Category: Blogposts

This is a stream of consciousness so ignore all the mistakes.  It is a simplified response to something that really made me scratch my head. You see when everything first started closing down due to this global pandemic I recall thinking that this is the “new 9/11.” Hear me out on this and the countries reactions to both from my point of view.

September 11, 2001 started off pretty normally for me I was preparing for Morning Announcements at school when I recall how, but I saw something about the first plane. I went to one of the TV’s near the office and turned it on so that the office staff could keep up with what was happening. While walking by that TV I saw the second plane – My first thought was it was a clip from some new action movie. From that point on it was a whirl. If I recall correctly since the kids didn’t know, it was decided that we would “act normally” and let each family discuss it in a manner that they chose. Being the Technology Coordinator for the building I spent the rest of my time sending updates out to the staff from various news sites so they wouldn’t be wondering about what was going on. Four planes that changed the world.

Before 9/11 there wasn’t a Dept. of Homeland Security or a TSA. Before 9/11 security checks at airports meant you quickly walked through a metal detector and your bag went through an x-ray machine. You could meet people at the gate as they got off the plane. You could bring a bottle of water through security. You didn’t have to take your shoes or belt off.  When things started to change and rules were enacted I remember people were annoyed, but it was something we all put up with to make sure air travel was safe. The world changed they way they did things. We worked together to come up with a solution. We changed and things got safer. I still grumble a bit about flying, but I acknowledge the reasoning behind the inconvenience and am will for the greater good to just do it.

Imagine if people reacted the way they are for COVID-19 on 9/11.  After a quick security check we’d reopen all the airports after an hour or two. Each airport would be responsible for how they dealt with security, those larger airports doing more than the smaller ones. We would not have nationalized airport security.  Half the population would comply to whatever the airports asked them to do, the other half would claim their freedoms were being attacked because they had to take off their shoes.  No one claimed the other political party planned the whole thing to bring down the president. No one said that the planes really didn’t hit the towers, that the numbers of deaths were inflated (You know any death that happened on 9/11 was counted, even if it had nothing to do with it- a person dies of natural causes in Ohio- it was 9/11), or that 99% of people in the buildings actually got out safely.  Yes, there were conspiracy theories, but most were ignored until we had taken care of everyone.

What happened in between 9/11 and now? How did we get this messed up? in 2001 as a country we pulled together and comforted each other. We didn’t fight each other over wearing a mask in public. Did everyone like the president? No, but when it came to this, we got a clear message from Washington, not being spun to try a sway an election. No one even considered that the message was political. Politics for a time were taken off the table. A short time but still a moment of peace. We acted like adults. Why is that so difficult?  Just because we can’t see what’s going on?  Just because there isn’t a big explosion?

The big question is- when this is all over (and at some point it will either be over, or we will adapt) what will the new normal be?  I’m not sure, because right now all we have are people clinging to the old normal and hoping that the problem will all disappear if we just wish hard enough. Unfortunately adults know wishes don’t always come true.

For the record, I did not formally research anything, it is strictly from my memories and observations, I’m sure I’ve got some things wrong- but this is my little world and you don’t have to live in it if you don’t want to.  Your mileage may vary.

Since we’ve been doing this for more than a few weeks, I’ve started to get into a routine. Now with the Governor of Indiana closing schools for the remainder of the year, I thought it would be nice to go through my typical day.

Typical Quarantined Morning:

