Author Archives: jseidel

Wide Walls Outside and Inside 308

Wide Walls and The Lower School Computation Thinking Curriculum Wide Walls of the Halls Looking to the 2019 – 2020 year, I wasn’t thinking that the students I taught Lower School’s Room 308 would have a new experience of their … Continue reading

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Tinkering with Micro:bit and Scratch 3.0 Beta

A dinosaur roars. Rainbow fish swims randomly. Four stuffed creatures “play” songs when students toss them around the room. What does all this play have in common? It all involves a toy plus a Micro:bit chip! The chips are programmed … Continue reading

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Coding and Computational Thinking in the Lower School: Questions and Answers

How do elementary school students practice Computational Thinking? a) by thinking like a computer b) by thinking in ways that make you faster at coding c) by learning to break a problem down into manageable parts The answer is c. … Continue reading

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The 308 Makerspace Lightens Up!

The front and the back of the Tech Classroom/Makerspace in 308 are filled with new light! In the front of the room, the school has installed new projection system that larger, brighter and easier for all students to see from … Continue reading

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Wecome Back to 308

It is a delight to welcome back the Third Graders from last year as new Fourth Graders. It’s exciting to introduce Third Graders to the space where they will design, build and program from Third through Sixth Grade. Our emerging … Continue reading

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President Quiz Games are Ready for Downloading

This spring, Third Graders in Linda’s class used Scratch to create their own president quiz games. In Google Drive, students wrote questions and accompanying answers that were based on president research in the fall. Each student also each drew the president by hand and … Continue reading

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Third Graders Design Conversations

This year, Third Graders were asked to construct a creature in the computer graphics program Pixie. Some relied entirely on their imaginations. Other drew inspiration from such drawing reference books as Ed Emberly’s Animal Drawing Book. Such a wide array … Continue reading

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Transformation in Animation: 2016 NY International Children’s Film Festival Short Films One

Animators draw a series of pictures. When they put those pictures together one after the other very quickly, the series of images can give the impression of movement or transformation. This is a how an animated film is made. This … Continue reading

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Animation Assembly: Animation and the Importance of Drawing and Painting by Hand

The New York Children’s International Film Festival begins in just one week on February 26! Set sail on an incredible journey. Befriend a monster. Uncover a mystery. Visit a foreign country — or a foreign planet. For four weekends, New … Continue reading

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Beyond the Hour of Code

In September, Mayor DeBlasio gave New York City public schools a deadline for offering computer science to all students. With great fanfare, the December “hour of code” came and went. Then in January, President Obama announced in his state of the union address that a … Continue reading

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