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Hi Felicity,
I really enjoyed playing Healthy Lunch Hunt. The SPHE link is lovely and clear and sending the player around the playground to collect healthy foods is a fun, active way into a balanced diet topic. I especially liked that you added the splash screen and the text at the start to explain the game.
Your debugging account was great too. Spotting that the score would not increase because the final block still said player rather than projectile is exactly the kind of close reading that debugging is all about and adjusting the fall timing so the items were catchable shows you were tuning the feel of the game as well as fixing what was broken.
I enjoyed it so much that I had a little play with it myself to take it a step or two further and I have popped my version below. I made the apple the food to collect and the chicken drumstick the enemy, so when the player overlaps an apple they score a point, but overlapping a drumstick costs them a life.
Game link: https://makecode.com/_4oYD8b666Ace
Hi Lorna,
Apple Picker Forest is a lovely, clear game and I really like how you have linked it to healthy eating and living things.
I really like how you described thinking through the order of instructions, creating the player, then the falling apples, then the scoring. That is algorithm design in action and it is lovely that building the game gave you such a concrete feel for how coding is put together step by step.
Hi Lucy,
Lovely idea. Turning the smiley and sad face tutorial into a Feelings Check-In device is a really thoughtful way to give the code a genuine purpose and the wellbeing link makes it meaningful for the children. The inputs and outputs also give them a clear, concrete feel for how a digital system responds to what you tell it.
I really like that you built it around Plan, Do, Review. That structure turns a nice idea into a proper design cycle and getting the children to test, evaluate and improve before sharing is exactly where the computational thinking comes alive.
Hi Linda,
I really enjoyed reading this and your honesty is refreshing. Starting with Monkey Chase, hitting a wall with your wish list and then stripping back to something simpler with Dog and Bone Adventure is such a valuable lesson and it is exactly the one the children will need too. Start small, get it working, then build. You have basically lived the iteration process yourself.
I love that you put yourself in the minds of the children as you built it. Keeping the objective clear with a dog chasing bones and a simple counter is spot on for a first game and it shows you were thinking about how they would follow the instructions, not just about the code.
One suggestion to build on what you have. Since your learning objective is about a timed activity, adding a countdown timer would strengthen that link nicely and give the game a bit more challenge. The children then have to collect as many bones as they can before time runs out which naturally opens up comparing scores and simple data handling, right where you wanted the Maths to sit.
Hi Rebecca,
Space Catcher is a great fit for a timed catch game and I really like how naturally it links to your Science objective.
I especially liked how you adjusted the speed and spawn rate by trial and error until the game played well. That is a lovely example of iteration, that cycle of making a change, testing it and refining until it feels right.
One small suggestion to strengthen the learning link. You could ask children to predict what will happen if they make the asteroids fall faster, then let them change the value and test whether their prediction was right.
Hi Rachel,
Teddy Catch is a gorgeous idea for young children. A friendly teddy on a bright playground catching hearts and stars is instantly appealing and I love that you built in good and bad items since that gives the children real pattern recognition to do as they play. Your curriculum links are lovely and clear too especially the way you have mapped sequencing and cause and effect onto what actually happens on screen.
I had a play of your game and it is not quite running yet which is honestly the perfect situation for the debugging process you listed. My best suggestion is to head back into the tutorial and rebuild it in stages. You could follow the steps one at a time and test as you go, open the finished code slide and compare it to yours block by block or watch the video tutorial for the catch style game and pause as you build. Any of those three will help you spot exactly where it is getting stuck and you will have a working game at the end.
Hi Rebecca,
Really strong reflection to read. Using digital tools across literacy, maths and SESE and tying them back to the curriculum is a genuine strength and the fact that you happily trial new tools keeps your practice fresh.
I like your area to develop. Moving from using tech to support teaching into using it for assessment is where it starts to give you something back because you get a clear read on where the children are. I especially like that you have thought about pupils reflecting on their own learning since that is often where the deepest thinking happens.
Your action to use a digital assessment tool once a week for six weeks feels really realistic. That clear timeframe gives you a proper run at it rather than a one-off try.
One question to help you focus. When you use, for example, those quizzes or polls, would it help to decide in advance what you will do with the results, say revisiting a tricky concept the next day if lots of children miss it? That closes the loop from checking understanding to acting on it and those decisions make lovely evidence for SSE.
Looking forward to seeing how you get on with the rest of the course. 🙂
Hi Michaela,
Fish and Bubbles is such a lovely theme for a timed catch game and I really like how neatly it fits your Science objective.
I loved that you chose debugging as your computational thinking process because that is exactly where I want to point you next. I had a play of your game and there are still a couple of bugs to iron out which is honestly perfect for this task since it gives you a real bit of debugging to do. A couple of things I noticed that might help.
For your score, you have made your own variable however, there are ready-made score blocks in the Info category of the toolbox that will save you a step and update automatically when the fish collects a bubble. The other thing is the projectile block you have used is not quite the right one and that is one of the reasons the game is not behaving as you expect.
My best suggestion is to head back into the module and open the slide with the finished example code, then compare it to yours block by block. That side by side check is a really effective way to spot exactly where things differ and you will have a fully working game at the end of it.