• 5:00- 5:30 ish- Hemi wakes me up to feed him
• Go back to sleep Hemi on my chest, Issi plopped next to me
• 7:00 ish (give or take an hour) go through email and the news on my phone. Reply to messages from family or are/seem urgent. Note: cats have not moved. Issi flopped on my hip & Hemi purring on my chest. Post something profound while trapped.
• Shower, brush teeth, get dressed
• Turn the kettle on for tea, toast some bread, sometimes I’ll fix bacon & eggs.
• Eat breakfast
• Go over any tasks for the day that are time sensitive – Monday’s record weekly drawing lesson & LCL meeting, Tuesday’s and Wednesday’s Zoom meetings with kids. Thursday’s staff meetings.
• Look at daily to do list- check email, Seesaw & Canvas. These are learning management systems- Seesaw for grades 1-4, Canvas for grades 5 & 6. This is where I post activities and lessons. I am currently looking at adding Flipgrid to the mix.
• Throughout the day
  • Share appropriate tweets for school (building challenges, new things that have become available online) post similar items to Facebook
  • Read currently reading Lifelong Kindergarten. Finished The Queens of Animation, rereading Ready Player One, Understanding Comics, and Making Comics.
  • LEGO- could be sorting and cleaning up or building
  • Work on something for school- I have brought a number of things home to learn more about including WeDo 2.0, Spike Prime, micro:bit, beginning Arduino, Makey Makey, Chibitronics… and every time I have a chance to get into the building, I bring more stuff out. I still need to bring home: a Sphero RVR, a Qdee, so many Kickstarter things I felt would be cool in my classroom and haven’t had the time to figure out.
  • Lunch happens sometime along with lap time for Hemi.
  • Draw
  • Clean my studio
  • Look at the long list of projects that I said “when I have time I really should…” shrug shoulders and move on.
  • Check Social Media, Seesaw, Canvas, & email.
  • Think about heading out to: Comic Carnival, the LEGO Store, school… remember- I can’t do that.
  • Shake my head at something silly someone seriously posted in Social Media.
• Dinner- either look around the kitchen or (once a week) order out and pick up.
• Play with cat (Issi)
• Sit with cat (Hemi) on my lap wondering what happened to the TV remote- use my phone instead.
• Have cat (Issi) meow incessantly about playing, even though we just played for ten minutes.
• Watch something silly on TV so far: The Tiger King, Ugly Delicious, Making It Season 2, Frozen 2, Tangled, The Princess and the Frog, Jack Ryan (we saw an episode at ComicCon Paris), one episode of Kingdom, a Korean historical zombie series… basically a wide variety of junk, that will grow bigger and bigger as the weeks go by. We subscribe to Disney +, CBS All Access, Hulu, Netflix, and Amazon Prime- so there is a large library of dumb things we can watch.
• Complain about how I need a new phone because mine doesn’t hold a charge that long. Especially since the iPhone SE was just announced and a re-engineered iPhone 8 > an ancient iPhone 7 but still a manageable size.
• Look at the time- go to bed, with Hemi on my chest and Issi attacking my feet through the covers or flopped on my hip.
• Rinse & Repeat

The differences between this and a typical school day not during robotics season.?

• Cats wake me up at 5:30 for breakfast. Return to bed.
• Wake up rush through a shower, etc. no time for breakfast.
• Arrive at school between 6:30 – 7:00.
• Get things ready. Start answering email- have alarm go off for bus duty before I get anything finished. Grab a breakfast/protein bar or whatever is around for breakfast at my desk get a large cup of tea (Earl Grey- Hot)
• 7:30 Bus Duty
• Continue prep/office work until alarm goes off to pick up breakfast trays for first grade classes at 8:00
• 8:10 today’s 6th grade class starts, followed by 5th, and 4th grade classes. 5 minutes between classes if everything is going perfectly- humans are involved, so it doesn’t ever run perfectly.
• 10:30ish Prep time- clean up from morning classes get ready for the afternoon classes, have kids come in to work on projects during their free time.
• Work on LEGO project at the window if a build has been started (one bag a day)
• Check email
• Grab lunch
• 11:55ish 1st grade class starts followed by 2nd, and 3rd grade classes.
• 2:35ish Bus Duty
• Clean up room- let late bus kids check out books from my graphic novel library. If robotics kids are staying late, help them as needed.
• Review projects from the day, adjust plans accordingly- fix any glaring errors or add new discoveries.
• Check email
• Work through project ideas & grant opportunities
• Look up at clock and realize it’s after 5:00
• Get whatever I’m working on to a stopping point.
• Go home between 5:30- 6:00

My “contract day” is from 7:30 to 3:45 with a 45 minute prep period and 30 minutes for lunch. I think the most difficult thing I’m having to adjust to during the quarantine, besides not interacting with the kids (I never realized how the kids give me energy throughout the day), is being able to use the bathroom whenever I need. This will be one of the most difficult transitions when we return.

As for time and projects- I’m finding the time I spend directly working with kids has flip-flopped with the time I prep and research. Instead of teaching 6th graders about building and programming Sumobots using NXT blocks I’m building and programming a Sumobot using Spike Prime to see how that transition might work. I’m finally working through some of the items we have in the maker space, or I’ve had for years. I’m learning how and when to integrate Makey Makey into lessons. I’m reading books like – Mitch Resnick’s Lifelong Kindergarten, and Michael Cohen’s Educated by Design. I’ve always done various webinars, but I was able to go to Wonder Workshop’s Virtual Summit, and I’m part of the Learning Creative Learning group through M.I.T. So I’m learning Scratch all over again. Many of these activities I would not be able to actively take part in during the school year.

