Tech Snacks
from FCPS OIT - November 30th, 2022
Hour of Code Challenge for Computer Science Education Week
What is it?
Hour of Code is a global event that exposes students to coding skills, concepts, and real-world applications during Computer Science Education Week, December 5 - 11, 2022. Computer Science Education Week is an annual call to action to inspire K - 12 students to learn computer science, advocate for equity, and celebrate the contributions of students, teachers and partners to the field.
How to Participate:
To encourage FCPS teachers to participate in the global event, the Office of Instructional Technology is hosting an Hour of Code event during the month of December. We want you and your students to participate!
- Register: Register for the HOC Event.
- Engage: Engage students with a coding activity in your classroom. Check out our Hour of Code website for ideas!
- Share: Share your experience on the Highlight Hub. (Submission due 12/10/22)
Participants will be entered into a drawing to win $500 for their classroom!
Want more info?
- Learn more about Hour of Code in this short video
- Check out the FCPS Hour of Code Website for resources, activities, and more information, as well as code.org's activities!
- Follow @fcpsoit on Twitter for fun Hour of Code ideas during the month of December!
Win with World Cup LEGO Lessons
With the first round of World Cup almost complete, check out our World Cup LEGO Lesson Playlist! Each elementary school has 5 BricQ Motion Essential kits, and each middle school has 5 BricQ Motion Prime kits. Need more or other kits? Check out a set from our FCPS Lending Library! You can find more World Cup activities here.
NEW Canva Updates
Check out these three new updates to Canva - just a reminder that all staff and students can login into Canva for free with your school credentials!
Canva Websites
You can turn your Canva documents, presentations, and even PDFs into simple, responsive Websites. Once you’ve built your website, you can share content as a secure customized link to students, teachers, parents or anyone you’d ordinarily send a document to.
Infinite Whiteboards
Just like a real-life whiteboard, Canva Whiteboards are made for people to jump in and add their thoughts – except instead of a couple of people with markers, you can invite your whole team to brainstorm with you.
While brainstorming, you’ll also have access to Canva’s 100 million photos, illustrations, and videos to help map your ideas visually. Canva also provides sticky notes, synced timers, diagramming and flowchart tools, name-displaying cursors, and new workshop templates.
Remove Background In Videos
Canva is making it faster, easier and more fun than ever to create professional-looking content, effortlessly. They’ve also added even more features and customizable elements to make your videos stand out – including soon being able to turn any design into a video with just a few clicks!
Highlight Hub Teacher of the Week
Kristi Fehr, from Cassidy Elementary, is the Highlight Hub’s first ever Teacher of the Week. She submitted a lesson that she did with her second through fifth graders. “When experimenting with the TELLO EDU drones students naturally encountered lessons and conversations about forces, gravity, cause and effect, balanced and unbalanced forces, energy transformations, vibrations, and energy and motion affecting their work here on Earth.” View Kristi’s full submission here. Check out all of the Highlight Hub’s resources here.
Drone Challenges Coming to the Spark Fair!
This year, we have reimagined our STEM Fair from past years and are developing new events for students to explore, to learn, and to compete. The event will SPARK student interest and will include new on-demand challenges. The on-demand challenges are designed for students to problem solve, to troubleshoot, and to succeed within a window of time during the event. Coaches and teachers will practice and problem-solve during the school year before attempting on-demand events at our new Spark Fair.
Some of the new events held at the Spark Fair include various Drone Challenges. These events focus on exploring and showcasing various skills using the Tello Drones. Find more information below:
Obstacle Course Challenge - Students will program their drone to fly through various obstacles and score points along the way. We will provide coaches and teachers with various course examples to try in the classroom and then create a new, but similar, course for them to negotiate during the Spark Fair. Students will have 3 minutes to attempt the course and can launch their drone multiple times to better their score.
Spy Mission Challenge - Using their iPad, students fly their drone FPV (First Person View) style and search for clues inside a classroom. Students will take photos and gather intelligence to win the challenge. The student who completes the challenge with the fastest time will take first place.
Free Fly Course Challenge - Students will free fly their drone through various obstacles and elements on the course. Fastest time will take first place.
Drone Challenge Game #1 - Drone Bowling
During the next few issues of Tech Snacks, we plan to share a different drone game to inspire your students (and you!) to hone their coding skills and to have fun as they learn! The games will start out very simply, but increase in complexity as we roll them out. So, start early, play often, and get ready for the next challenging game.
Mission: Drone Bowling (Exploratory Event)
Team Members (2): Pilot and Copilot
Attempts: 2 Rounds of 2 Flights Each Task: Score points by knocking down pins.
Equipment You Bring:
a) Tello Drone
b) Batteries, Charged
c) Chromebook/Laptop with Droneblocks app
d) Plastic bowling pins/Paper towel cardboard tubes
Overview: Pilots will plot a course to knock down bowling pins. Pilots will “bowl” twice to know down the pins. Copilots will get a 2nd “frame” and opportunity to knock down pins. This is an exploratory challenge and a great way to engage students!
Teacher/Coach Notes: This is an excellent game for first-timers to get some hours under their wings! We love the simplicity and the variability in play. You will need to place your pins on top of a table, counter, or stage so that the drones are not hitting their minimum flight height. This is what we will term the drone ceiling and it is about 1 ½ feet. So, just make sure your pins are elevated about 2 feet or more to keep it manageable.
For our pins, we have used the plastic bowling pins that you can buy in toy stores and we have also used paper towel cardboard tubes. Mark the locations of the tubes with tape and change it up when the students have successfully completed each arrangement. We love to see and hear how your students are doing with the challenges and drones. Please tweet some pics or a video and tag @FCPSOIT with the hashtag #FCPSDrones. Want to see some example setups of pins? Check out these Bowling Pin Setups.