EDU 642 Week 6: Computational Thinking and AR in Education

Application

I explored, read, and learned so much about computational thinking this week. I enjoyed reading the purpose and stages behind computational thinking as well exploring some tools to help integrate this in the classroom. After reflecting on my learning, there is much to be said about applying computational thinking in the classroom. I know that this is such a critical skill for our students to have in order to be successful as this helps with problem solving, something that many students do not get much practice with, but I know it will take a lot of work to implement effectively. At first, my thinking just turned to finding a way to implement time to code in the classroom by using a website like code.org or many other websites that are geared toward teaching kids how to code. However, I feel like to make computational thinking relevant to my students and for it to be something that they will remember and carry on with them in their future, it needs to be connected to everyday activities and not just that one hour of coding that I try to fit in once a week. To implement this into my classroom, I think that it would take some time to plan out activities for my students to complete for the hour of code time, because like I said earlier, I don’t think it is effective to just tell students to get on a certain website for an hour and try coding. Therefore, I would ideally like to come up with tasks for my students to complete within these websites, and it would be even better if these tasks could connect to something we are learning about or working on reading or writing or math. I also really like the idea of having students complete unplugged coding tasks. I think these would be engaging for students and give them a break from the screen. However, before implementing these coding times, I think that students also need to know the process and steps of computational thinking. To effectively implement this, I think that I would have to start slowly introducing the stages of computational thinking into our content. This could be practicing coming up with specific steps to solve a math problem to help students with algorithms or taking a problem in science that we are learning about and breaking it down into small pieces to practice decomposition. I think by integrating these techniques into all of our curriculum, it will become more meaningful.

To help this implementation be successful, I think that this would require planning and change in the way I think. I think that as an educator, I would need to start actively thinking about computational thinking on a daily basis. When planning lessons, I need to think about how I could connect math, reading, writing, or science and social studies to one of the four techniques. Also, to make the coding time meaningful, this would also involve more planning to make sure that this time was effective for my students. However, I think as educators we have to find the balance of giving them goals to complete, but not too specific that it would hinder their own independent learning which I think is necessary for computational thinking to happen. Obviously with this year being such a difficult year, I know that this would affect the implementation of these ideas. I think I also have some hesitation with this because I still myself am not very confident in working in these programs. I have explored many coding websites and tried to create something and often find myself stuck and not sure what to do next. Therefore, I know I need to put more time and effort into my learning of computational thinking for this to be successful for my students.

Reflection

I explored quite a few different websites and resources for augmented reality in the classroom. I loved reading the article about Pokemon Go and how the ideas found in Pokemon Go should be found in education including the physical activity of getting kids moving, the unity it provided between many different groups of people, the problem solving skills involved and the engagement it provided (2017). The biggest challenge that I found with augmented reality was that most of the apps need to be used on a tablet or a smartphone and my school only uses Chromebooks. I tried to find some websites that used AR for Chromebooks, and found a few, but not too many. One website that I found was CoSpaces EDU. This website had VR and AR options. It had galleries that were already created that students could explore. For example, I looked through one where someone had created a walkthrough of COVID-19 including what it was and how it spreads. Students could also create their own space with different characters and objects. The hardest part about these technologies is trying to find a way to implement them in the classroom that ties into curriculum. I did find a measurement app that uses augmented reality to measure things in the real world. I think this would be fun for students to use in a math measurement unit. I also really enjoyed the Merge Cube that was shown in class this week. This is a fun interactive tool that is pretty inexpensive. I think that this could be used for demonstrations to the class for a variety of science concepts.

Another activity that stuck with me from this week was the unplugged coding activity we did with the computer and the programmer. I thought that this would be a great way to introduce coding and computational thinking in a way that all students would be able to understand. I know that this activity even helped my understanding of computational thinking. Lastly, the articles about computational thinking really stood out to me while I was reading about them and how to implement computational thinking into the classroom. One article really caught my attention when it explained coding as learning a new language, except instead of communicating with another person, we are communicating with a device (2017). This helped my understanding of these concepts and also showed the importance of learning these skills.

Ultimately, I enjoyed all of the learning and exploring that took place this week for me. I know that I found more tools to help me implement computational thinking into my classroom. I grew in my understanding of computational thinking, I know I still have more to learn, but I do think that I have a better grasp on the concept and how to better teach my students. Lastly, I grew in my thinking that coding and computational thinking doesn’t just need to be separate or extra in the curriculum, but that it is best taught when it is weaved into our lessons like reading, writing or math.

Sources:

Burks, D. (2017, February 16). 5 reasons why coding is a skill you should learn in 2017. CBC. https://www.cbc.ca/life/wellness/5-reasons-why-coding-is-a-skill-you-should-learn-in-2017-1.3987041

Gracey, L. (2017, January 12). Pokemon GO: What education should be • TechNotes blog. TechNotes Blog. https://blog.tcea.org/pokemon-go/