Another thing that is missing- the sometimes panicked rush of the school day. What I mean is, I’m having time, actual time, to really get into a project and spend an entire day on it. School days I’m bouncing between classes. During my Lunch & Prep time is when I get to read and respond to emails during the school day. On a normal day I will have just started to work on a reply to some urgent request when my alarm will go off saying I have 5 minutes until my class shows up. by the time I get back to my computer 3 hours have passed, and hundreds of micro-events so I basically need to start over.

This week while it being Spring Break (for some strange reason I just am not feeling it right now) I have been asked to answer a few questions for a local publication on Teaching & Learning during the Quarantine. This is what I came up with after reading and answering the questions. This is not what was published, I’ve added a few more random clarifications, and thoughts. As with anything I post you get typos free of charge.

Before you say anything else- 1. No, I don’t have kids, therefore I really don’t understand anything about kids, or raising them. I’ve enjoyed hearing that for over 30 years. Ask my little brothers- I have done my share of raising kids. 2. I’m a proponent for playful learning and believe younger kids especially, learn best through play. Structured sometimes, guided sometimes, but still play. I don’t know of a single primary ages student who likes doing worksheets, unless they are coloring pages-I like coloring pages. The adult just needs to watch and ask questions, even silly ones throughout the process. 3. For the most part everything I mention I have tried in some form in my own classroom. Genius Hour for example, I failed many times, just because I am not good an managing the progress of 200+ individual projects from 5th & 6th graders who all they want to do is avoid doing anything. However, one kid- I think I could handle that. Just always keep in mind that children are just as anxious as we are- maybe even more so because they haven’t had their imagination squished. Don’t expect everything to work- everyone IS different. Oh, I was planning on doing a lot of this while visiting my niece and nephew this week, but something came up and I find traveling to New Rochelle, NY a little bit more difficult than I had first thought. So here in unedited glory are my thoughts on spending unlimited time with kids trapped in a house.

Bruce Nelson is the 2019 Lawrence Township Teacher of the Year, after almost 30 years as a classroom teacher, technology coordinator, and STEM specialist he now serves as the Robotics and Design Teacher at Indian Creek Elementary working with students from first to sixth grade. Mr. Nelson is currently the only LEGO Education US LEGO Master Educator in Indiana. As a LEGO Master Educator he works with LEGO Education on development of new products and curriculum.

Opportunities to learn surround us every day, it just matters what we choose to do with them. As adults, we’ve learned to focus on the task at hand and ignore many of these opportunities. To a child, they tend to be filled with questions- “why?”tends to top the list. Learning at home is not going to be the same for every family. As a parent you need to work within your available time and comfort level. Setting up a basic routine helps, but things happen so unlike at school your routine can be a lot more flexible. If there are specific times you need to be “at work” schedule some independent activity for your children at that time. Let them know that you will be glad to see what they have done after you have finished. While this is a scary time for all of us, it is especially frightening for kids- everything that they know has changed. Be aware of this and be patient. While this is a hard time for everyone, it can be a wonderful adventure too. Make time to create happy memories for both of you. In 20 years, around the dinner table think about the stories you and your child can share about the 2020 quarantine.

Every school is different in what they are asking students to do. Do your best to help your child through whatever work they have. If you have a question, get in touch with your child’s teacher. I know that the teachers at my school have been asked to contact their students and families at least once a week. Many are using email, text messaging, or social media to stay in touch some are even video conferencing with their class so the students can see each other and know their friends are safe and healthy. One of those routine things that is missing are kids having a chance to socialize. You can have your child talk with friends and family via, any of the software and websites available (FaceTime, Google Hangouts, Zoom, etc.) Right now I’m using a combination of social media and email to try to keep all 700 students at Indian Creek up to date with activities. Please feel free to follow @explorobots on Facebook and Twitter to see some of my suggestions. I tend to post links to some of the amazing free resources authors, museums, and companies have made available. Starting the first week in April I’ll be releasing a drawing/design unit on YouTube, for any interested students. As for a silver bullet website or app? There is no easy answer to that, all I can say is if your child’s school is using it, that is a pretty big endorsement. As for limiting screen time- I’m usually a big fan, but right now the key is be flexible.

As a parent their are hundreds of activities you could do with your child they may not match the state standards, but they do teach valuable skills. Playing a board game or card game (winning against an adult is something to be proud of- don’t be easy on them). Games teach math skills, active problem solving, perseverance, and how to lose graciously. To take this to the next level- have your child create their own game- Maybe something where the players have to find toilet paper.

