Module 9 – Unplugged CT

Hi all,

I actually tried out all of the activities in the Unplugged Computational Thinking with my kids (9, 11, 13).  There was much debugging and all of my kids play around with Scratch pretty regularly to share their coding experiences, it was so interesting to see how things did and didn’t transfer to “unplugged” coding to provide directions to make a sandwich at first. They all were fine with the plant a seed activity, and we all learned about bits, nibbles and bytes with the binary code bracelet activity. I think these activities are wonderful for getting especially little kids interested and familiar with concepts and terms in a fun way. The students my teacher candidates work with are in middle and high school so I’m thinking more about how I could provide opportunities for teacher candidates to fold in some computational thinking activities into their work with their students with disabilities who range in experience, interest and skill levels. Rhonda and I are working on exactly this for at least part of our project.

The other camp I spent time with was AI in education. Being brand new to checking out ChatGPT I had my mind blown then 30 minutes later was feeling exasperated with “what now?” teacher thoughts, and then this module really helped me sort through my thinking and see some good examples of what others are doing to pull my thinking through to a more creative and not quite inspired, but interested space.

I think the framework of computational thinking is a wonderful one we can lean into in many areas of my work with teacher candidates because they will need that to roll it forward into their own work with students. In the tech course I teach, we talk about what to do when your Smartboard is not working or the tech you planned to work with doesn’t go your way, or what if you don’t have access to high tech equipment. Having the solid thinking done about what skills you are hoping to develop in your students, will support you in pivoting with tech glitches as well as planning for unplugged opportunities for generalization and transfer. Teaching tinkering with what you have to play with an idea is a gem in “unplugged” computational thinking, which we can pass on to our teacher candidates.

So, this module I actually had a good time with.  I did each of the activities.  I tried to build an algorithm for making oatmeal.   I know while doing this which is something I do so frequently (making oatmeal, that is) I really did engage some computational thinking skills in order to insure that my algorithm would actually produce what I wanted.  I used the skill of algorithm thinking to create my series of steps that would appear to be a system which would produce oatmeal; I used debugging a few times because making oatmeal is so familiar to me I wanted to be sure I was clear and I used the skill of decomposition to break down some steps which may have been confusing and make them into smaller steps which would be clearer and less problematic to follow.    I did the binary bracelets activity and decoded  the message – I like to code. I can see the computational thinking skills being easily transferred into my college courses and/or across any subject discipline.  Using skills such as data practices, decomposition and selecting tools, just to name a few would make the understanding of course material easier for students.  I especially see selecting tools and decomposition as aligned to the idea of differentiated learning and the idea of algorithm thinking , computational modeling and decomposition with the practice of scaffolding.  I think it might be important to leverage both plugged and unplugged computational thinking activities because I believe that the unplugged activities will give students an opportunity to learn in a literal way and move across the comprehension continuum as they use plugged activities which will bring them through the inference level of comprehension and thinking skills into  the evaluative level of comprehension and thinking skills which are higher order thinking skills

I tried out all three activities, though I spent more time with the jamsandwich algorithm and the binary bracelet activity (the plant a seed one seemed a bit simplistic in that it didn’t require as much higher order thinking). I enjoyed the jamsandwich video a lot and how the teacher really brought to life the idea of debugging with what seemed to be very young children. Throughout all of these modules, I’ve been trying to think ahead a little bit to what artifact I might create around creating an unplugged activity to teach CT that I can embed into my math methods course. This  jamsandwich algorithm activity inspired me to perhaps create an activity for my teaching geometry unit where students will create any shape on grid paper and create an algorithm to guide someone else to draw that shape through simple oral instructions. This may obviously change after learning more in my summer camp session, but for now, it was nice to have a concrete idea spark in my head.

I also tried the binary bracelets one, but I’ll be honest that my head hurt a little after decoding just a couple of letters in the message. I kept trying to look for more efficient ways to search the 26 letters and decode which one it is based on the 8 units in the byte, but I found it tedious and hard.

I’ve been grappling with the question of how to introduce CT in my math methods course, so it’s helpful to thank about why it’s helpful to apply CT across the disciplines. In my own mind, I’ve always likened it to writing across the curriculum – that in the 21st century something like CT should actually be taught as a fundamental foundation the way reading and writing is – which we never push back on and question why it should be applied across disciplines.

I like that we’re also attuned to leveraging unplugged activities because I see it as a way to equitably teach CT to more students, especially those who are not in schools or households that have the programs or devices necessary for plugged activities. I also feel that unplugged activities might be more accessible for some students, as well as young children in PreK to 1st grade.

I Like To Code.

I enjoyed the Jam Sandwich and the Binary Bracelets activities.

The other day it was so hot and I did not know what to cook for dinner. I decided I wanted a cold Gazpacho soup. I always loved that soup in restaurants but never attempted to make it on my own. I followed the recipe (algorithm) from the NYTimes and I also looked at the comments at the bottom and replaced some of the more difficult steps with easier ones that people in the comments left. I replaced cooking and chopping tomatoes with canned tomatoes. I subtracted some other ingredients and added others as well. I think the people who left comments served as sort-of debuggers for me.

As a former ELA teacher it reminds me of a poster I used to have up in my classroom. The poster was of a huge hamburger and each ingredient represented a part of the 5 paragraph essay. The buns were the opening and closing paragraphs, the lettuce and meat and tomato were the body paragraphs.

Connecting anything to food is a good idea for me, because I love food.

The activities provided were awesome. I tried something similar to the jam sandwich activity with my pre-service teachers in class last semester. It was very engaging and playful. I enjoyed teaching about logarithms without telling students before hand.

Hi:

I enjoyed engaging with the different activities as I tried all 3.  I spend the most time with the binary bracelet activity and to be honest, I did struggle with it quite a bit!

I teach an assessment course in our MAT in Early Childhood program at Queens College.  The pedagogical notions that we discuss transcend across the content areas, and thus, our exploration of the notion of CT must be investigated across content areas as well.

The exploration of unplugged CT is critical from a number of different perspectives.  I believe that educators and parents often view CT and in particular screentime, from a dich0tomous-focused perspective: ‘All screentime is disadvantageous to the socio-academic development of our children.’ However, I do think that an exploration of this topic will allow us to see how, if/when used judiciously, CT with our youngest learners can be extremely beneficial.

In addition, a unplugged CT experience has the opportunity to foster widescale accessibility across centers/learners. Many early childhood centers may not have computers/laptops.  As such, a focus on an unplugged experience will allow ALL young learners at different centers to access a CT experience fully.  Finally, a focus on the unplugged CT experience will allow educators and caregivers the opportunity to view CT from a more holistic perspective–that is, that CT can be infused throughout the learning experience.