Building from their initial coding lesson on Monday, the Lippman students started their morning in the AT&T Classroom working with the Scratch Jr app. This morning the student explored additional features within the app to program increasingly more complex animations. In addition to experience with coding concepts such as sequencing and loops, the app also provides literacy opportunities as children can use the app to design and program animated scenes and stories. Children are able to select a background for their story and then sequence different “blocks” to control their character's movements.
Later this morning the students were introduced to Ozobots - small programmable “Smart” toy robots. The Ozobot is designed to provide children with opportunities to learn simple coding language while also encouraging children’s creativity and skills for problem solving and deductive reasoning. The Ozobot device is programmed to follow black, red, blue, and green lines/paths which control the Ozobot’s movement and speed in different directions. The device has sensors that recognize color sequences and interprets them as commands for directing speed and movement. Today after calibrating their Ozobots the students started with an activity to observe the Ozobot’s navigation through the various color codes on lines. Building from their observations, the students quickly learned how to combine various line sequences to alter their Ozobot’s direction and speed and worked in teams to design their first path for their Ozobot.