Making sets and costumes from whatever you have around the house- this leads into story telling, maybe movie making. They might even be able to make a stop-motion LEGO movie!

Cooking and learning how to follow a recipe are great activities that teach math, sequencing and patience. Look online for simple recipes.

As students get older “Genius Hour” where the student decides on a project and then they do it. This could be solving a major problem like trash in the ocean, or maybe researching how hospital workers are protecting themselves and see if they can find a better way. Maybe trying to figure out how the pyramids were built. This type of project follows the engineering design process- basically see the problem, research what has been done, develop a solution, test it, then improve on it. When a student decides on something they really care about- they won’t stop working on it.

Also for older students- think about things that you wish you had known before you became and adult, things that you had to learn- the hard way. Maybe it’s figuring out loan interest, budgeting, changing a tire, or taxes. Give your child some firsthand knowledge on things that they will need forever. Middle schoolers are notorious for asking “When am I ever going to need this?” Teach them something they will need.

Have your child read or read to your child. If you aren’t comfortable reading aloud- Find an audio book you all may like. Stop every once in awhile and ask questions- like “Why do you think that character did that? Or”What do you think will happen next?” Have everyone guess and see who is closest to what really happens- then again someone’s guess might be better than what the author came up with.

You all know your child better than anyone else, you know when they get frustrated, or tired- no matter what, this shouldn’t be a time where you are fighting with you child. A large portion of the day should be up to them. Have your child set a daily goal- some things may be nonnegotiable- like schoolwork, or reading time, but you’ve got all day there isn’t a rush.

I have been amazed at how everyone is stepping up to help out. online many authors, actors, museums, artists, and even publishers are sharing with the public. Find your favorite author, or cartoonist and see what they may be doing. It could be posting activities, maybe a video, or an online Q&A. It’s been wonderful to see how everyone is trying to help out.

As for your child’s teacher- Believe me teachers are missing their students just as much as some of the kids are missing school. Schools are figuring this out as we go. The analogy I keep coming back to is “We are building the plane while in flight.” ‘Fasten your seatbelts it’s going to be a bumpy ride.” Those of us who feel comfortable with technology are trying some pretty awesome things, but not all teachers are the same. Your child’s teacher may be a wizard at teaching face to face. So don’t judge- we’re all in this together and teachers, in a lot of cases, are parents too.

Remember: be patient, be flexible, and wash your hands often.

The best laid plans of mice… so I’m starting to get into a rhythm, but not like the off season (aka Summer). Monday I returned to school this time to stay out of people’s way as they handed out food, school supplies, and Chromebooks. I had made the decision to contact a few of the kids on the robotics team and give them a task to accomplish. 5 students on Monday picked up complete robot kits. Basically, the robot they had used for the season, a charger, a battery, a controller, and the necessary wires. Their job- become experts in programming. VEX released VEXIQ blocks this season as their own programming solution. In the past robots were programmed using a variety of programs: Modkit, Robot C, etc. for those of us in the elementary school these wear all block based programs, meaning that instead of typing in commands, commands are dragged into the workspace, and variables are changed to get the results you want. That’s pretty basic, but that’s it in a nutshell- as always there is more to it, but I have never been a good programmer (ask my wife- she still chuckles over the fact that she got an A in programming and I dropped it! Although I still claim it was because I had the class at 8:00 AM and in college I wasn’t a morning person.)

I have been quietly waiting to find out exactly what eLearning looks like for me. For the classroom teacher with “only” 30 students, while not easy, there is a limited scope to what you do. Mostly you stay in contact as best you can with those 30 kids and make sure that they know you are there for them. Helping them keep some sense of normalcy. While focused on learning, we are mostly (and rightfully) focused on the child and meeting their needs. For me I’m trying to figure out how to do this with over 700 kids. The school has been experimenting with solutions. That’s really all we can do right now- try something out and see how it works. From calls & emails, to video conferencing we’ve tried a number of things- Talking Points (text messages to families) Canvas & SeeSaw (online Learning Management Systems), Zoom (video conferencing) and many others. The issue is how can the students access the information. We are discovering that everyone has a smartphone, not a computer. So many of our solutions only work well on a computer. Currently texting through Talking Points is the best solution. I just don’t feel right texting 700 people just to say “Hi.” I’ve learned as a special area teacher that for the most part families care a lot about the core subjects, but as for Music, P.E., Robotics, etc. unless they are interested in the subject, or are grade driven, it isn’t as important. So for the time being I have been using Twitter and Facebook to send out resources and activities to the world. That is about to change, hopefully for the better.

