IATL Student as Producer Report
Sensors in the Creative Arts
Exploration of physical interfaces,
control and sensor applications with
creative arts students in New York.
Sam Edwards, Thomas Preece and Andrew Sula
Project Leaders, Technology Volunteers, 2012-13
Contents Page
1 Project Overview 1
2
2 Collabora2on with Susan E9enheim, ERHS, NY 2
2
3
4
5
3 Dissemina2on of Ac2vi2es at Scratch BCN 5
5
6
6
7
8
4 Summary 7 Appendices 1.1 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 4.1 A1 Summary of Achievements Background to Visit Working with ERHS Students in NY Sharing Teaching Experiences Further DisseminaIon with NY University Conference Overview Workshop: ConnecIng Our World Ignite PresentaIon: Coding Live! PresentaIon: Scratch Sensors with ERHS AVending the other Conference Sessions 9
IntroducIon 9
10
10
Links to other media August 2013
IATL FINALREPORT
“Great idea from
@TechVolunteers
at #Scratch
2013BCN ignite
session : make kid
enact code to
learn debugging
strategy”
@EtClaude
Section 1
Project Overview
The aim of this project was to
develop a collaborative partnership
with Eleanor Roosevelt High School
(ERHS) in New York, to enrich the
delivery of both the school’s
animation course and the
Technology Volunteer’s workshops.
During the 2012 Scratch@MIT
conference Susan Ettenheim, and
her students, attended the
Technology Volunteers workshop Sensing Our World. Susan was
particularly interested in integrating
the workshop into her current
lessons and further exploring the
use of physical interfaces with her
animation class. She offered to host
a visit to New York, if the
Technology Volunteers could
source the funding to travel.
As well as introducing Susan’s
students to our workshops, and the
new resources that had been
created since the 2012 conference,
we also felt the trip would help
foster further opportunities for
Warwick students. We hoped the
trip would help us improve our
resources and teaching techniques
and enable us to tailor our
workshops to a wider audience by
introducing more creative activities.
The trip also highlighted
opportunities for Warwick to foster
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PROJECTOVERVIEW August 2013
further connections with NYU as Susan had
links to the Interactive Telecommunications
Program (ITP). We also hoped the
collaboration and international trip would give
us something valuable to share at the
European Scratch Conference which was
planned for July 2013.
1.1 Summary of Achievements
•
February and March: Preparation and
planning for the New York visit,
including the creation of new
workshops and educational resources.
•
April: Travelled to New York, delivering
workshops with creative arts students
at Eleanor Roosevelt High School.
•
April: Shared teaching experiences
and challenges with a variety of teachers from both ERHS and other
schools across the US.
•
May: Proposals accepted for the Barcelona conference.
•
April: Ran a workshop for New York University’s Interactive
Telecommunications Program.
•
June: Preparation for three sessions at the European Scratch
Conference.
•
July: Presented three sessions at the European Scratch Conference in
Barcelona and shared our experiences with a variety of teachers from
across the world.
Section 2
Collaboration with Susan Ettenheim,
Eleanor Roosevelt High School, New York
2.1 Background to Visit
The Technology Volunteers first met
Susan Ettenheim, whilst running a
workshop at the 2012 Scratch
conference in Boston. At the conference
she expressed interest in having some of
the groups volunteers travel to New York
to collaborate and help with her digital
animation class, in which she was
teaching Scratch. She was particularly
interested in using Scratch with physical
sensors. We considered the feasibility
and promptly applied to several sources
of funding. We were fortunate enough to
raise what we needed for the project to
go ahead. Once we returned from New
York, we used the remaining budget to
contribute to the expenses for the
Scratch Conference in Barcelona.
In order to ensure the trip was
successful, and the students learnt as
much as possible, in the weeks leading
IATL Report
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COLLABORATION August 2013
Scratch is an educational
programming tool which was
developed by the Scratch Team
at the Lifelong Kindergarten
group at MIT Media Lab in 2006.
It can be used to create
interactive stories, games, and
animations -- and these can be
shared in the online community
with others from around the
world. In the process of
designing and programming
Scratch projects, young people
learn to think creatively, reason
systematically, and work
collaboratively.
http://scratch.mit.edu
up to our trip we had several video
conferences with Susan. We set the
students some preliminary work to do
before we arrived, so that we could use the
time we had as effectively as possible. We
outlined the lesson structures, but were
careful not to be too detailed or
prescriptive because we wanted the
students to be creative, and explore the
use of sensors in Scratch. After many
meetings, we finalised a plan that suited
everyones expectations for the visit. The
idea was to get students to create a game,
experiment with different types of sensors
and then showcase their work to the class
on a large installation on the final day.
