Week 7 - Working with Digital Technologies

This week is all about working with the technology world! I am exploring into computational  thinking challenging myself to some activities to get me thinking about what kind of things I will include in my own pedagogy.

(I will provide a full detailed reference list at a later date - however links will be provided throughout in case you want to challenge yourself to similar activities!)

Firstly, it is important to  note the following processes that involve computational thinking:

1. abstraction
2. patterns
3. decomposition
4. algorithms

This website below:
http://games.thinkingmyself.com/
is an amazing way to understand each of these terms. I was a little nervous about trying to conquer each computational strategy however this site helped realize it is something we do every day!

Decomposition ...

I learned that all this means is to break a problem down to take make it more understandable to solve!
Here's an example:  

"What is the sum of: 4+5+5+6+3+3+4+2 equal to?"

Make it easier! Something I would automatically do is pick out the rainbow facts!
 4+5+5+6+3+3+4+2
5+5 = 10
 4+5+5+6+3+3+4+2
4+6  =10
 4+5+5+6+3+3+4+2
3+3 = 6  (+4) = 10

So now I know the answer is simply:


10 + 10 + 10 + the remaining 2 = 32

And that, my friends is decomposition!

Patterns

Again, the link helped uncover something that I already knew! All of these things come naturally. In this activity I needed to replicate the picture given on a larger scale. This is patterning. I  had no idea. It can be as simple as having a daily routine or doing your hair - it all as a pattern to it.



Abstraction

 

I did activities on through the link to get a thorough understanding of this. This can be as simple as adding 'blanks' to a sentence so that different variables can be add in order to make different solutions.

 

Example - The _______ has __________  _______

                      The boy has long hair.

                      The car has old tyres.

Again, easy! 

 

Algorithms

From what I have learned about algorithms, I would use this as hook to open the topic for a classroom lesson...

 

 

Ingredients                                         Method:

• 2 cups flour                                 1. Whisk 2 eggs with, milk, butter (melted)

• 2 eggs                                            2. Add flour, sugar and cocoa powder

• 1 cup milk                                    3. knead until dough is think and moist

• 1/2 cup sugar                               4. add to oiled cake tin and bake at 180

• 200g butter                                    degrees for 45 minutes.

• 3 tps cocoa powder

 

 

 

 What is this? A recipe? There is another name for this...

I would go on to inform students that there are other types of algorithms. In fact,

 

Here are a couple of examples...

• math problems
• recipes
• treasure hunt

Exploring computational concepts in a classroom would be engaging and effective to implement. I would suggest making a circuit like activity centre including: patterns, algorithms, abstraction and decomposition. The activities I would use would be very similar to the ones I described above as I believe they could be manipulated to suit a variety of age groups. 

 

Before I sum up, may I add the importance of visual literacy. In fact this is relative to computational thinking and more closely, algorithms!

 

An example could be made using good old pen to paper or digitally using a website such www.bubblus.com - check it out to create an amazing mind map to document thoughts and ideas! 

 

Here's mine!

I will definitely include this in my own pedagogy to encourage visual literacy, collaboration and computational thinking!