As I sat thinking through what I could do with 700 kids from Grades 1-6 in Robotics & Design, I fell back to Design. Design is something I have tried to do to make up for the lack of an Art class at my school. This year as I have waited (almost patiently) for certain bits of technology to work I have fallen on drawing as an alternative. So what if I did this online? Then this led me to the 3rd grade Fairy Tale unit that ends with the students creating a fractured fairy tale in comic book form. The culminating activity is a “Comic-Con” in which everyone dressed up as a hero of their own making for a day. I chuckle, because when I last checked no one in third grade had ever attended a Con, so all they had was the media’s view- which is weird people wandering around dressed up in costumes aka society’s view of Cosplay. I didn’t want to overstep so I asked the third grade teachers and only heard back with “we were hoping you might do some drawing with our kids”or something like that. I pressed on and asked my principal, so I brought I up at the daily meeting of the grade level PLC leaders. It got a lukewarm warm response, but no one said “no.” So now we are on Spring Break, and I have a week to put together a multi-week unit on comic book creation using the other thing that everyone has access to- YouTube.

Besides school/work the rest of the week had some high points and low points. You can decide what goes into column A and which goes in Column B. Sue is now working mostly from home. Everything nonessential has been closed down. We have started ordering take out to support some of our local restaurants. Comic Carnival, my local comic book shop, has had to close for the duration. They were able to get out Wednesday’s books on Tuesday. I have purchased gift certificates to help them out. Saltire Games, my local game shop sent out links to game companies that are giving a percentage of each sale to local game stores. My niece & nephew just got a few board games heading their way. I’m getting to all those pesky projects that I have been putting off.

The rebuild of the LEGO Batcave is one of those projects. Those of you who don’t know (how could you not know?!) I build with LEGO. The term is AFOL Adult Fan Of LEGO. I have found it a nice way to relax after a hard day. In past I have displayed things at some of the local shows. One thing I built after the LEGO Batman Movie was a Batcave. I incorporated an iPad Mini into the build as the Batcomputer- which would cycle through trailers of the film and finally the film itself. It was enormous, taking up at least one full table. I liked it, but it just was missing something.so I took the whole thing apart and walked away from it. This week on the show LEGO Masters the teams were asked to build a superhero/supervillain headquarters/lair/hideout. I decided to go back and try the Batcave again, but concentrated. My first two iterations dealt with area- how much space could I take up? This one I’m limiting to just two base plates in area, so I need to build up not out. I’ve started on the base which would be the water- so the home to bat boats and bat subs and bat kayaks. So far I have not added any details, just the setting. Building it as sturdy as possible – with the time I have this could be a challenge, especially if I run out of elements, but then again, that’s what makes it a challenge.

Finally- I’m catching up on things either Sue or I have missed. We saw Outbreak, for the first time, because… it seemed appropriate. We’re getting to know our share of Disney princesses. Learned way too much about the tiger trade in the U.S. We discovered love isn’t always blind, and what a “catfish” is in social media (I guess we just don’t hang around with the right crowd online, or maybe we actually do). We’ve learned about Viking warrior women, and drained the Bermuda Triangle, San Francisco Bay, and the area around the Titanic before looking for Atlantis. All this while our cats have snoozed on our laps.

So when will this all end? I’m guessing not for a while. Knowing how the world changed after 9/11, I wonder how the world will change after this pandemic? 9/11 brought about massive changes in the way we travel, some rules make sense, others not so much. Will we end up with a Department of Pandemic Preparedness? Will everyone be required to carry disinfectant wipes & hand sanitizer? Will maximum occupancy rules take into account social distancing? Will we build monuments to those who lost their lives or to the people who helped keep life going? So many ways this could go only time will tell.

I’m not going to make light of the situation the world is in, I’ve read and watched more than enough science fiction to know that would be bad. We currently are in the preface of a dystopian novel, or the scroll at the beginning of the film explaining how the world ended up in however bad way it is presented. So I open by saying – wash your hands, don’t touch your face, & stay home.

So my school was initially closed for two weeks we would be away for three because of Spring Break, it seems logical- people need to stay away from each other so the disease won’t spread as quickly as it can. Schools like mine would operate by doing e-learning. What is e-learning? E-learning initially was the kids having paper & pencil lessons to do at home in Humanities & STEM. Humanities means Reading & STEM means Math. Yes, there’s more to it, but in a nutshell thats about it. As a “Special Area” teacher, there was nothing for me to do…yet.

