Aprendiendo ciencias de la computación mediante un juego

During the past three weeks, many 10th Year students were presented with a cryptography challenge game based on Khan Academy resources. The challenge is to solve a mysterious problem, introduced as a spy story, where the students play in first person. The story begins with an introduction to a historical moment and to the character's descriptions. Once the context and objectives of the game are defined, participants can access a list of clues. Each clue is presented as a cryptographic problem, this is where students must learn and apply CS concepts.

Learning Crypto (Khan Academy Edu Resource)

Each of the mysterious clues consists of a collection of images and stories in which the information is encrypted. Along with the mysterious clues, Khan Academy offers educational resources based on the knowledge necessary to solve the problem. Participants use these educational resources in creative ways and look for the answers contained in the encrypted messages. Each correct answer opens up new possibilities for the next mysterious clues.

Students are definitely having fun while learning, engagement rocketed.

The student's mission does not end with the solution to the mystery game. Their work continues with the use of the problem-solving cycle and its corresponding problem-solving skills set. As there are several different versions, in this case, the selected cycle was: "Solution Fluency Guide" which author is the Global Digital Citizen Foundation. Students complete each stage of the cycle and write a report on their blogs. Every step of the way is recorded along with their reflections.

Student's work specimen

Student's work specimen

The content of the reports is strongly influenced by the concepts of the problem-solving cycle. We emphasize the correct use of these skills from a conceptual point of view. But we also consider as very important the design and format in which reports are presented.This is the reason why students also receive basic instruction in how to integrate text paragraphs, images, and soundtracks into one single report. We focus on content consistency, meaning that each element must provide useful and appropriate information considering the format used.

Multimedia objects, like audio tracks or videos, are inserted using HTML Iframes. 

Students work on the layout and format of their reports.

Audio tracks are recorded in class. Students record their voices separately, for a while they work on the interview questions, then they work on the answers. Once they have recorded the audio tracks, they must create a project in Audacity, insert all the audio components and export the project to an MP3. The exported file is published in Soundcloud, they do this to obtain an HTML Iframe, and thus to be able to insert the track in the article.

Audio tracks are created and added to Audacity

Finally, a brief list of the competencies that students develop:

• Skills for creative problem-solving.
• Composition of a text document with multimedia components.
• Audio editing.
• Publication of content online and in streaming services.
• They acquire knowledge on core subjects in computer science.
• Teamwork and collaborative work.

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Student's reports on Scratch programming

Two pedagogical ideas put together:

Number one. MIT's Scratch is known for providing a stepping stone to the fascinating world of computer programming. The scratch programming philosophy is about creating new code or remix existing coding contents, based on a very intuitive and visual block instruction set. Students develop technological fluencies, as well as creative and design skills with every project they develop.

Number two. Reflection and metacognition strategies are two key features of visible thinking routines. Students that consistently reflect on- and are capable of describing- their learning routines,  achieve a deeper understanding of the subject they study.


How these two ideas come together?

First. Students were presented with a number of introductory projects to learn how to create scripts using Scratch. There is plenty of resources to accomplish this step, one resource I enjoy using is the scratch cards. Here is the link to access them, cards are available in many languages: cards. If you need the cards in a different language, just scroll down and click on the dropdown list.

Students working on their projects

Second. After a couple of sessions, Ss were ready to gear up and the cards were no longer a challenge. At that point in time, more complex projects were introduced. One more time (I really love using OER /open educational resources/ resources) I went with a couple of open access books. "The creative computing" books are a great option, you can download them from here: creative computing.
If you download the creative computing books, both the workbook and the teacher guide, you'll notice that a number of reflection stems are provided. Here it comes to pedagogical idea number two. Students are not only required to program, they are also invited to reflect on their learning.

Third.  Sharing with the world. Each Computer Science class has a blog in which students publish their work and reflect on their learning.

Student's report specimen. Red text is teacher's interpretation. 

Student's report specimen. Red text is teacher's interpretation.

Fourth. Some formatting and layout suggestions were made during sessions, like image centering and framing, use of bold for enhancing important concepts. It also was suggested that no text wrapping around images should be used. Additionally, a combination of text and image was designed to emphasize a short introduction paragraph.

Reports created by the students
Post 1	Post 2

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Waves in motion since 2015

Waves moving since 2015, what does the title of this post mean? For me, but primarily for many of the students of the Goethe Schule Buenos Aires, it refers to one of the many ways in which they record their learning in the course blogs. Since then, uninterrupted every year, students combine text, images, and audio in their articles.

Here a bit of history: https://makeitvisiblenow.blogspot.com/2015/04/you-sound.html

A small sample of today's work

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Sometimes Qs are + important than As

Today I tweeted the header image for this post and immediately after posting, it felt like the idea would stick in my head all day long. Until now that I was able to relate that morning impulse of posting to something more solid. Did you ever wonder what brings an educator to Tweet about a famous quote? I follow a couple of users that share remarkable quotes regularly, but never experienced firsthand the connection between the essence of the selected quote and classroom practice.

Today I found that connection.

pic.twitter.com/wdt3FesAZV

— Anselmo Benassi (@angrabe) 18 de octubre de 2017

Since a couple of weeks, a number of students are using this question stems in class. The "Critical thinking question stems" help students achieve a deeper understanding of the topics they are learning during Computer Science subject sessions. The assignment is to "design" one question from every six stages and answer it. Students are told to select one question stem from each stage and provide an answer, the set of questions/ answers should serve as evidence of their achievements.


