Robotics, Programming and STEM: What's Not to Like?
My students need four Sphero robots and four Samsung tablets to control them to learn math, robotics and engineering skills.
$1,295 goal
Hooray! This project is fully funded
Hooray! This project is fully funded
Celebrating Hispanic & Latinx Heritage Month
This project is a part of the Hispanic & Latinx Heritage Month celebration because
it supports a Latino teacher or a school where the majority of students are Latino.
Computer programming and technology are the great equalizers in my classroom. I have students who have difficulty reading and writing, but who can program a sprite in Scratch to move around the screen, respond to other sprites, draw shapes, and make noises. What a way to build confidence!
My students are awesome.
They are enthusiastic about problem-solving and programming. Some live in stable two-parent households with two college-educated parents while others have families that are struggling to make ends meet. Some are up at 5:00 a.m. to catch school buses all over Los Angeles to our school two blocks from the beach. Others ride their bikes and skateboards from home, or surf before school. Some students carry smartphones and have computers and Internet at home. Others do not have a phone at all, and have no access to the Internet except during the six hours that they are at school. For some of my students, getting access to the Internet is as easy as opening up a browser at home. Others need support. Some learn to think logically over the dinner table, and some have that innate ability. Others don't understand how to define a problem and then to solve it step by step. Learning to program with Tickle and a robot will help them develop logical thinking.
My Project
We will use the Tickle app on the Samsung tablets to build mini computer programs and to teach children the principles of "Garbage In, Garbage Out," logical language, if/then statements and the simple creativity of code. They use problem solving strategies, primarily trying something and checking it, and then trying it a different way if it does not work, to learn that making mistakes is OK, and that sometimes we learn the most from these mistakes. We will use the Tickle app on the tablets to control the Sphero robots, learning how code can control a physical object.
About 30 percent of U.S.
software engineers are female. The typical high school AP computer science class has 19% women. In 2013, no girls took the AP computer science exam in Mississippi or Montana, no African-American students took the exam in 11 states, and no Hispanic students took it in 8 states. Almost all of my programming students are African-American or Hispanic, and many are female. Learning elementary programming can change their future, giving them basic knowledge and confidence.
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As a teacher-founded nonprofit, we're trusted by thousands of teachers and supporters across the country. This classroom request for funding was created by Ms. Ferreira and reviewed by the DonorsChoose team.
