Celebrate Black Teachers and Students
This project is part of the Black History Month celebration because it supports a Black teacher or a school where the majority of the students are Black.
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Mrs. Hughes from Nashville TN is requesting educational kits & games through DonorsChoose, the most trusted classroom funding site for teachers.
My students need Sphero SPRK robots to blend art and programming!
This project is part of the Black History Month celebration because it supports a Black teacher or a school where the majority of the students are Black.
Our school is a culturally diverse, high poverty, inner-city school in a large southern city. Many of our students live in motels and some are homeless. Many do not have access to technology at home. Many of our students struggle academically and mathematics is an area of focus, specifically measurement and geometry.
My students love coming to art and love technology, so why not combine the two and help with cross-curricular skills that our school has targeted for improvement?
I learned about the Sphero SPRK in a STEAM workshop and was filled with ideas about how they could be used in my class to enhance my students' 21st Century skills of communication, creativity, collaboration, and critical thinking. After receiving one for Christmas and learning how to use it, I am convinced that incorporating them into my lessons and starting an afternoon club will create the SPARK that will help my students bridge the achievement gap.
I have several projects in mind; from student-created mazes to navigate the Spheros through; using the Spheros to design a piece of art inspired by the work of Jackson Pollock; to (once their coding skill grows) “painting with light”, which would be using the Slow Shutter app to capture the movement of the Spheros as a colored line of light in a photograph! I could see incorporating these kinds of activities into a parent involvement night…the possibilities are endless and they all start with having more than one Sphero SPRK!
My first project though, will be to have the students learn about the artist, Jackson Pollock and then have the students drive the Sphero SPRKs through areas of paint, creating a cooperative group image in his style.
This will give the students an opportunity to learn basic navigation. Then we will learn the basics of block programming by programming shapes for the Sphero to paint.
As their programming skills improved, the student groups will design mazes in their art journals, build them, and learn to program the Sphero SPRKs to run them. This will involve measuring angles for turns and measuring distances for the straight sections. They will need to be aware of speed for navigating inclines as they create their diabolical mazes to stump the other groups! They will improve their problem-solving skills, writing about their efforts and planning for improvements, thus utilizing real world skills that will stand them in good stead for the future!
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