Some specimens:

• https://4economics.blogspot.com.ar/2017/08/the-hour-of-code-creating-webpages.html
• https://humacapos.blogspot.com.ar/2017/08/the-hour-of-code-critical-thinking_25.html
• https://los21dalmatas.blogspot.com.ar/2017/08/the-hour-of-code.html

Some other students opted for completing the task using audio, so the assignment turned into a simple simulation of a radio audition.

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¿Cómo podemos utilizar las métricas Khan?

Hemos estado utilizando Khan Academy por los últimos cuatro meses. La selección de la plataforma no ha sido caprichosa, sino que responde a la creciente necesidad de personalizar el acceso a los recursos de aprendizaje. Cada estudiante es único, y ustedes pensarán que afirmar esto es un lugar común, sin embargo no siempre se realizan esfuerzos por personalizar la experiencia de aprendizaje.

Ha sido una experiencia interesante desde varios puntos de vista, con valoraciones positivas y algunos aspectos a considerar para la mejora. La plataforma definitivamente cumple con el objetivo de permitir la personalización de contenidos, cada estudiante puede seleccionar su propio recorrido y tipo de recurso que utilizará para aprender. Para la mejora resta que no todos los recursos disponibles tienen las mismas posibilidades de seguimiento por parte del docente.

La plataforma ofrece información sobre la actividad de los estudiantes. A continuación algunas capturas de pantalla y breves reflexiones.

Uno de los posibles usos de la plataforma de Khan Academy es llevar adelante un programa de tipo "Flipped". Al ver este gráfico de uso podemos observar la dispersión en cuanto a la cantidad de tiempo dedicado en horario escolar y fuera del horario escolar. En primera instancia se podría decir que el tiempo utilizado fuera del horario escolar es escaso, pero esa afirmación necesita de contextualización. Los alumnos asisten a clases durante ocho horas diarias, se retiran a sus hogares a las 16:30 hs. Ahora, considerando la cantidad de horas que permanecen en dentro de la institución, los bloques de color gris oscuro adquieren otro significado, por ejemplo pueden ser indicador de compromiso o interés en los temas de estudio. 

¿Qué información podemos extraer de esta gráfica? En el contexto en que utilizamos los recursos de la plataforma, esta información nos permite dirigir mensajes de estímulo a aquellos estudiantes que no logran llegar al final de cada actividad propuesta. En la experiencia transcurrida durante los últimos cuatro meses, la mayor parte de los estudiantes que comienzan a utilizar un recurso y no lo completan, se debe a que lo abandonan en el último momento. Por ejemplo, dejan incompleto un vídeo en los últimos minutos o interrumpen el uso de un simulador cuando han comprendido el concepto general. Por otro lado, indica que una vez que abandonan un recurso, no regresan al mismo. 

Uno de los desafíos que surge como consecuencia de personalizar el acceso a los recursos educativos, es valorar el esfuerzo de cada alumno en particular. Existen un número enorme de propuestas sobre cómo hacer esto. En el caso particular de la plataforma Khan Academy las dos gráficas anteriores brindan un panorama general. La segunda gráfica en particular combina una vista de los puntos de energía, el tipo de recurso utilizado y la cantidad de tiempo que se ha utilizado el recurso. Por caso, el segundo gráfico nos brinda un indicio del estilo de trabajo de un estudiante, quien tiene accesos esporádicos, distanciados en el tiempo, pero significativos en el avance que produce. Una posible acción del docente ante este indicio, estimular al estudiante para que los accesos sean más frecuentes y los logros con menos "picos", pero más consistentes en el tiempo.

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Why should we learn about....

It is amazing how a simple question as "Why do we have to learn this?" has the power to trigger student's reflection. Silvia's tweet about the topic made me think about this... Take for instance what happened today at @Goetheshuleba HS Computer Science session. A number of 16 years old students are learning about cryptography as part of their CS curriculum, they are playing a game called "Cryptography challenge 101" based on Khan Academy resources. Let us see what happened when students were confronted with the question "Why is cryptography useful in our life?"


The Tweet that started it.....

“Encourage all staff to welcome the question: Why do we have to learn this?”By @mcleod & @shareski #differentschools pic.twitter.com/e9XxGbXplh

— Silvia Tolisano (@langwitches) 1 de octubre de 2017

My first reaction was... "ok, I think that slightly motivated students would have a very different answer from highly motivated ones" and this picture came into my mind.

So, highly motivated learners should respond like "I learn for the love of learning", is that so? or 16 years old students might have a more realistic approach? Following this thoughts, I asked a group of students: "Why is cryptography useful in our life?"

Some others worked on a different approach, like "can you dream / imagine about a gadget that would use cryptography as a main component in the future? "

Before the session was over, two students posted a short personal reflection about all the work done.

#cohortgoethe

The "Why we learn..." question...https://t.co/Of1e7FEGs1https://t.co/yVPUH1bjra

Computer Science students @goetheschuleba pic.twitter.com/JJmg573gqv

— Anselmo Benassi (@angrabe) 2 de octubre de 2017

Student's reflections:

• https://goo.gl/BniapZ 
• https://goo.gl/zjJS1v 

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