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Hi Niamh,
This is a strong, well-grounded plan. Using an AI-generated fact sheet about animals native to Ireland, with a few errors included, is a lovely way to make the issue of accuracy feel real. Choosing familiar species such as the red squirrel and Irish hare also gives pupils some existing knowledge to draw on when spotting the mistakes.
Your critical thinking prompts are really well pitched too. Asking what makes a source reliable and encouraging pupils to compare information across several sources before reaching a conclusion helps build a habit that will serve them well beyond AI. That is exactly the kind of transferable skill you want to develop at this stage.
One small thought to build on it. When pupils annotate the sheet, you could ask them to note not only what was wrong but also how confident they felt about their judgement. AI can present incorrect information with the same confidence as accurate information, so this opens up an important discussion about the difference between sounding certain and being correct.
This is a lovely lesson idea!
Hi Catriona,
This is a very strong piece of work. Bronze Age Survival is a fantastic game and you have brought several different elements together successfully.
The History link is particularly strong. The resources are central to the game and reflect what people needed to survive during the Bronze Age. This gives pupils an opportunity to think about daily life during the period through the choices they make while playing.
Your code is well structured too. You have several resources spawning during the game, a bear following the player and clear win and lose conditions. There are a lot of different parts working together successfully.
Two small things are worth looking at. At the moment, your bear is set as a Player sprite instead of an Enemy sprite. The game still works because the lose condition detects when the two Player sprites overlap, but setting the bear as an Enemy and using a Player overlaps Enemy block would make the logic much clearer. It would also help the code distinguish between the character and the predator.
The other is only a small point of clarification. You mention conditionals (conditional statements?) in your objective, but this particular game is mainly driven by events and overlaps. That does not take away from the complexity of what you have built at all, as the game is well above what was expected. You might simply adjust the wording so the objective reflects the coding concepts you have used most strongly.
Hi Elizabeth,
This is a lovely reflection. A clear strength is how actively you already use digital tools from coding platforms to educational apps. It is also clear that you choose them because they support and engage the children.
Your honesty about the challenge is relatable too. Balancing a broad primary curriculum with finding time for meaningful digital learning is something every teacher experiences, so recognising it is an important first step.
Your plan to create interdisciplinary lessons linking technology with two subjects each term feels realistic and manageable.
One question to help you focus. When you set aside those weekly slots for digital activities, would it help to keep a quick note of what worked well and what you might change next time? This would build a simple record across the term and give you useful evidence for SSE.
Looking forward to seeing how you get on with the rest of the course. 🙂
Hi Orla,
Find the Hearts is a lovely game and I like that you leaned into the challenge instead of shying away from it. A monkey collecting heart-shaped cookies is instantly appealing and your link to counting and number is clear and well pitched for younger pupils.
Your debugging account was great too and refreshingly honest. Working through the monkey not moving, the cookies not appearing and the score not updating, then testing and tweaking until it all came together, is exactly what debugging looks like. That sense of satisfaction you describe at the end is the part that really hooks children in.
One small thing worth looking at in your code is the order of the blocks (sequence) at the start. The countdown begins before the melody plays and the melody is set to “until done”. This means the timer is already running while the tune plays, but the heart has not appeared yet because the rest of the setup is waiting for the melody to finish.
You could change the melody setting so it plays in the background, allowing the music and game to begin together. Another option would be to move the countdown block to after the melody and the rest of the setup, so the clock only starts once the heart is on the screen and the game is ready to play.
Hi Adrian,
No bother at all about the posting. I am glad it came through in the end.
Catch the Bubble is a lovely chaser game and the underwater setting suits it really well.
Your description of the debugging process shows the right approach, testing the fish movement, the shark following and the scoring one at a time. It is worth taking another look at the scoring though. At the moment, the overlap block is set to game over WIN, so the game ends as soon as the player catches the seaweed and no points are added.
To get the scoring you have planned, you could replace that with a change score by 1 block, then move the fish food to a new random position straight away so the player has to chase the next one. You could then add a countdown timer to decide when the game ends.
Once the scoring is in place, it would be worth sharpening the curriculum link too. Your objective at the moment focuses mostly on the coding, so it would be good to name the Maths learning more clearly. For example, pupils could record their scores across a few games and compare them.
