In January, I was doing my typical thing and doing two things at once. Ironically, one of the activities was a #AppleEDUChat Twitter chat dealing with goal setting. One of my big goals was to not take on so much and do fewer things better. It wasn't really a good start. During the evening, I was asked about doing a "90 Days of Coding" activity. I run into a lot of people with questions about app development and design. That night was no different. For those that don't know, this is a challenge where you explore a topic every day for 90 days and journal your activities on Twitter. I run into a lot of people with questions about app development and design. That night was no different. I was wanting to get back into Swift Playgrounds and play around again.I had not been able to do anything with it since starting my Masters degree.This seemed like a good way to do two things at once. It would also force me to limit the amount of time I spent on coding each day. I was all in.
So, I got started. I cleared out all of my data on Swift Playgrounds and began exploring. It was a lot of fun. I became reacquainted with the app and had the chance to explore many new challenges within it. It was really great to be able to try things out and again. It was also a little bit intimidating to have to create a video reflection each day. I was putting myself out there in a whole new way. But, this was just the beginning. The Blink app reminded me of digital simulations I had seen before, such as the wolf-sheep predation simulation from Netlogo (https://ccl.northwestern.edu/netlogo/models/WolfSheepPredation). Without thinking twice about it, I started to see if I could change up the Swift Playground book Blink to be a predator/prey simulator. It wasn't easy. In the middle of it, Apple released a Mac version of Swift Playgrounds. I took the opportunity to see if that would help me with my goal of redoing the simulation. I was able to get farther, but still not get things working correctly. So, without looking, I just jumped off the next ledge. I started building an app from scratch. I had not built an app in a long time. This wasn't going to be easy. I started building and realized that I had never worked with SpriteKit before. SpriteKit is a way to use graphics, called sprites, in an app. It is used in most games in the App Store. I needed help. So, I turned to a website that I have used for coding lessons that go beyond the Everyone Can Code curriculum. I like the raywenderlich.com website. It has a lot of free tutorials and examples for people to use. They also have a huge library of videos and books to go deeper into coding concepts. I purchased a guide on 2D games. It was a great purchase. I journaled my learning as I gained the skills needed to make my simulation. It's not easy saying you don't know something. It's even harder to let people watch you go through the learning process. I did it anyway. By the end of the 90 days, I had a rough app that worked. I had solved a lot of problems and issues along the way. I still have a big one to solve, though. I can't get the grass to "die" yet. But, I'll get it yet. I want to finish this app and actually get it into the store. This has been a fun journey, but it isn't over yet. Learning never stops. Check out the archive of all 90 days here.
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I was given the great opportunity to work with Douglas Kiang this summer in the Community Education Initiative Summer Coding Academies. There are so many amazing stories and experiences that came out of the events. I could go on for hours about all of it. This post is about one specific activity, though. A large part of the event centered around app design. We modeled a way for these k-12 teachers to bring app design to their own classes. The great thing about this process is that it doesn't require professional equipment or even coding knowledge. It's about being creative and solving problems. This could all be done on paper without a computer. Coding is a tool to solve problems. It isn't a thing unto itself. I've never met a student who wanted to learn about arrays or methods because it was coding. Those that really wanted to learn about them had a problem to solve and needed this knowledge in order to solve it. Designing and app to solve a real problem in the community can provide this opportunity. At the ADE Institute this past summer, I had a plan for what I wanted to work and develop as my project. It was something that was a need in my district and I though it would be a good project. By lunch time on Monday, I had several people all ask me about designing apps and helping them with their ideas. It as eye-opening. I had an even bigger need in front of me. I teamed up with Stephanie Bauer and Christopher Barnabei and to take the app design process we had used in the coding academies and put it together in a book. At the time, there was already plenty of books and materials teaching coding through Everyone Can Code. Within the guides and materials was a Keynote deck, App Design Journal. We used the journal all summer as a guide for teachers to use in their class. I used the guide all the time in class and it was just second nature to me. As I worked with teachers all summer, I realized that not everyone saw things the way I did. I had the benefit of lots of conversations, lots of different events, and a lot of time spent with people much smarter and talented than I am. These teachers didn't have all of the experiences I did. We took the process I had been using in class and taught in the academies and wrote it all out for other teachers to follow. The book helps teachers employ a Challenge Based Learning approach to providing app design to their learners. I've heard it said many times before and I say it myself, "A great app is one that people download, keep, and can't imagine their lives without." Creating tis kind of app is not easy. It takes a lot of work to really understand a person's needs and then figure out a way to help them solve it. A app may only have 10 downloads, but if it changes the lives of those 10 people, then that app is a great app. This is the goal we are driving for with this guide. We are helping teachers find ways to connect with their community to bring authentic problems into the classroom that the learners can design solutions for. Along the way, they get closer to their community, help solve real problems, and maybe even create an app. The guide starts with finding a challenge within the community to design solutions for. At the end, the book finishes with learners pitching their app designs in a Prototype Showcase. Along the way, the book helps guide teachers through using Challenge Based Learning as they help learners understand the problem at hand, come up with ideas, and finally refine it into a workable prototype. In my own class, this prototype was used to spur my engineering class to learn Swift and eventually publish their own apps for our special education teachers. We hope the guide is useful to you and helps bring app design to your classroom. |
About me & this blogThis blog is for things related to my class, PL, coaching, or just teaching in general. You can follow me on Twitter @myakSTEM Archives
June 2021
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