2.2 Working with Eleanor Roosevelt
Students in New York
On the first day we began by
introducing the students to physical
sensors. We used the PicoBoard’s
that Susan had recently purchased,
after receiving funding from the
school to help with our workshops.
PicoBoards are hardware that plug
into a computers USB port to allow
Scratch to read the values of the
built-in sensors and any external
sensors which have been
connected. We combined the
PicoBoards with a variety of
homemade sensors that we had
created and brought with us, for
example, drums made out of bottle
caps and potentiometers made our
of card, thimbles and graphite
pencils. By bringing our collection of
homemade and relatively low-cost
sensors we hoped to inspire both
Susan and her students to start
creating and collecting their own. By
the end of the lesson the students
had made simple games, with
characters moving around the
screen and performing other actions,
based on the readings from the
sensors they had connected.
On the second day, Susan
suggested that we start the session
with the students at the front of the
class. She explained that this is a
technique she often uses to
encourage the group to discuss the
challenges they had faced the
previous day. We used this time to
identify the common obstacles
students were experiencing when
developing their game, and
encouraged them to help each other
to solve problems together. This
proved extremely successful and
gave the students an opportunity to
improve their logical thinking and
problem solving skills. These are
skills we are continually striving to
expand during our workshops, and
therefore we plan to use this
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COLLABORATION August 2013
technique to improve future
sessions. During the rest of the
workshop, the students continued
experimenting with the physical
sensors and worked to integrate
them with the programs they had
produced before we arrived.
The plan for the final day was to do
something really exciting with the
projects the students had created.
We wanted to expand what they
learnt so far, and show them how
physical interfaces can be easily
extended. We worked with students
to set up one large sensor
installation at the front of the class
which consisted of a PC dancemat
and huge buttons mounted on a
cardboard box. We also set-up
various sensor demos, including, a
dance mat made from foil and a
Makey Makey, an Ardunio
accelerometer that measured
rotation in three directions and an
Etch-a-Sketch created using a few
potentiometers and a plastic
container. We briefly explained how
each installation worked before
letting the students tweak their
projects and demonstrate them to
the rest of the class on the sensor
installations. This was a brilliant, and
fun way to reward the students for
their hard work and highlighted each
students unique approach in using
the sensors within their program.
There were many situations where
we felt the combination of both our
academic and teaching experience,
helped us show the students the
best way to learn, create and
develop their programming skills. As
we had come into the class with a
fresh perspective we were able to
identify gaps in the students
knowledge, communicate these with
Susan and discuss the ways she
could overcome them. One
example, was when the class was
using a particular Scratch block to
make their characters move, which
vastly overcomplicated their code,
making it very difficult to debug and
fix when the program was not
working how they expected it to. In
this situation there was a much
easier method. This helped us
identify and communicate the
importance of keeping it simple and
using the minimum amount of code
possible to do what they wanted to
do. We discussed this example with
Susan in depth, and explained that
there are always different ways to
achieve the same result, and the
students should be experimenting in
order to find the best approach.
2.3 Sharing Teaching Experiences
During our time at ERHS, Susan
was approached to help design the
Scratch section of the New York
Software Engineering curriculum.
We had the opportunity to discuss
her ideas for the curriculum, and
also meet the head of the
government department who was
creating and implementing the new
course. This opened the opportunity
to learn more about the differences
between the UK and US education
systems, as well as to help
contribute to a curriculum which will
be used across public schools in
New York.
We also had the opportunity to
attend part of a Google Certified
Teacher conference with Susan,
where we met teachers from
schools all over America. We talked
about our teaching experiences, the
University and the Technology
Volunteers. Many of the teachers
had either already taught Scratch or
were interested in teaching it in the
future, so we shared our knowledge
IATL Report
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COLLABORATION August 2013
with the hope they could use it to
improve the technology lessons they
were delivering in their respective
schools.
2.4 Further Dissemination with
New York University
During our visit we also had the
opportunity to run a workshop at
NYU with students studying the
Interactive Telecommunications
Program (ITP). This was a fairly
informal workshop where we
demonstrated Scratch and the
equipment we had brought,
including the PicoBoards and
homemade sensors. We
demonstrated the Etch-a-Sketch
(which is made from a plastic
container and some potentiometers)
and also the dancemat hooked up to
one of Susan’s students Scratch
projects. We also explained our role
as Technology Volunteers and
talked about going into schools to
teach.
