Hello Blogosphere,
This week, I experienced a blast from the past! I got to learn the basics of coding for the game “Flappy Bird”. This game used to exist on my iPod when I was in elementary school. The game temporarily disappeared from the internet over the intense, and toxic, culture that had taken over the hype around the game and the simplicity of its gameplay. It was so simple and so popular, that I’ve seen friendships form and end over this game. What a time to be a kid. Fast forward to 2023, I got to use a straightforward coding system off of Code.org to create my own version of flappy bird. I had some help with a step-by-step process to set-up he various game settings including, points, background, flying speed, even the character you use to go through the obstacles. You will find the link at the end of my blog post!
Regarding the lesson itself, I think computation is very much achievable beyond mathematics. For instance, take the elements of decomposition and pattern recognition. One could say they go hand-in-hand. I really like the example in the video of the man with the flat tire. He first decomposed and analyzed the root cause of his car stopping on the side of the road and then make connections to other instances of a motorized object powering down (pattern recognition). Those two-steps alone can be the foundation towards developing critical thinking skills. In my future practicum classroom, the grade I have been matched-up to teach is Grade 6. I think students at this age/grade presents a great opportunity for them to step into the computational thinking in the context of social studies. Through taking a look at the curriculum, a lot of the curricular content has to do with understanding levels of government powers and the differences between different organizational institutions. Teaching these topics remind me of my time as a Political Science student. Part of understanding material, was dissecting the problem given by decomposing the layers of the issue at hand and bringing in familiar paradigms and approaches based on any prior knowledge about certain aspects of the issue.
Here is the link to my Flappy Bird Game 🙂 https://studio.code.org/c/1887404373
