Eighth Day of DFI

This week we were focussed on Computational Thinking. We have been preparing for this in our curriculum for the last 6 months or so; the original talk and definitions seemed to be limiting computational thinking to coding only, but the recent talk has been about any sort of formulaic thinking, such as a recipe, or structure of thinking to problem-solve. This is much more like what we do in the Social Sciences, and it will mean that we are much more likely to be able to match what we already do to the new curriculum.
At lunchtime we had the chance to experiment with some of the tools which students are using for story-telling. I made a quick movie with a stop motion camera, this allowed me to see how it could be simply set up in class to tell stories by students which relate to the topics we study. In the afternoon we were asked to tell a story using one of the digital tools which we had experienced earlier in the day. I chose to use the dash robot tool; I thought of topics which I am currently teaching and learning about, and the story behind chocolate leaped out as an idea.
I thought of a series of tasks and sounds which the robot could do in order to tell the 'back story' of chocolate. I was able to record myself about 10 times to add these voice recordings into the presentation at the right time. It was a bit basic, but hopefully it has told the story in a different and memorable way!
Using this tool to tell this story did not seem very authentic; I think if I had had the time, stop-motion movies would have been a better, less 'gimmicky' way to do this.
Below is a recording of the dash robot presentation: