Sameeha & Saniya's Scratch & Makey Makey Leanring Story - September 2015

Learner: Sameeha & Saniya                                             Learning Coach :DWilkes      Date:  Sept 2015- Week 8-10                                                      Learning Area: Technology

Learning Observed

For the past few weeks the learners have been engaged in an innovation station!  The learners were given the choice of 4 provocations which included: creating an Ormibot from scratch, designing an object in Tinkercad to print in the 3D printer, designing a Science experiment or designing a series of code using Scratch and Makey Makey each of which would develop their capabilities.  Sameeha & Saniya enjoyed the first week of ‘discovery learning’ where they had some choices of tasks to complete to help them get familiar with the coding programme ‘Scratch’ and the extension kit ‘Makey Makey’ and make connections to their prior knowledge.  Working with other learners, they watched tutorials, tried out their predictions and played around with the various affordances of the equipment and programme.  They used the Makey Makey and Scratch to create a ‘Piano Bow’.  Henry also supported these learners with using the Makey Makey- great collaboration.  For Week 9 and 10 the girls worked collaboratively to design and create a piano game using the Scratch programme and Makey Makey equipment.  In order to piece together the code successfully there was a lot of trialling and prototyping which showed the resilience of Sameeha and Saniya.  They showed their curiosity, thinking and managing self skills by looking at what others had done and making connections to what they wanted to achieve.  See some of their learning below and here.

Evidence of learning

Next Learning Steps

add more code to the animation and share it on the LH1 website and/or teach another learner how to code using Scratch complete your design plan more neatly show the code to your family at home keep working on it until it is perfect- use an iBreak?!

Learner: Saniya Ali  Learning Coach: Margaret Patrick         Date:  25.09.2015

Learning Area: Technology    -  Narrative Learning Story

Learning Observed

Saniya and Sameeha were partners during iExperience. They were using “scratchy scratchy” to animate a character using coding.  They were presenting their learning to the other students and LCs.They had selected a cat and this is what they told me as other learners and I watched them show what they had achieved. “We chose cats. We needed to watch the video 6-7 times. We practiced changing the colour of the cats and the colours of the lights (spotlights) and turning them around. We tried to make some sound but it didn’t work.  We wanted to have three cats with one in the middle at the back. We tried but we put three cats in the a row. We were thinking.  We talked together because we were having trouble. We worked at home together. I visited Sameeha’s house on the weekend and at night after school. We have 8 colours changing when we use the spacebar and the cats spin around and the lights change colour too.”

Evidence of learning

Key Competencies/Vision Principles

Both learners were encouraging each other’s curiosity activating their thinking to learn how to use coding to animate their cat characters. They were collaborating to achieve  their finished animation and self managed their time well including using their own time for learning at home. They were able to  demonstrate their new capabilities using in Using Language, Symbols and text to animate their cats.

Next Learning Steps

Persist and work out they can add the sound. Connect with another expert learner who can help them with specific needs. Try coding new actions for their cat characters eg: walking, and jumping.

Hannah & Saniya's Habitat Design Learning Story

Learners: Hannah & Saniya    Learning Coach: T.Dillner            Date: Weeks 3-6 T3

Learning Area: Science

Learning Observed

In Term 3, LH1 spent a lot of learning time looking at the habitats of animals. They had to select an animal and think carefully about what that animal needed to survive. The learners then had to choose a method to recreate this habitat out of Make It, Localise It, Digitize It or Draw It. Saniya and Hannah chose to Make It and opted to collaborate as a pair on a habitat for a Cheetah. Together, they exercised their curiosity by researching Cheetah information and drafting a brilliant sketch of what they imagined their habitat would look like. They used a model of one they found online to help them. Saniya and Hannah were both able to demonstrate their capability by giving a very clear explanation of their draft sketch by showing where the Cheetah would sleep, eat, drink and play. Following this Saniya and Hannah began making their habitat from cardboard, paper, paint, clay and other craft items found at school. They communicated well which was shown by their ability to complete their design on time even though there were days where only one or the other was present for the Make It sessions.

Evidence of learning

Next Learning Steps

Present their model and learning to a group of learners who did not choose ‘Make It’ for their habitat design. Discuss with family members about their habitat, its features and how they constructed it.