Friday, was a get prepared day. I honestly think no one was prepared for school to be canceled Thursday afternoon. Everything started in earnest on Monday. This was kind of strange, they wanted us to stay home, but everything else was open. Personally, I’m guessing that for many people it was a play day. This attitude carried through to the weekend as more and more restrictions were announced. This was all at the State and local level… the federal government while acknowledging there was a virus, still was hoping it was all a mistake, a hoax perpetrated by the media & the democrats. Some people still believe that.

So Monday comes, and teachers are allowed in the building to pick up things and to help distribute packets and food to the kids. I added a small LEGO poly bag I had a few of to the mix, so the kids could build even if they didn’t have any LEGO at home. After pulling together some things (more on that later) I went to help. I’m not sure how the system worked, I spent my time filling bags with cartons of milk & juice, then taking them from the kitchen to the pick up location at the front of the school. From what I could tell it went something like this: cars line up. Someone finds out what need and writes that on a post it note that is stuck to their window. As the car gets close, another person shouts out how many bags of food and which grade’s packets do they need. The people delivering food run it out to the car, the people with packets either run the packets out or relay the message that they need a packet for a certain grade. Once everything is in the car, they move on to the next car. This went on from 10:00 to after 1:00. No stopping the line never got smaller. I helped for a couple hours and then headed home with a bag of treasure.

What did I take from my room? I decided if I was going to be at home, I needed to use that time wisely by taking things I wanted to learn and bring them home so I can try them out and develop lessons so they can be used. So I have a LEGO WeDo 2.0 kit, and a LEGO Spike Prime kit, both I’ve had for a while, but have been missing some component needed to get it to work. I have my own tech at home that I know works, so no need to wait for someone to get what I need. Next there is a Makey-Makey board. This is a programmable circuit board which allows you to do so many things, it would take two or three posts to just scratch the surface. My thought for this is using it with 4th grade when they study electricity. I also grabbed a Raspberry Pi (because I was hungry). This is basically a stripped down computer. Like the Makey-Makey it is something I heard about by reading almost anything about making in an educational setting. The rest were bits and bobs that I had picked up over time and brought school with the best intentions. I thought I have three weeks, I can get to figure all this out. By the way, while people might think I’m confident using all this, I’m not, I’m actually pretty terrified. While I come across confident and all knowing, I am Oz the great and powerful, pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.

I won’t go day by day, but I will go project by project, starting with LEGO WeDo 2.0. I’d taught myself LEGO WeDo when I first took my job.a simple drag and drop block based programming language. Over the years 1st and 2nd graders have built and programmed many things that make them very happy and most importantly confident. This was the next version. The biggest difference is the new version isn’t attached to the computer, so what you build can move around a lot more. Very cool. This week I got everything set up and got one of my tablets to connect to the block. Nothing big, but I did get a light to change color on a LEGO slug. What I have learned so far is that my skills with WeDo are pretty transferable to the latest version. My confidence is high- if the technical issues at school can be addressed.

I decided to dive into Spike Prime. This is the latest from LEGO Education and is geared toward upper elementary and middle school. First thing you notice are the wild colors. Most every element is in what I consider a non-traditional color. Secondly, there are a lot of new elements. I took a look at everything and thought I could go ahead and do all the various projects, or I could try to get something we already do and see if I can reproduce it in Spike. I, of course picked the latter. I started constructing a SumoBot like 6th grade is building. Ugh.

In class 6th grade have been working on Sumobots, which is the culminating activity for them. They must demonstrate the engineering design process as well as program two different sensors. We currently use Mindstorms NXT elements and Mindstorms EV3 software to program. (FYI: an NXT light sensor needs to programmed as an NXT sound sensor comparing decibels in order to work) The lesson begins with the building of a simple robot – LEGO 9797. This is basically the test bed for the sensors. It also gives those who have limited experience building with Technic a good grasp of how you can put things together. Once the basic bot is finished the students start with the light sensor. The idea is to program the sensor to back up when it sees white. The field is black with a white outline. Once that is done we move onto the ultrasonic or distance sensor. If they can get both of these working, it’s time to design a sumobot. Students can either add things to the basic bot, or rebuild something awesome. It is at this time I tend to bring out what ever I have tried to create this year. The students all try to copy it because they weren’t listening when I said “my designs usually look really good, but never win, in fact they lose all the time.”

