Day 1
01 Welcome 02 Apps&Tools 03 Lesson Investigation 04 Pause 05 Lesson Reflection 06 Wrap Up
Day 2
07 Welcome 08 Conclusions and Connections 09 Pause 10 Equity 11 Wrap Up

Session 2: Apps and Tools

18 minutes

facilitator presentation

Purpose

This session is intended to introduce and prepare participants for setting up and installing the Circuit Playground and Maker App, and becoming familiar with the Maker Toolkit.

Objectives

  • Participants are familiar with the Circuit Playground, associated tools, and support resources for installation and connecting to Code.org.

Supplies & Prep

Workshop Modality:

  • Whole Group
  • Individual

Facilitator Supplies:

Teacher Supplies:

  • Computer with webcam
  • Video conferencing software
  • Circuit Playground (optional)
  • Paper & writing utensil

Agenda

Revisiting App Lab (8 minutes)

Tools (5 minutes)

Demo (5 minutes)

Facilitation Guide

Revisiting App Lab (8 minutes)

(1 minute) Overview of Level Types

Remarks

During the asynchronous work, you may have noticed App Lab is reintroduced with the warm up activity in Unit 6, Lesson 2. In addition, Unit 6, Lesson 2 includes three level types that students will engage with throughout Unit 6: Predict, Programming, Assessment, as well as the Help & Tips tab.

Facilitator Tip

Participants will likely have varied experience and comfort with App Lab depending on which lessons they are implementing with their students. Participants who have taught Unit 4 will likely be more comfortable with the tool than participants that have only used the tool in Workshop 2. The purpose of this session is to establish a baseline of understanding before the model lesson. Tool mastery is not the expectation here.

Provide participants with a brief overview of the level types included in Unit 6, Lesson 2.

Level Types

  • Predict Level - students read working code, discuss the code with a partner, and predict what the code will do before running it themselves
  • Programming Level - students complete targeted tasks that help with practicing and building specific skills from a lesson
  • Assessment Level - programming levels to assess student mastery of the target skills from the lesson

Provide participants with a reminder for the Help & Tip tab included throughout the lesson in levels.

  • Help & Tip - resources that provide information on particular concepts of programming structures

(7 minutes) Comparing Input

(3 minutes) Display: Facilitator opens up to the levels for Unit 6, Lesson 4 while participants navigate to the same lesson on Code Studio using their own device. For each of the “input samples” (Levels 1 and 2), ask the whole group to look at the code and identify:

  • Where is the input coming from for Level 1? Level 2? (e.g. keyboard, mouse, etc)
  • What input value is the program looking for Level 1? Level 2?
  • How will the program respond to input for Level 1? Level 2?

(4 minutes) Whole Group Share Out

Discussion Prompt: What is the difference between the way that Game Lab and App Lab handle inputs?

Remarks

There are various ways of explaining differences between the way Game Lab and App Lab handle inputs. (Refer to slide, “Inputs: Game Lab and App Lab”). Game Lab’s draw loop model works sequentially, with each line of code running after the other. The draw loop runs over and over, very quickly in a sequence. Inputs are only checked when that line of code is run. App Lab’s onEvent model is continuously checking for inputs once an event handler is created.

Tools (5 minutes)

Remarks

Today’s workshop will focus on Unit 6: Physical Computing. In this unit, students will explore the connection between hardware and software using the Circuit Playground and App Lab.

Using the slides, go over the tools (Circuit Playground, Maker App, and Maker Toolkit ) used in Unit 6.

Section Content
Circuit Playground Inputs
  • Buttons
  • Switch
  • Sensors (Temp, Light, Sound)
Outputs
  • Buzzer
  • LEDS
  • With extra wires, buttons and lights, you can make even more ways to interact with the Circuit Playground
Maker App
  • The App that allows your computer to connect to the Circuit Playground (Note that the maker app isn’t needed on chromebooks. Chromebooks use the Code.org Serial Connector Chrome App in place of the Maker App.)
Maker Toolkit
  • App Lab extension that provides extra toolboxes for programming the Circuit Playground
  • Does the work behind the scenes to connect the board to App Lab
  • Board needs to be plugged into the computer to run the program (you can't load a program on the board and then unplug it)

Demo (5 minutes)

(5 minutes) Consider using a Circuit Playground device to provide participants with a demonstration of:

  • What the Circuit Playground looks like
  • Completing one level from Unit 6, Lesson 3 - Levels 4 to 6, to demonstrate the Circuit Playground works with App Lab (share your screen when you do this)

Facilitator Note: If you do not have access to a Circuit Playground, skip the demonstration, and instead:

(2 minutes) Go over the “Circuit Playground Setup and Installation” slide and remind participants of the resources provided if they need to troubleshoot when installing the Circuit Playground.

  • Steps for installing the Circuit Playground are found in the CS Discoveries Maker Toolkit IT Setup at https://studio.code.org/maker/setup.
  • If you need additional support, check out our general Maker Toolkit support article to get help with common debugging issues.