learned how to program our robots to move, make noise, and display various things.  This week we will combine these previously acquired skills with sensor programming so that our robots can interact with their environment.

Thanks to all students for another great week!