It is with this background I started to build a sumobot. I started tinkering, moved on to trying to build a 9797 bot even though the motors are completely different. After that I moved to building a box that could hold the motors and the brain. When I got something that could work, I added sensors and moved into programming. At first glance Spike is a cross between WeDo and EV3. While I have very little knowledge with Scratch it looks like it is pretty close to that block based language. I still have a long way to go, but since they have now closed school until May 1st I think I might have some time 😁

Besides starting those two projects, I decided to build LEGO City set 60200. Which has a wide variety of things that belong in a city, which I built a few things each day. Now the fun part… taking what I’ve built and making it even better. That starts Monday.

The only other thing I’ve done is get overwhelmed by all the things people are doing to help during this time. Writers, artists, libraries, museums. It’s amazing how everyone is pulling together. I tend to pass things along on Twitter @professorzoom or @explorobots or on Facebook @explorobots. I guess I should add figuring out how I can better use Instagram, may is a long way away.

On Monday I return to school to help out again and find out if I can do an e-learning unit for the entire school that I asked about. Wait and find out.

Catchy title don’t you think? So due to what seems to be the plague of this century, school districts across the country, including mine, are closed. I completely understand the reasoning and the Science. I just hope we took this seriously in time to make a difference. So what does this mean to me, a healthy-ish 50-ish public school teacher? Right now, not much. Friday was our first day off and we’re getting information as decisions are being made so slowly. I just can’t see why global pandemic wasn’t part of the districts emergency management plan… maybe alien invasion, but… well actually while some people saw this coming, most didn’t or ignored any warning signs. I was visiting China during SARS and thought the panic here was silly- amazing what a few more years of experience does to you.

I treated Friday like a snow day- without the snow. I did laundry, vacuumed, spent some all important kitty time, basically caught up with a lot of stuff I can’t do regularly during the school year. The weekend has been pretty normal with the exception of consciously not going out. We did go to get supplies and pizza, but I now see that even though we tried to social distance ourselves, the best thing to do is stay home unless there is something you absolutely need (pizza & ice cream do not count, no matter how important they seem).

So what are my plans for the next few weeks? I’m hoping to get more done, but also take this gift of time & catch up on things I have wanted to learn about or do – starting with a long time missing blog entry which you are reading now.

Let me catch you up on what has happened since I last posted anything. Then again in the immortal words of Inigo Montoya “Let me ‘splain. No there is too much. Let me sum up.”

Since my last major entry (not in any order)-

– I left the 3rd grade classroom to become the Robotics & Design Teacher at my school (over 700 kids grades 1-6). The first graders call me “the LEGO Teacher.”

– The school was renovated (if this happens to you- just remember Architects lie- budgets are too small for their grandiose plans)

– I was moved into a new room (post renovation) that has large windows into the hallway so I cannot hide.

– We got another cat – his name is Issigonis but we call him “Issi”

– My mother passed away. Lots of baggage to unpack there, but it’s my baggage so don’t worry about it.

– I was named a LEGO Education US LEGO Master Educator. Yes, that is the official title and yes, it is long. I currently am the only one in Indiana.

– At the end of the 2018-19 school year I was named my school’s teacher of the year (an honor)and then my district’s teacher of the year (a shock). I was not named the state teacher of the year (understandable). Two out of three ain’t bad.

– I visited Paris (France, not Illinois or Texas) and attended ComicCon Paris plus a few other touristy things.

Those are pretty much the highlights. I actually started blog posts about some of them, but never got them posted.

Over the next couple weeks I’ll try (and probably fail) at going into a little more detail and talk about my view of this crazy planet most of us live on and get into a habit of posting stuff here since social media platforms are getting weirder and weirder.

Before I start on anything let me begin with my view towards COVID-19. Wash your hands and whenever possible stay home. “This is the way,” “Science has spoken.” For those paranoid and thinking that this is all a hoax, or conspiracy- even if it is, don’t you want to at least do whatever you can to support your community? Even if it means curling up in a pile of toilet paper reading a book, playing a video game, or spewing vile opinions not based on fact or logic in social media. Even if there is a 1% chance that the conspiracy theorists are right, I care about enough people who this could be life threatening that I don’t want to take the chance. “It’s the end of the world as we know it- and I feel fine.” So if you one of those people who think the entire world has ganged up against the current US administration- I respectfully agree to disagree (a new concept in this day and age – respect). Now go wash your hands. I’ve got to go out and buy more hand sanitizer & toilet paper, there’s still room in the basement.

