South’s First Makey Makey Museum
It’s not always possible for students to visit museums or go on field trips for every subject they study in class, but those hands on experiences are so important! So instead, students brought the museum to school! I partnered up with a science class who worked hard to create museum exhibits for their fellow fourth grade classmates to visit. Each exhibit brought to life information that was learned in class about electricity. Exhibits included: Open and Closed Circuits, Series and Parallel Circuits, Conductors and Insulators, Static Electricity, and Historical Contributions.
By connecting a Makey Makey to a Scratch game code, they created an exhibit that included important facts as well as an interactive game that quizzed students’ knowledge about their topic. Since this was their first view of coding, I had the skeleton of the code created for them, then they were allowed to customize it with their own questions, answers, and costumes that matched their topic. They really enjoyed writing the code and connecting it to the Makey Makey.
This year, I attended the VSTE conference and had the opportunity to join a session presented by Goochland County Public Schools about the Scrum method, a method used to teach kids how to work together and complete project tasks. Since this project included so many tasks of different degrees, I gave the Scrum method my first try. To organize all of the tasks they had to complete to create, students used the Scrum method to work collaboratively they used a Scrum board, and it helped them accomplish great things! Using the Scrum method, Scratch, and Makey Makey was new and challenging, but in just four days they created a project different than any they’d ever been a part of in the past. So, I’d say our first attempt at using the Scrum, Scratch and the Makey Makey was a success!
It’s not always possible for students to visit museums or go on field trips for every subject they study in class, but those hands on experiences are so important! So instead, students brought the museum to school! I partnered up with a science class who worked hard to create museum exhibits for their fellow fourth grade classmates to visit. Each exhibit brought to life information that was learned in class about electricity. Exhibits included: Open and Closed Circuits, Series and Parallel Circuits, Conductors and Insulators, Static Electricity, and Historical Contributions.
By connecting a Makey Makey to a Scratch game code, they created an exhibit that included important facts as well as an interactive game that quizzed students’ knowledge about their topic. Since this was their first view of coding, I had the skeleton of the code created for them, then they were allowed to customize it with their own questions, answers, and costumes that matched their topic. They really enjoyed writing the code and connecting it to the Makey Makey.
This year, I attended the VSTE conference and had the opportunity to join a session presented by Goochland County Public Schools about the Scrum method, a method used to teach kids how to work together and complete project tasks. Since this project included so many tasks of different degrees, I gave the Scrum method my first try. To organize all of the tasks they had to complete to create, students used the Scrum method to work collaboratively they used a Scrum board, and it helped them accomplish great things! Using the Scrum method, Scratch, and Makey Makey was new and challenging, but in just four days they created a project different than any they’d ever been a part of in the past. So, I’d say our first attempt at using the Scrum, Scratch and the Makey Makey was a success!