I have a few students who wanted to switch screens using a drop down menu but we have not been able to figure out how to get this to work. Any suggestions would be appreciated.
Dropdowns are bit more complicated than buttons because we need to add a conditional inside the event to check which option was selected. Because this is beyond the scope of programming, students may have to move to the full App Lab to get access to these commands. Assuming a dropdown with id “menu”, your code might look like:
onEvent("menu", "change", function(event) {
var choice = getProperty("menu", "value");
if (choice == "Red") {
setScreen("red");
} else if (choice == "Green") {
setScreen("green");
} else if (choice == "Blue") {
setScreen("blue");
}
});
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Thanks josh,
I have a student that was playing music from a dropdown list. His code was a bit different but worked in the lab but not on the phone. We will try this.
Norm
Hi, I made some youtube videoes on the usage of app lab, expanding abit in the future.
But well naration is on danish, but the code is simple to follow.
I hope that helps abit.
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How do students link their screens together for their project in unit #4 App Lab. I thought that they were being connected with the URL’s in screen order, but that doesn’t appear to be working.
Thanks.
lwatson@effingham.k12.ga.us My work email.
It looks like they’re sharing their “share” URLs from their individual pages. Is it possible that they have errors in their “share” URLs?
How do students move to the full app lab to do this?
If students have already started a project, they can use the “Remix” button at the top of the page which will take them to the App Lab with all of the blocks available in App Lab. If they want to start a project from scratch in the App Lab, they can access it here: https://code.org/educate/applab
If for any reason, the “Remix” button is missing, they can switch their project into text mode and copy the javascript text and then paste it into a new project using the URL Above.
Hope this helps!
Mike
I am frustrated with this Lesson as my students have been busy creating their Paper Prototypes and utilizing many of the screen elements. However, the only event that has any practice on or instruction on how to code is the buttons (to click to get to another screen). I wish there would have been some instruction earlier on to have kids make sure their apps are very simple (just using buttons). I have students who are creating radio buttons and drop down menus. I did find Remix to get into the actual App Lab but now real direction on how to create the code for the drop down menu.
I completely understand your frustrations. I do get some students who are very creative and then feel a little disappointed that their ideas aren’t fully developed during this unit. A lot of schools teach units 1 through 3 in one semester and then units 4 through 6 in a following semester (or even year) and by having unit 4 be a largely unplugged unit, students who may not have completed unit 3 (which is programming intensive) are still eased into programming in a less threatening way to them if their first exposure is unit 4. I think the code.org philosophy for this unit is summed up in one of the teacher’s notes at the end of lesson 13.
Limited Programming Required
The goal of this unit is to get students thinking about the role design plays in developing a product and to help them build empathy for end users. This is not a programming focused unit, and the extent to which students will be expected to program is represented in its entirety here. Students will get a chance to delve deeper into App Lab, and to learn more about how onEvent works, in unit 6.
That being said, unit 6 does expand on this and more programming is taught. I also don’t discourage students who are motivated (and for whom the programming comes more naturally) from remixing their projects and attempting to program their apps in a more advanced way. I like that it’s a low floor, high ceiling activity. All my students can do it, but my more advanced ones have the tools to take it to the next level with some experimentation and trial and error. I also like how it gives students the opportunity to explore other careers in software development such as project management, design, testing, etc.
Also, if students want instruction on drop downs or other App Lab blocks, they can hover over the block (in the full App Lab) and click on the “See Examples” link and I’ve found this really helps those who want to do more programming.
Don’t know if this helps you, but hopefully a little? Anyone else have ideas to help those students who want to do more programming during this unit?
Mike
THANK YOU!!! The updated '21-'22 curriculum is organized differently and so my students also wanted to link screens using dropdowns. This worked and I’m so appreciative!
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thank you! This worked perfectly!
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