Implementation of ‘Coding with Europeana’ (SOI-RS-121)

13-year-old Serbian students tried to implement the learning scenario “Coding with Europeana” by Jose Mariad in Citizenship education classes. The goal of the scenario is to introduce the students with Europeana’s resources and motivate them to think about unplugged coding.

How the students got acquainted with LS?

Firstly, they were getting familiar with “Coding with Europeana“. After that, my students were asked to discuss the students’ activities from this LS.

Short description of the activity

During the Digital Learning Day 2020, I organized an activity in my class, when my students created bracelets that represent the first letter or short diminutive of their name with the binary alphabet.

The main objective

The main objective was to prove to them that anyone can code! That is the main motto for the EU Code Week.

Our activity lasted two days and had several phases:

1. Introduction of the binary system
2. Representation of the alphabet with binary code
3. Transforming the initials of your name into binary code
4. Realization, with different materials, of nice bracelets
5. Evaluation, students’ feedback, sharing impressions.

How the activity was conducted

Firstly

At the beginning of the activity, my students have already known two facts:

1. That we commonly use the classic decimal system with the ten digits from 0 to 9
2. That computers use the binary system and understand only two symbols because they either receive the signal or not: 0, which corresponds to the power failure (so 0 = OFF)
3. 1n which corresponds instead to the presence of voltage (then 1 = ON)

Then

Then I told them that using only these two digits, we can, however, represent not only all possible numbers but also all the words, images, videos, sounds… all types of digital. They were surprised, especially when I split the papers with Binary Decoder Key.

Finally

When I gave them the colourful beads and the strings, they realized very quickly what they had to do and the party could begin! Using the code.org Binary Decoder Key, students chose two coloured beads to represent 0 and 1, optionally one other colour to represent the beginning of their binary code and to separate each letter. Both boys and girls made their own super-powerful binary bracelets enjoyed the fun.

• 

• 

• 

Why I would recommend this LS?

The next day we discussed the activity of yesterday and came to the following conclusions:

1. Students learned that data can be represented and stored in more than one way.
2. “Binary bracelets” is very inexpensive STEM craft program that appealed to boys and girls.
3. EU Code week opens new horizons to all who want to try something new, and they even don’t need to know how to code. It doesn’t matter if you have no experience in coding because you can find so many different online or offline (unplugged) activities about first steps and anyone can enter this world of miracles.

Did you find this story of implementation interesting? Why don’t you read about the related learning scenario?

Coding with Europeana created by Jose Mariad

Did you find this story of implementation interesting? You might also like:

• Implementation of ‘Robotkind: i-dolls in the Mirror’
• Implementation of ‘ReFake It’
• Implementation of ‘Vintage VR’

CC BY-SA 3.0: the featured image used to illustrate this article has been found on Europeana Collections and provided by the Nationalmuseum, Sweden.