During the COVID-19 pandemic, I noticed that many people, including our students and co-workers, were experiencing social isolation. Even my own children were missing out on the best part of school, which was playing with friends. They were now connecting with their friends through online games like Minecraft and Roblox. Similarly, undergraduates were also using these online activities to stay connected. However, I also knew that hands-on projects were important for student mental wellness. This led my collaborator, Karen Maness, and I to create a project-based course that enabled children and undergraduates to co-create internet-connected robots.
We used multiple technology platforms including, Slack and Padlet to facilitate the creation of a mix of physical and digital deliverables. Though the pandemic has increased the use of these collaboration and communication tools, what made makes our project different was that we sought out a socially-distant physical connection through another platform; Adafruit IO which enabled young learners to affect the movements of a real robot via any internet browser. This was made possible by unleashing the imaginations and talents of all collaborators and opening opportunities for creative expression for a learning community of students, faculty, staff, TAs, and families.
Through a series of campus connections, we collaborated with Eva Rosenthal, a teacher in a Title I elementary school in the Austin Independent School District. She created a Robot Club to provide a time and space for students to gather digitally. Maness and I also created a curriculum for these meetings. At the end of the semester, 20 robots designed by children and built by undergraduates were ready for the final robot show.
I received a TONIC teaching award for this course.
coding | learning design | fabrication | community of practice | K12 learners
December 2020