Hello, World!
Welcome to the 2nd Sprint of our 2nd year. During the next six weeks, I will share with you a taste of the past and the future. The future—obviously is the Programming Quest. We are taking gamification, game-based learning and using the powerful code.org platform in the most interesting ways!
The past is less obvious. How did ActonKL start? We started as experiments of peer learning, specializing in programming & computational thinking classes back in 2015. Two years later, we are still drawing the experiences from those days. And yes, we are still experimenting and embracing failures in peer learning. I will share the stories of the beginnings of ActonKL in a few special posts. Stay tuned!
Here’s this week’s Halloween blog treat:
- Sprint 2 Day 1. Back with a Treat!
- Putting Grit into everything
- Programming Quest: Computers, Code, and Challenges
- Friday Fun: Agar-agar .io time!
Sprint 2 Day 1. Back with a Treat!
Two weeks of rest from sugar, spice, and intense heat, the Eagles were ready to start a new Sprint. Eagles came super early, with a new record: 7.45am.
“What did you do during your holidays?”
“Where did you go?”
“What games did you play?”
Eagles wanted to be back to Acton Academy. There is love, fun, and excitement in this tight-knit community.
By 8:25 am, the Elementary School (ES) Eagles were ready for Circle Time. 5 minutes earlier—another new record. Ms. Caryn kicked off the sprint with discussions of technology: phones, games, and the Internet.
Will these control us or will we control them?
The Eagles brought an interesting point. Even adults around us get controlled and are addicted. They shared stories of seeing parents glued to their phones/ computers at home.
“Hurry mom stop playing else I will be late!”
“I hide my mom’s phone so she will have to hunt for it before using…”
It’s a reminder of the opportunity and challenges of a life in the age of anytime connection, and continuous distraction & addiction. The double edge sword of technological progress.
Welcome to the age of digital millennials. The average age to master “skip ad” button on YouTube? Two years old. ActonKL Elementary School’s studio goal? The average age of game developers is eight years old.
I will tell you more about the Programming Quest later. Now, let’s get back to treats. They were two major celebrations. First, Halloween Celebrations. Second, our 2nd youngest Eagle—Chucky’s 7th Birthday!
On Tuesday morning, we had Eagles aliens coming to the school. Even the Guides dressed up. Here’s peer learning in action, Ms. Caryn a 10-year-old primary school student leading a discussion. No more guides!
Later, we had a Halloween parade. Eagles showcased their Halloween version of themselves. Robots, minions, bunnies, monsters, and superheroes mingled together in a fashion show.
On Wednesday, the Elementary School studio was buzzed with excitement. We celebrated Chucky’s birthday. Chucky’s entire family came, and there were laughter and joy as the ES Eagles played games, ate homemade cakes (thank you aunty Brenda!), and sang songs. A few Middle School Eagles couldn’t resist; they came for the cakes too.
We admit it. During our founding year, we admitted quite a few young Eagles below our initial admission age of seven. Some came to our studios not knowing how to read or write. But the reality in October 2016—many of these families were so supportive and committed. Also, we did not have that many applications to choose. We just had to try. But seeing the Eagles grow fired our spirits. And growing up matters a lot to these Eagles. Here’s the conversation between our two youngest Eagle.
“I am now seven years old! Abhi, you are the only one who is six years old…”
“By December, I will turn seven years too! We will all be seven years old!”
We wish all our Eagles the courage to grow. And let’s celebrate that growth :))
Putting Grit into everything
This Sprint’s Character Trait is Grit. We chose this because of the nature of programming is a series of continuous failure (and surprises). For every one piece of smooth code that you experienced (say how this WordPress writing gets to you), literally tonnes of trials, errors and debugging happened. Any programmer needs grit. Now, how do we encourage it in the rest of days?
Obviously, the best way is through our robot machines bodies.
Then, with our minds.
Some of the books that Middle School (MS) Eagles selected as their Deep Books this Sprint: The Innovators and How to Read a Book. At their own choice. Seriously, these are high school standards. Perhaps even college standards. But they are the typical standards of Acton Academy Eagle. You might wonder why? They have the courage to grow.
We urge families to share stories and encourage grit at home. Here’s a TED talk to start.