Workshop at New York University (NYU), ITP
Section 3
Dissemination of Activities at the European
Scratch Conference in Barcelona
3.1 Conference Overview
This conference was the first
European Scratch conference and
over 200 people travelled from
around the world to attend. Each
day of the conference had a
theme, and key speakers from a
number of different fields
presented their thoughts:
Thursday: Imagination; Mitch
Resnick (MIT) and Karen Brennan
(Harvard)
Friday: Tinkering; David
Cuartielles (Arduino) and Clive
Beale (Raspberry Pi)
Saturday: Education; James
Whelton (out of school) and
Shuchi Grover (in school)
When we first arrived in
Barcelona, we went on a walking
tour with a large group of
conference delegates. This gave
us the opportunity to meet a
variety of new people and explain
that we were volunteers from the
University of Warwick. We also
talked about the sessions we
would be presenting later in the
week in the hope that we would
encourage people to come along.
We received lots of words of
encouragement about our
volunteering and everyone we met
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DISSEMINATION August 2013
was very impressed about how
much time we gave up to volunteer
and identified how valuable our
contributions were. Many of them
said they wished they had a similar
scheme in their country so they
could get access to help when they
needed it.
reading off the slides for 5 minutes!
The plan was to build a homemade
sensor live on stage, while some
audience volunteers were
constructing the Scratch code. We
then wanted to connect them
together and act the program out to
see what it would do. We started by
bringing a large whiteboard out and
3.2 Workshop: Connecting Our World asking a group from the audience to
construct a program by sticking
Our first session at the conference
printed Scratch blocks onto it in the
was a workshop on homemade
correct order. This immediately got
sensors. We demonstrated a wide
everyones attention, and they were
variety of sensors including those
intrigued to see what would happen
we used in New York as well as
next. Whilst the volunteers were
some new ones such as Box It - a
building the code, we assembled a
Bop It clone made from a shoebox,
home-made sensor dance mat
water bottle, potentiometer, a
under a camera which was projected
cardboard stick and some tin foil.
to the whole audience. Every 15
We began by introducing the
seconds the PowerPoint slide
audience to the PicoBoards and
changed and we alternated between
explaining how they could connect
checking the progress of the code
sensors to them to interact with
and checking the progress of
Scratch. We then demonstrated our
building the sensor. One member of
homemade sensors and quickly had
the group was explaining the whole
the whole room operating the
process, guiding the audience
PicoBoards correctly, and they soon
through the slides and inviting the
began to create their own sensors
two other members of our group to
using the materials we had bought.
explain the progress on either the
This session allowed the conference
code or the sensor so far.
delegates, many of whom were
teachers, to take away the skills
The presentation had to be strictly 5
required to teach the sensor
minutes, and by the end everyone
sessions themselves. We had many
was laughing and filming what we
enquiries about where to buy
were doing. The Scratch blocks
PicoBoards and the other equipment
were taking longer to assemble than
we had with us, so we felt the
we thought, as the three volunteers
session was extremely successful.
were rushing to stick them to the
board. The organiser asked us to
3.3 Ignite Presentation: Homemade
stop, but the audience were so
Sensors and Coding - Live!
intrigued they shouted for us to carry
on and persuaded him to let us
Our second session was an ignite
finish. This was by far the best
presentation - a 5 minute
presentation we made at the
presentation consisting of 20 slides
conference and the feedback we got
that transition automatically every 15
was brilliant. At the end of our
seconds. We really wanted to make
presentation we had lots of people
our presentation exciting, engaging,
come up to us and ask us questions
fun and fast-paced, instead of just
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DISSEMINATION August 2013
about the dancemat we had created
and the underlying idea behind our
presentation - physically getting
students to come together at the
front of the class, like we did in New
York, and building the code without
any computers, stepping through
the logical sequences and working
together to identify problems and
finding solutions to fix them. We had
extremely positive feedback and lots
of people congratulating us on the
presentation, our work and our
ideas throughout the rest of the
conference.
debugging strategy” and “Awesome
live demo madness by
@TechVolunteers in
#Scratch2013BCN ignite talks!”.
During the presentation, we also
had supportive tweets from Karen
Brennan, the creator of the official
Scratch education site, ScratchEd.
A video of the session is available
on our YouTube channel (http://
www.youtube.com/user/
TechnologyVolunteers).
The feedback on Twitter was also
brilliant with tweets such as “Great
idea from @TechVolunteers at
#Scratch2013BCN ignite session :
make kid enact code to learn
Our third and final session was a
joint presentation with Susan about
our experiences in New York. We
also demoed the dancemat and
showed a video of our experience
3.4 Presentation: An Exploration of
Scratch Sensors with Creative Arts
Students in New York
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DISSEMINATION August 2013
working with the students (also on
our YouTube channel). This was a
useful session for the teachers, as
the presentation reflected on what
was successful and how teaching
Scratch can be improved. We were
lucky enough to have Mitch Resnick
attend this session, who is the
creator of Scratch from MIT.
