Arduino Coding with AT Tiny

We are almost at the beginning of a new school year and it is time to get going planning what I want do with my students, which new and exciting  learning experiences I want to offer them, and how I am going to share with them the latest knowledge I have acquired during this summer at the Kodiak Virtual Learning Conference.
I have 2 plans I want to implement this year:

1. Integrate paper circuitry activity in my Italian language online course.

One of my favorite coded #papercircuits today with @nfuerst2 @DMCole_ @AKTEACH_Program @chibitronics #aktvlc pic.twitter.com/1FOSGeegul

— Jeannine Huffman (@HuffmanJeannine) June 8, 2016

I have decided to use my Italian 2 course for this integration because it is my smallest class and it will allow me to test this plan in a easy to handle environment. The Italian courses I am offering this year are not using any pr-canned curricula, but I have developed  on my own using some principles of TPRS (Teaching Proficiency through Reading and Storytelling) and other second language acquisition strategies. One element of my courses will be weekly creative writing, in which students will be asked to write reflections in the target language building up writing skills that will enable them to create short stories.  I want to use these short stories to be the environment for introducing paper circuitry. Depending on the response of the students I will see how far we can go with the complexity of the circuits and possibly to the coding.  
For these storytelling with paper circuitry I want them to use a blog for sharing their work and give them the opportunity to have an exposure and interact among them commenting and providing critical feedback.
The idea is to integrate Italian scientific vocabulary in the course and build up from there the use of tools that correspond to the language learned. The integration of paper circuitry will also allow the creative expression enhancing student creative writing and storytelling.
My plan is to have students create a monthly story with paper circuitry.

1. Develop an high school level 1 semester course on Paper Circuitry & Arduino coding.

This is an idea that I have been discussing with Jeannine Huffman, David Cole, Nicole Fuerst, and Dr. Lee Grahm. The plan  is to be bale to create a course for introducing students to coding in a fun and playful way. It would be great if we could create a CTE course with dual credit, high school and college credit as well. This idea does not have a specific planning yet since it involves several people, however  I am looking forward to collaborating with all of these amazing individuals.
I would like to use this coming year for defining this course so that we could offer it to students next school year.
I believe that this course will be a valuable resource for our students for approaching coding in a fun way. At this time my school district does not offer any coding courses, however they recognize the important of this need for our students. My goal is to offer this course statewide so that all our students will have equal opportunity to accessing this resource and develop important skills for becoming 21st century global citizens.

How To Be a Patience Warrior (or ‘Keep Calm and Teach’)

How To Be a Patience Warrior (or ‘Keep Calm and Teach’)

AKTeach Virtual Learning Conference 2016

This was my second year attending the AKTeach Virtual Learning Conference, and I have to admit that I am just so amazed and jazzed by the quality of the learning opportunities offered during the 3 days of this event. I would like to thank the AKTeach team, specially Phil Johnson and Nicole Fuerst for their work in putting together this small, yet powerful event, offering fellow Alaskan educators the opportunity for connecting and learning, in a very stimulating and interacting environment.
This year  presenters were amazing educators who worked with the attendees for 3 consecutive days sharing their expertise and helping us growing in skills and creativity, important aspects to bring back to our classrooms next month when we will start a new school year.

The session  have chosen this year was on Advanced Paper Circuitry presented by Jeannine Huffman and David Cole. The reason why I wanted to attend to this session was that I wanted to learn more about Arduino coding for using ATTiny processor with the paper circuity. Jeannine was awesome in guiding us though the process of the creation of paper circuits that could support t he movement mechanism managed by the ATTiny processor.
I loved the freedom of creativity we had during the workshop and how some of us took off in different directions more relevant to the domain of their work. We all were very engaged although we all were focused on different goals. This process made me think about how we teachers often expect our students to work on the same task at the same pace, while we should give them the freedom to make a task/project relevant to their own reality. I love being in the shoes of a student because helps me keep in mind their prospective when it comes down to my classes.

Something I really liked about this session was learning about how to create advanced paper circuits with movements regulated by a coded microprocessor on a budget! These days we all have to deal with cut to education and is very challenging to find the money for supporting cool and innovative educational experiences. For this reason I think that it is particularly relevant to find way to bring innovative and engaging STEM experiences to our students with a minimum cost!!!
 I personally feel so excited about what I have learned and I can't wait to share it with my students and my colleagues!

My take from this conference is that there is so much we can do with students and it is very important to network with other educators across the state and the nation for supporting, helping, motivating and sharing with each other the resources, great ideas, success and failure stories that can help all of us in being better educator and support and motivate our students.

If you have never been to the AKTeach Virtual Learning Conference I would strongly recommend to mark it on your calendar for next year. It s not a "major production" conference, however it is very rich and very powerful!

From Ideas to Planning... Reality Check!

I get very excited with new ideas and I start thinking of the many way I can share hat I am learning with my students, however there is a point that I find always very difficult, however very important and needed... the reality check of making a plan!

There are 2 different ideas that I would like to implement, the first is a short term plan, while the second is a longer term plan.

1. Integrating paper circuitry as a creative element in a world language course.
When is time for planning the implementation I like to start small, working with a small number of students, which helps in managing and reviewing the plan as it evolves. My smallest class next year will be a second year of Italian.
With this class I am planning to have students work on a notebook for a weekly creative writing in the target language.
Once a month they should create a short story in the target language and this story should be illustrated and over-layered with Paper Circuitry. During the first semester I would use Paper Circuitry without any addition of coding. During the second semester I would like to introduce the coding and offer them the option of a final project with creative writing/speaking illustrated by the graphic and Paper Circuitry with or without animation (with Arduino coding).
I want to leave this as an option because I want students to enjoy this activity and not seeing it as an imposition and despise it.

The World Language AK standards are so general that I could find a few standards I could tie to this activity. However what I am looking more closely are the ISTE standards that I think are very important for 21st century students.
1- Creativity and Innovation
4- Critical thinking, problem solving, and decision making.


2. Create a CTE Paper Circuitry/Arduino coding course for high school students.
This course could be delivered either online, or in a traditional classroom, or using a blended format.
In my school district at this time there are not coding courses offered to students and our district office is looking into adding this type of courses. There is the need for it and this is a good thing! :)
I have discussed this idea with Jeannine Huffman, David Cole, Nicole Fuerst, and Dr. Lee Grahm, and I am looking forward to collaborating with all of these amazing individuals for creating this course.

I am really excited about the second idea because this is what would finally get the attention of my school district to the Paper Circuitry activities and all the potentials they have to offer.