Programming Quest: Computers to Code
Our Programming Quest consists of two type of activities: plugged & unplugged. The plugged activities are online programming challenges and tutorials. The Eagles will start with the scaffold foundations from code.org, and depend on their choice, branch out into other tools. The unplugged activities are activities without computers to understand the computational thinking and programming concepts, in a team-based & collaborative way. We decided to twist most of the unplugged activities into a leadership challenge for the MS Eagles.
There is every reason Eagles are motivated in learning programming. Not because you will get well-paid jobs. Not because you can be cool like Mark. Not because you can dance the finals of Americas got Talent. Here’s three reason why the Eagles are learning with full motivation. One, it is fun and challenging. Two, they are challenging themselves and playing it with their friends. Three, they are excited to build games so they can play it with their friends.
Here’s how motivated the Eagles are. We used the code.org pre-express and express course as introductory points. The pre-express code.org is meant for 4–8 years old for an entire school semester. The express code.org is meant for 9–18 years old with more than 30 hours of instruction. 30 hours of instruction is almost an entire school year if it was a weekly one-hour session. Our Eagles surprised us. Most ES Eagles finished the pre-express course in few days. Few started the express course, and one is already 30% in by end of the first week. Few MS Eagles completed the express course and were exploring an industry grade game platform: Unity.
The best thing is: they compete and coach each other. Any Eagle can see each other’s progress. So, all they do is find someone who has completed the challenge they are currently struggling and seek help. Oh, and across studios! The beauty of technology, transparency, and a collaborative culture.
You might imagine our Eagles glued to the computers. Here’s the good news and bad news. Well, more than half of the programming activities are unplugged. But many Eagles were motivated in completing the plugged activities, so many filled after school hours doing just that.
In the first week of unplugged activities, we touched the basics of computer, programming instructions and some fun problem solving, in the form of ping-pong run and relay programming! Most of the unplugged activities are planned and led by the MS Eagles, with consultation by Ms. Caryn.
I will let the photo do the talking.
What is a Computer
Ping pong run: How can you use these materials, and make a ping pong running track?
Robot Maze
Robots don’t speak English. It speaks code. How can you control a Robot to get from here to there?
“Beep beep! Robots, start doing work!”
You could hear that throughout the day. Literally, Eagles were moving like robots and talking like robots.
The unplugged activities also extended into our launches and PE. For example, Wednesday’s Circle time: Eagles spoke about algorithms and ended with “What is the algorithm for an intentional day?”
On Thursday, we did PE indoors. The Eagles ran a session of relay programming. They need to solve a puzzle in a team relay. It’s like a sports day tele-match with a dose of programming.
Meanwhile, the MS Eagles had a bigger challenge. The Programming sprint’s genre consists of three pieces of work. The first part, Game Review for the first two weeks. Second, a Project Proposal for their Exhibition project. Third, a website for their Exhibition.
What exactly you do with a Game Review? You choose a game and play it! Well, we deliberately limited the Eagles to choose retro games. This makes it quicker to review and encourage the discussions of the technology experience of the older generation.
“Dr. Ewe, you played games like this?”
It made Eagles pondered about the history of digital revolution, and how far games have progressed from the early days of Pong.
Now, if you have been following our blog… you know that we inject a Friday fun activity that requires quite some work throughout the week. We dropped clues as we progress closer to Friday, and…
Friday Fun: Agar-agar .io time!
All the Eagles worked hard to qualify for the Friday Fun Party. The theme: agar-agar. Play agar.io and eat agar-agar. Agar.io is a popular massive online multi-player game. Agar-agar, well that’s just party food.
We divided Eagles into four teams and competed. Yes, this is ActonKL cyber cafe.
But Oops. Twenty access from a single IP address clearly stressed agar.io’s server. Here’s a layman translation: imagine a traffic police see twenty cars, all with the same number plate entering the city. Yes, they would probably ban us from entering the city! It was a messy moment as many Eagles couldn’t join on the servers and play with their friends. We learned that we need to set up our own servers next time. A test of grit for the Guides too.
Experiment. Try hard. Fail fast. Break things. Move fast. But that is not what I love about this week. What I love is that the Eagles did all this with a crazy attitude.
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