Programming and Performance Tasks: Addressing Computational Thinking

Data Collection      Microbit.org has provided a great resource for using the Microbit for data collection.  They have an excellent introduction, complete with video tutorial and sample code, for Data Collection, and a number of suggested experiments involving collecting data.  Each experiment has an Overview, Setup, and Procedure section - again with video tutorials and sample code.  The experiment topics are: Population Traits, Temperature, Soil Moisture, Gravity, Motion and Waves, Body, Electrical and Waves, Electricity, and Rocket Acceleration.  Material needs are minimal, usually a microbit, batteries, cable, copper wire, and access to a spreadsheet program for data analysis.  Some of the experiments make use of two Microbits and the Radio code blocks that allow Microbits to communicate with one another.      The overview is here (there are links to all the experiments in a sidebar): https://makecode.microbit.org/courses/ucp...

     The definition of Computational Thinking provided in the Virginia Computer Science Standards states that it " involves the use of concepts, such as abstraction, recursion, and iteration, to process and analyze data, " and relies on " practices such as abstraction, modeling, and decomposition. "  These can be very difficult concepts for many students, especially those in K-5.  One way to introduce these ideas might be through the use of fiction/children's literature.  A good resource site for ideas and resources is the Observe Le@rn Do blog found here: www.observelearndo.blogspot.com   There are good discussions of computational thinking, coding, and robotics.  A post closely related to the use of literature is this one:  http://observelearndo.blogspot.com/2018/01/using-picture-books-to-teach_21.html      As the author points out, it's not necessary to teach about computers or coding to teach the skills associated wit...