Reflection #7

This week we looked at the concept of coding and gaming and how they can be embedded into the classroom. I very much enjoyed doing the coding activity as it is something I remember doing when I was in my Grade 12 Physics class. I find coding to be a great way for students to learn how to problem solve and figure out how to work backwards to their end goal. This is especially helpful when we look at the visual nature of coding where, specifically in these activities, if your coding is wrong you will be able to see in the program you created what has to be changed. An example of this is in the Anna and Elsa coding game where you need to make snowflakes and if your code is wrong you will be able to see when you run the program how your snowflake does not align with the coding request.

While I agree that coding is a great activity to use in the classroom, I do not think that there are very many areas in the band classroom where coding could be used to teach the concepts set out by the BC curriculum. However, I think that there can be coding activities that incorporate music well and can help develop skills related to those used in the music classroom such as ones that might create a melody or copy a rhythm.

Gamified learning is a concept that I think is very useful in the classroom to help engage different types of learners with a variety of different contents. Within the English classroom, I think that the game GetBadNews can be very useful in teaching the concept of propaganda and fake news, especially within a unit that might discussing a novel that revolves around this concept or within a New Media class.

Here is an image of the code and image I created when I played the Anna and Elsa coding game.