3.5 Attending the other Conference
Sessions
We also had the opportunity to
attend the other conference
presentations, workshops and talks
to see what people around the world
were doing with Scratch and other
educational equipment. We learnt a
variety of new things which we hope
to integrate into future workshops.
For example, we attended a session
which used Scratch to make music
in an interactive puppet show, which
would be an interesting workshop
for students interested in music. In
addition, we attended many of the
sessions which focused on how
Scratch can be taught in schools.
Shuchi Grover’s Saturday keynote,
for example, discussed interesting
research about how different
approaches to teaching affect
students’ learning of Scratch. We
also attended sessions run by the
creators of Scratch which discussed
new features coming soon to the
platform, giving us a head-start in
incorporating these features into our
workshops.
purchase a much larger set of
equipment, hence allowing us to run
more Arduino workshops and cater
for larger groups of students. We
also discovered a piece of software
that allows Arduinos to be
programmed using blocks, allowing
us to target our more advanced
Arduino workshops at younger
students.
Throughout the conference, we had
several breaks between sessions,
and on the last day there was a
celebration event. This allowed us to
network with many of the
conference delegates who were
interested in hearing about our
volunteering experience or looking
for advice about what equipment or
workshops would be most suitable
for their classes. One particular
physics teacher, had seen the
PicoBoards and Arduinos during our
workshop and was interested in
using them with his class. However,
he did not know which sensors
would be the most beneficial for
what he was trying to achieve. We
gave him advice, and helped him
decide what equipment would be
most suitable and how to use it in
the most effective way.
We also attended sessions which
will help improve our Ardunio
workshops, including how to make
an Ardunio for £5, saving £15 per
unit on the normal retail price. This
will help us bring the equipment
costs of our Arduino workshops
down significantly, allowing us to
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SUMMARY August 2013
Section 4
Summary
Overall, it has been a very exciting
and challenging year for the
Technology Volunteers. We have
really enjoyed working together and
have certainly learned a huge
amount about teaching, and the
philosophy behind Scratch. We have
had the opportunity to network with
a variety of important people from
across the world, for example, at the
Barcelona conference we met the
Scratch team from MIT. This has
allowed us to raise awareness of
Warwick University in an
international setting.
This project has had positive
benefits for both the school and the
surrounding community in New York.
As a direct result of our visit, some
of Susan’s students are now part of
an after-school technology club,
which was inspired by the
Technology Volunteers. They have
been helping another school with
Scratch via video conferencing. In
addition, another student in the class
has also taken the initiative to tutor
an eight year old in Scratch over the
summer holidays. It is great to see
students volunteering and teaching
Scratch, and realising, like we have,
what an incredibly rewarding
experience it can be.
The IATL funding has enabled us to
gain first-hand experience of
researching, creating, evaluating
and delivering workshops to a
school class in New York. It has also
supported the dissemination of that
experience at an international
conference and given us numerous
opportunities to discuss our work
with teachers worldwide. We are
extremely grateful to IATL for helping
to fund these opportunities, as we
could not have completed the
project without them. We would also
like to thank Susan Ettenheim for
inviting us to work with her class,
and for hosting our visit. Her energy
and enthusiasm is incredibly
infectious, and her pupils are
fortunate to have such an
inspirational teacher. We are looking
forward to another exciting
academic year for Technology
Volunteers, and cannot wait to
incorporate everything we have
learnt into improved workshops to
benefit both the local community and
the students who volunteer with us
in the future.
IATL Report
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APPENDICES August 2013
Appendix 1
Links to Other Media
Our Media Page
h"p://go.warwick.ac.uk/TechVolunteers/Resources/2012-­‐13
Our Twitter Details
@TechVolunteers
#Scratch2013BCN
Barcelona Conference Program
h"p://scratch2013bcn.org/program
Videos
Technology Volunteers YouTube Channel
hVp://www.youtube.com/user/TechnologyVolunteers
Conference YouTube Channel
hVps://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_OmBsaJdx8BqSS4qU4agNg
Photos
Our Flickr Album:
h"p://www.flickr.com/x/t/0094009/gp/megjlow/p5G876/ Our Facebook Album:
h"ps://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.
10151547438092073.1073741827.686452072&type=1&l=db004fc998
Conference Flickr Albums
Thursday:
h"p://www.flickr.com/photos/43895508@N04/sets/72157634794708269/
Friday:
h"p://www.flickr.com/photos/43895508@N04/sets/72157634809330931/
Saturday:
h"p://www.flickr.com/photos/43895508@N04/sets/72157634843428268/
Conference Even7fier
hVp://evenIfier.com/event/scratch2013bcn/
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