Hi Felicity,
What a rich reflection to read. The STEAM culture you have built is a real strength and it is clear you are making the most of being in a small school. Those monthly mixed-age sessions are lovely and bringing stop-motion and filmmaking into the Egg Drop Challenge shows you are already blending creativity and problem-solving in a natural way.
Your area to develop is a sharp piece of noticing. Spotting that the children were drawn to the creative elements more than the problem-solving underneath is exactly the kind of insight that moves practice forward and your instinct to build the thinking first through unplugged activities is great.
Your action to include one unplugged activity each monthly session feels really realistic. You already have the structure in place, so you are threading computational thinking through something that is running anyway rather than adding a whole new thing to the calendar.
One question to help you focus. For your action about pupils explaining how they solved and debugged problems, would it help to give them a shared language for it, say a few prompt cards asking what went wrong, what they tried and what they changed? That makes their thinking visible and easy to capture for SSE.
Looking forward to seeing how you get on with the rest of the course. 🙂
Hi Rachel,
This is such a lovely fit for Junior Infants. Flashing Heart is a great starting point for computational thinking because the on and off pattern gives the children their very first feel for sequence and repetition without them needing to read a word. They just see that the code makes something happen which is exactly the right level of understanding at that age.
I really like how playful and hands-on you have kept the whole thing. The heartbeat link is gorgeous and getting them to feel their own heart after a lap of the astro turf turns an abstract idea into something real and meaningful to them.
Really enjoyed this one. 🙂
Hi Aine,
Lovely to read this and you can really feel your enthusiasm for the tools coming through. A clear strength here is how confidently you already use digital technology to communicate whether that is presentations for staff or quizzes that keep the pupils engaged. That ease with the tools is a great foundation to build on.
I like your area to develop. Feedback and assessment is where digital tools can help save time while giving you a clearer picture of where the children are, so it is well worth growing your confidence there.
Your plan to use Microsoft Forms to check understanding feels really realistic, especially as you can start small with one topic and build from there. I like that you have linked it to both SSE and the DEIS plan too because the same piece of work is feeding a few things at once rather than being an extra job.
Looking forward to seeing how you get on with the rest of the course. 🙂
Hi Clodagh,
Please watch the MakeCode Arcade website tour video in the module or follow the steps below to share your MakeCode Arcade project link:
- Open your project in MakeCode Arcade.
- Select the Share icon in the top-right corner.
- Add a title for your project.
- You can also add a thumbnail image or animated GIF, but this is optional.
- Select Share Project.
- Copy the link that appears and paste it into your forum post.
Please note that this link is anonymous and is not connected to your MakeCode account. Make sure to copy or save the link, as it cannot be recovered if it is lost.
The link is also a snapshot of your project at the time you share it. If you make any changes afterwards, you will need to create and share a new link with the updated version.
Anonymous share links cannot normally be deleted or unpublished.
Hi Clodagh,
Please watch the video of the micro:bit website tour in the module or follow the steps below to share your micro:bit project link:
- Open your project in MakeCode.
- Select the Share icon in the top-right corner.
- Add a title for your project.
- You can also add a thumbnail image or animated GIF, but this is optional.
- Select Share Project.
- Copy the link that appears and paste it into your forum post.
Please note that this link is anonymous and is not connected to your MakeCode account. Make sure to copy or save the link, as it cannot be recovered if it is lost.
The link is also a snapshot of your project at the time you share it. If you make any changes afterwards, you will need to create and share a new link with the updated version.
Anonymous share links cannot normally be deleted or unpublished.
Hi Clodagh,
This is a thoughtful reflection and your focus on inclusion really comes through. A clear strength here is how intentionally you vary the way you present information. Using interactive whiteboard activities, videos, visuals and online resources side by side shows you are already thinking about different learners in the room which is right at the core of what the learner experiences dimension is reaching for.
Your area to develop is a lovely choice because accessibility technology is one of those things that quietly makes a huge difference for the learners who need it. The fact that you already know the tools means you are really just building the habit of reaching for them.
Your action to build in one accessibility feature each week feels genuinely realistic. It is small and repeatable which is what will make it stick and pairing it with your monthly reflection means you will actually see the impact over time rather than guessing at it.
One thought to help you focus. When you record what worked each month, would it help to note which pupils benefited and how, example a learner with EAL using translation? That turns your reflection into concrete evidence which would be really useful if your school looked at inclusion or digital learning as an SSE focus.
Looking forward to seeing how you get on with the rest of the course. 🙂
Hi Deirdre,
I love this tutorial. Clap Lights is great for computational thinking because it encourages learners to think in terms of cause and effect. The micro:bit keeps checking a condition and only acts when the sound crosses the threshold, so pupils get a clear, tangible feel for inputs, conditionals and variables.
Your STEM links are strong and I especially like the energy and environment angle. One way to strengthen it would be to give the code a real purpose, say designing a clap-activated light for a cupboard or hallway that saves energy. That turns it into a genuine solution and pulls the engineering design process right in.
Really enjoyed looking at this one. 🙂