We have come through our snow days, our extra day off on Monday, and are working on getting back into our routine in class (in between ski trips of course!)
This week, we started the PLTW App Creators course. I sent out an email with details about this new unit. In case you missed the email, for the second semester, we will be working on the Project Lead The Way App Creator course. This course is designed for 6th-8th grade students to learn how to design, program, test, and possibly publish their own app that solves a problem. The following link is the website for the curriculum, and shares information on PLTW and what it means to be a PLTW school. Project Lead The Way Gateway Programs
The App Creators course has been completely created by Project Lead The Way to be the entire curriculum for one quarter (one semester for us, since we only meet every other day). This means that we will be working on this unit almost every day, but will have a warm up to practice their fundamental skills and vocabulary. Project Lead the Way courses are specifically designed to provide the student with challenging and engaging lessons and projects that require students to work together, problem solve, analyze, lead and create at their own pace. It follows an instructional model called "Project Based Learning". Here, through collaboration, real world resources, guidance, and problem solving the students learn by doing and exploring. This is different than many of the traditional models of education in that the teacher functions as the facilitator of learning rather than the deliverer of content, while the students direct their own progress.
This week, the students have been working on writing a linear algorithm for how we start to our warm-ups. We had a few laughs as the students tried to guide me to the white board to write. Without the correct directions, I ended up walking into students, the desks and even the wall at one point!
Our class is working up to the students created their own app, and all of these ideas and concepts help the students understand the building blocks. Some of the activities might be a little frustrating as they are designed to help the students learn on their own, and to discover their own way. I continually remind the students that the important part of this is the process, not the end result. So if you finish, fantastic! If you don't finish but continued working at it, also fantastic!
Please let me know if you have any questions. I love to have visitors! You are welcome to reach out to me by email or phone.