Hi Miriam,
This was a lovely honest reflection. A real strength is the work you have already done around reliable information and AI. Helping children to see AI as something that supports their thinking without simply giving them answers is a big shift and it is great to hear how much they have developed in this area over the year.
Your area for development is a really thoughtful one too. Building resilience and encouraging children to evaluate and adapt their approach is where some of the deepest learning happens. Your instinct that much of this can take place away from screens is spot on.
Your plan to run one unplugged problem-solving activity each week feels realistic and manageable. It is small and consistent which is what will help it become part of the routine.
One question to help you focus. When pupils explain how they used AI or another digital tool, would it help to ask what they would do differently next time? This would move them beyond describing what they did and encourage deeper reflection on their learning.
Looking forward to seeing how you get on with the rest of the course. 🙂
Hi Brona,
You are spot on and this is a really useful thing to flag. Because you are signed into the app with a licence, you can see the full lesson library rather than the demo set. That is why the demo worlds are not easy to pick out.
The demo library that opens without a licence currently includes four worlds: Bad Connection, Hour of AI: The First Night, Fantastic Fairgrounds and Generation AI. There is no need to redo anything though, as your experience with the full library is much richer.
Making Homes is a lovely choice. Area and perimeter are topics that children can often complete on paper without fully picturing what they mean. Having pupils build the foundation block by block and count for themselves makes the learning concrete in a way that a worksheet cannot. I also like that the lesson begins with sketching and discussion, so the planning happens before anyone starts building.
Your extension idea is my favourite part. Recreating the builds using 3D materials and asking the same questions is a lovely way to move between digital and physical learning. It would also show you very quickly who has really understood the concepts.
It is lovely to hear how much you are already using Minecraft across History and Numeracy too.
Hi Michelle,
There is some lovely thinking in this reflection. The link to the Music curriculum through listening and responding is really well made. I also love your follow-up idea of pupils creating their own rhythms using percussion instruments and comparing them with what they built in Minecraft. That connection between digital and hands-on learning is a nice way to deepen their understanding.
One thing worth knowing is that Melody Lane is a community lesson that was posted on the Minecraft Education site in 2021. There is no world file attached to the lesson, so it is not something you can open and play either in the app or from the lesson page. You can view the lesson here: https://education.minecraft.net/en-us/lessons/melody-lane-music-education
It is also not one of the demo worlds available for this assignment. The current demo library includes four worlds: Bad Connection, Hour of AI: The First Night, Fantastic Fairgrounds and Generation AI.
For the task, it would be worth going into the app and playing one of those four demo worlds, then building your reflection around what you actually experienced there.
Hi Michaela,
There are some lovely ideas in this reflection. Pre-teaching vocabulary such as sustainability, renewable energy and conservation before pupils enter the world is really well judged. Your follow-up activity, where groups design their own eco-friendly school, is also a lovely way to make the learning active, creative and relevant to their own lives.
One thing worth knowing is that Sustainability City is a Minecraft Education collection, but it is not part of the current demo library. The demo library available in the app currently includes four worlds: Bad Connection, Hour of AI: The First Night, Fantastic Fairgrounds and Generation AI.
Sustainability City is part of the wider lesson library, which requires a Minecraft Education licence, so it is not a world you can play through using the demo for this assignment.
For the task, it would be worth going into the app and exploring one of the four available demo worlds, then building your reflection around what you experienced while playing it. Your teaching ideas here are really strong, so I am sure they will transfer well to whichever world you choose.
Hi Catherine,
This is a really strong reflection and it is clear that you engaged fully with the episode. You have picked up exactly what Leaf Long Learners is about. AI recognises leaves by comparing features and makes predictions based on the data it was trained on.
The nature walk idea is standout. Having pupils collect real leaves and test them using an AI identification tool, then compare the prediction with their own observations, turns an abstract idea into something they can see, discuss and question. That is where the critical thinking really comes through.
I also love your closing prompts, asking pupils to identify one thing AI is good at and one reason we should still think for ourselves. This brings together both sides of AI literacy, its usefulness and the need for healthy scepticism. It would also give you lovely evidence of their understanding for SSE.
