Week 3 - Moving into Makey Makey Land but first a little more CS First

I have to say I was a little intimidated as I unpacked the Makey Makey. But I plugged it in to my computer and quickly started makey making things happen! It was so fun finding conductive things in my house. I realized before I could move forward on creating a game with the Makey Makey, I needed to finish the CS first activities to learn more about game design. I went back to where I left off, lesson 4 and used the makey makey to test out the platform game I made.
 Here is my attempt at adding the random feature. I plan to use this in the game I create using the Makey Makey.

 I connected my alligator clips to bananas and carrots and I got really confused about which fruit or veggie controlled which action. So I decided to connect with peers to see if anyone had this dilemma too.  I checked out Allison's blog as she was and continues to be a great mentor to me around technology. I really appreciate how she thinks and how she approaches tasks. I have a lot to learn from her and am thrilled she is in this class. I LOVE, love, love how she organized the controls and so I decided to try and create a control panel with a toothpaste box and baby carrots.

Once I did this I felt a little less overwhelmed and ready to move forward. I feel like a real slow poke with all of this, I am enjoying the challenges and find I am learning a lot, but am having a hard time getting everything finished by the due date.  I need to go back and review over and over what the different coding commands mean and what they do when operated with a click or an arrow.  I will not be completing my Makey Makey game by tonight.  But my idea is to create a game with a dog and a doughnut, in the spirit of the book "If You Give a Dog a Doughnut."  Stay tuned!

Artifacts from CS First

This week I only completed two of the required 8 lessons in CSfirst. I created a sprite that I named, made speech bubbles for and programmed to move.  I also created a two player game(which I am excited to play with my mentee this Friday!). Boy am I feeling challenged by these activities and pretty excited that I completed what I did. It is not so much the actual creation of the code but the glitches with my older chromebook and the number of details to do for each activity. I did find creating the flicker screen in the first activity a little difficult. My sprite did not appear and I spent many hours trying to figure out the where I made a mistake.  I never did solve it so I began anew and it worked the second time through. Sometimes starting fresh is a good option.

I love the creating and problem solving involved in this and I REALLY love watching the results of the code I am creating, I  feel overwhelmed with the time it is taking me.  I have had a little experience with Scratch and none with CS first.  I really like the videos through CS First (although the narrators sometimes talk so fast I miss some of the directions). I appreciate that the directions are repeated in writing on the bottom right corner. Each activity made me more familiar with the types of actions or ways to program. I am in awe of the code that was written to allow for the variety of motions, looks, sounds and more that I was able to use.

The wrap-up questions and video at the end are a good way to assess and connect what was learned through the lesson. One of the questions had code written out in text only and we had to explain what activity it was programming. I found it more challenging to follow the thinking in that format.

I feel confident as I move forward on the remaining six lessons it will go smoother and quicker. Back to coding and check back for more contemplations on coding!