This lesson was delivered as designed with the exception of each group using 2 colors of construction paper and taping their selections to these - as opposed to using poster paper, Did this to keep cost of supplies down.
Activity guide accessed by students on Google Classroom. The activity guide linked here reflects the changes I made to the activity. I also created a slide presentation to move the class through the lesson. The slide presentation includes alternative Kahoot survey (to go paperless). To use this Kahoot, go to https://create.kahoot.it/account/register/ to create an account. Select âPublic Kahootsâ. Search - dspear. Duplicate, edit, and publish your own to use with your class. Free and easy.
To use in place of the video that is being created, I found http://www.bbc.co.uk/guides/zc4x6sg. This link does not appear to work in Chrome Browser - it does work on Chromebooks and Mozilla. It is Flash, so iPads are out. Fun game to reinforce what is/is not a computer. A bit juvenile, but my students enjoyed it. I inserted this link on Google Classroom for students.
Debbie thanks for all the awesome links. That BBC site is pretty cute and is definitely a more interactive way to wrap up this lesson. Thanks for sharing so many of your resources this is really helpful.
I am teaching six classes, three seventh grade and three eighth grade. The classes are one hour in length and meet every other day. They have had computer classes every year since first grade, but they have not done any computer science other than âhour of codeâ type activities. Each student has a computer to use during class.
I wanted to mention that my students really enjoyed this lesson. The groups were really getting into âwhat is a computerâ. A few students wanted to look up a definition, but I didnât let them. I thought it was funny they didnât really know how to categorize an old phone, one group asked me what to call it, I of course said that to me, it is simply a phone. I liked that the abacus was included. I think it really gave them a good chance to explore their thinking. They liked presenting and seeing that there isnât necessarily a right or wrong answer as long as they can support their agrument.
Hi Gretchen, Iâm not sure how to feel about the fact that the kids werenât sure what to call a phone. Has that much time really gone by?? Iâm glad the kids had a fun time with this. We had a few heated discussions in our office, too, so for sure there are no clear right answers. Thanks for sharing how it went.
I teach at a high school in SLC, Utah. My class is very diverse in that we have multiple languages in the class, English is not the native language of 95% of my students, I have pretty close to 50/50 boy, girl ratio and the class is a good representation of students from the entire school ranging from grades 9-12. Our class period is 90 minutes every other day.
Reflections:
I use journals in class where the students write down their answers to many of the prompts so that they can think about their answers before sharing them with the class, take a minute to think before they say anything, or as a reference to look at later when they forget something weâve talked about in class.
I took some time to prep for this activity -
I had the items already cut out, table boxes ready with glue and markers, as well as, posters for them to categorize their picture items.
The students had fun debating what picture fit on which side and then comparing them later with other groups.
I donât have much room in my lab to spread out, so we worked on the floor, moved monitors and found wall space to make the posters.
