Making Classroom Coding Come to Life – Mindstorms, Spike, VexVR (7-8)

The thesis of this STEAM presentation is that by allowing coding to come to life, i.e. physical applications and manipulations in 3D space, students can better visualize, make deeper learning connections, and have fun! The presentation shows how teachers can cover the elementary coding curriculum (emphasis on Intermediate) using robotics applications, through Lego EV3 Mindstorms & Spike Prime, and VexVR (all web-based Scratch-based programs) to give examples of activities that teach students about loops, conditional statements, subprograms, data analysis, and more. I will also have a small component that explores using Google Sheets/Excel to also compute/collect data and will also make connections to Micro:bits. I also give examples that cover other math strands (e.g. Spatial Sense). 

Target Grades: 7-8