I liked the explanation that the computer is listening. I normally use the term “waiting” for something to happen. If I go back to the students pretending to be robots, they are listening or waiting for something to happen.
I’ll begin with the provided activities/examples, continuing with similar as needed until students grasp concept of events.
I liked a lot of the ideas listed in the forum. I like the idea of literature tie ins like the “Give a mouse a cookie” suggestion. I also like the idea of game like red light green light, or ship to shore. The video and suggestion in the code.org lessons were also good ones. I will probably use and amalgamation of them all for my 4/5 class.
I would relate events to literature and something that happens.
I love the idea of using the If you give a mouse a cookie. I think the idea of events relates well to teaching cause and effect and those books definitely illustrate those ideas for younger children.
Brain breaks are triggered by sounds/music playing. Different sounds trigger different brain break activities. These would link perfectly to an event.
To teach events to 3rd graders,I will use our keyboarding time to ask about what happens when pressing particular keys. With a word processing document open, I would ask students to press a few familiar keys and ask about the event - such as spacebar, a few letters, backspace and the Shift key. Other events with a click on the keyboard will be a surprise to them - tab, the other Delete key, page up, page down, and more.
1 Like
I would consider having my younger students bring various toys to class and show how they function. I could use this as a launchpad to discuss “events” and how they influence behavior.
Events add interactivity between the coder, the program and the user. I like kscott’s idea of using Numeroff’s “If You Give a Mouse a Cookie” as a way to explain events and triggers/
I would relate “events” to cause and effect in reading. I think relating the two will give students a better understanding of both.
I always come up with the most “out there ideas” but I immediately think of a menu of options from which the user can choose from. If these 5 options on are the event menu, then they are possible to use. With middle school students, anything with food gains their attention.
Choosing and eating your lunch:
Eating Pizza
Eating Hamburger
Eating Tacos
Eating Salad
If I had a remote and each button was one, we could have our students eat a buffet rather quickly!
1 Like
I will tell them that the computer perceives any user action, for example, pressing a button as a event to which it needs to respond.
I would definitely relate the idea of “events” to thing the students are already familiar with.
At the moment we are exploring an app called Makers Empire. I would use the idea of inserting objects or features in the game, to making an event.
The term “event” seems to mean the same thing as how we use the word in our daily lives. So, to help students understand the concept of “events” in programming, I would:
- explore various events that take place in our everyday lives and
- discuss how students would react to those events.
Or, events can be something we do or say. In that case, I would:
- have students think of various events they create in their everyday lives, and
- ask them what actions they want to happen.
The bottom line is to relate the idea of “events” to the things students are already familiar with.
To explain events to kindergartners, I play a game, if I raise my right arm the class raises their right arm, if I raise my left arm the class raises their left arm if I touch my head the class touches their head. I randomly do this throughout the day so that they can see how events work in real life. Events are like cause and effect, so raising my arm causing them to raise their arm and so on.
There are many events in science
I would use events in the explanation of independent and dependent events.
I really liked the unplugged lesson provided but I would tell students that events are the things that you’re waiting for before an action takes place. For example, we wait for the bell to ring before we grab out backpacks to leave school.
I could have my students play musical chairs to showcase the concept of events. When the music is playing, the program that students will be doing is walking around the chairs. When the event (music stops playing), the students have to find a chair to sit down.
I also like the remote control idea and assigning different events for each button. Again, to incorporate music (any chance I get, lol), I will interrupt their task/program of singing a familiar song by pressing a button.
My 6th-grade class enjoyed learning about events through Code.org’s The Big Event last year. Next year, I may incorporate literature for my elementary school students and create a Cause and Effect Trivia for middle/high school students. The teenagers would enjoy guessing the effect in a few “fail” videos and we would discuss the event in each example.