One small question to consider. When a pupil disagrees with the AI, for example if they believe a plant is healthy but the model has identified it as unhealthy, could you ask them what the AI might have been missing? It could have been the quality of the photograph, the angle or the training images. This would move them from simply spotting the error to thinking about why machine learning sometimes gets things wrong.
We would love to know how you get on if you try this in your classroom. 😊
Hi Louise,
There is a lot of good teaching thinking in this reflection. Your two-heading chart, sorting information into what could be verified and what needed to be questioned, is a lovely concrete way to make critical thinking visible. The think-pair-share, modelled questions and sentence starters are also exactly the right supports for helping 3rd and 4th Class pupils talk about trust and accuracy.
One thing I wanted to check with you is the episode you selected. Code Green Episode 4: Leaf Long Learners is actually focused on biodiversity and using AI to monitor plant health. Pupils use the GenAI Teachable Machine to train an image classifier to recognise nutrient deficiencies in plants. The main AI concepts are machine learning and training data rather than misinformation.
Your misinformation lesson is a strong idea in its own right, but it would need a different stimulus. You could use a short piece of AI-generated text on a familiar topic that contains a couple of errors for pupils to identify and verify.
Alternatively, if you would prefer to keep Leaf Long Learners, the lesson could focus on how machine learning works and why the quality of the training data matters.
It might be worth going back into the episode and deciding which of those two directions you would like to take. Either could work really well.
Hi G,
Great question and you are not missing anything. The demo lesson library that opens in the app without signing in currently includes four worlds: Bad Connection, Hour of AI: The First Night, Fantastic Fairgrounds and Generation AI. Home Sweet Hmm is not part of the current demo selection, which is why you could not find it.
The demo lessons available in the app can change over time, so some of the worlds you may have seen mentioned by other participants may not be included in the current selection. For this assignment, Generation AI is excluded, so you can choose from Bad Connection, Hour of AI: The First Night or Fantastic Fairgrounds. Any of these will allow you to explore the world itself and review the lesson page, lesson plan and associated resources, as outlined in the assignment.
If you have already explored the lesson plan and resources for Home Sweet Hmm, that can still be useful for your own planning. However, for this particular forum post, I would recommend choosing one of the three eligible demo worlds above so that you can fully complete each part of the assignment and get the best experience from it.
It is also worth knowing that, if your school has Minecraft Education licences, you can sign in with your school account to access the wider lesson library. This includes the CyberSafe collection and Home Sweet Hmm, which could be lovely to explore separately for your own planning.
If your school does not currently have licences, an organisational Office 365 Education or Microsoft 365 Education account may be eligible for a fully functional free trial with a limited number of logins. This may explain why some other participants have been able to access lessons that are not included in the current demo selection.
Hi Aoife,
This was lovely to read. The Dice tutorial is a great choice because it takes something the children already use in Maths and helps them understand the code behind it. The shake to roll action is also perfect as it is physical, simple and gives an instant result.
I especially love the probability link. Asking the children to roll the micro:bit dice several times and record the numbers gives them their own real data to work with. It also creates a great opportunity to discuss whether each number is equally likely to appear. The timing is perfect too with the physical devices arriving this summer.
I also love that you noticed how well Dice and Rock Paper Scissors can work as a sequence. Both use randomness, but Rock Paper Scissors takes the learning a step further by introducing conditional statements. Starting with Dice would give the children a strong foundation before moving on to the more advanced activity.
Hi Nicola,
There is lots of lovely teaching thinking in this reflection. Slowing the pace, making sure pupils are confident with the controls before moving on to the more challenging tasks and giving them an opportunity to explain their reasoning are all really strong ideas. I also love the idea of pupils presenting their finished work and talking through their choices, as this is a great way to make their learning visible.
One thing I wanted to check with you is the world you selected. The Fantastic Fairgrounds world in Minecraft Education is actually focused on AI literacy. Pupils work with an AI assistant to solve problems across different pavilions, with a focus on AI foundations, data analysis and ethics rather than measurement, area or budgeting.
Your reflection sounds like you may have had a different maths or building world in mind, so it would be worth going back into the demo and having another look. However, if you decide to focus on the AI lesson, your ideas around pacing, discussion and pupil presentations would still work really well.
I would also be happy to point you towards a maths-focused world if that is the direction you would prefer.