Kids learn more by doing than by watching. Teachers understand this, unfortunately some parents don’t. We’ve all heard about the helicopter and now snowplow parents- unfortunately I have seen it so many times in the world of robotics. I try to write it off as an adult who wishes that they could have done this during school – but sometimes it’s the “my child must win” mentality instead. “My child cannot experience adversity, even though it might make them a better person.” As an experienced educator I can look at a project and see a child’s work in it. It won’t be perfect. It will be fairly simple in design. My district’s Robotics League has proven this to me. I’m guessing that a lot of the coaches were probably “voluntold.” They are almost as excited as the kids. Over the course of one scrimmage and four rounds you can see how the teams are learning and most of all trying out even (what an adult would consider) the craziest ideas. Their enthusiasm shows in their designs.

You can look at a another robot and see adult meddling. Sadly, these are the kids who also get frustrated in my classroom when they aren’t given the answer. The ones who ask for help before they even look at the directions. These are kids who will either give up on anything mildly challenging or whose parents would spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to get them into a “good” college if they could. Unfortunately, these also tend to be the bots that win. It’s funny when you have one team dominating a competition, but off to the side one of my students is explaining to them how to program… wait a second he was explaining basic programming to the team that was on the top of the programming skills list, could an adult have helped them? I recall the same school at another competition asking me to help them with a glitch – two adults asked me about programming. They probably thought I was just being unhelpful when I pointed them to one of our youngest team members – she was our expert programmer. I don’t think she could have helped, they were asking about programming something, no elementary school kid could have even imagined. The terms used in competition are: Mentorbots or “Dadbots” While I’m sure some of the ideas came from kids, the fingerprints of adults are all over the robot.

The role of the teacher is to create the conditions for invention rather than provide ready-made knowledge. – Seymour Papert

My robotics meetings do not involve many adults. While it would be nice to have mentors, even older students just want to give the answers away, instead of have the students earn them through hard work. I just checked the latest game update for VEX and they had to define that copying & pasting a line of code created by a parent/mentor is wrong… really?!? I’ve purposely strayed away from having adults help out except for herding cats during tournaments, because it is so easy to slip, you want your kid to be successful- but true success comes from failing and trying again. Failing can hurt.

Let’s take a moment and look at Robotics at school – there are many options and flavors to choose from. To simplify I’m sticking to the two 800 pound gorillas – FIRST & VEX. At each level of learning there are robot options. Using my district as an example in the elementary we have FIRST LEGO League, and VEX IQ.

FIRST uses LEGO robots, WeDo, Mindstorms, or now SPIKE Prime, mattering if you are in Jr. FLL or FLL. There is no easy grant available so you need to find funding for a robot and registration which includes the field mat & game elements. Total initial cost is around $800 this does not include the materials to build a table to put your mat on. annual costs are registration & tournament fees.

This being Indiana, VEX IQ, due to grants, is the major player. You see a school can apply for a grant to create a team and get a robot kit ($350) and their first season registration fee ($100) paid. All they have to do is attend an orientation meeting and compete in one tournament. After one tournament, when you see the impact, win or lose you are pretty much hooked. The only outside cost would be a practice field & game pieces. Around $300, but only the game pieces – $100 need to be purchased each year.

FLL teams consist of up to six students in grades 4-6. FLL itself consists of four parts: Research Project, Robot Design, Robot Game, and Core Values. So as a coach you help guide your team through researching a project, designing and building a robot, programming that robot, and presenting the project and the experience with the core values. You have a limited time window to accomplish this. Each year the theme changes and the official details are not released until the start of the school year. Using Indiana as the only experience I have had, it can be rather daunting. You apply to compete in a state qualifier that is usually one of two weekends in November. During the day long competition, teams present their project, the core values, their robot design process and then demonstrate their robot performance in the game. These robots are autonomous (programmed) and they have 2 minutes to get as many points by completing as many missions on the board as possible. The awards are given and a few teams move on. Everyone else goes home to take apart their bot and move on.

Elementary VEX IQ teams consist of as many students as you would like between first and fifth grade. The actual rule now deals with age, but to simplify we’ll go by grades. VEX consists of a number of parts: the Teamwork Challenge, Design Notebook, Driver Skills, Programming Skills, and a Research Project. The crazy part is only the teamwork challenge is “mandatory” and that’s the part the kids want to do anyway. The challenge is released at the end of the school year so teams have the entire summer to try out options although many teams don’t get started until the start of school. During the day long competition, teams compete together with other schools to get the highest score possible. Each match has two robots on the field two drivers for each robot working together for one minute. Each team gets upwards of 8 matches paired with different teams. During the day if you turned in a design notebook you would be interviewed. If you programmed your robot you could have it run on the skills field, if you had prepared to drive a robot solo you could go make a drivers skills attempt. At the end the top 10 teams from the matches are paired by average score to compete in the finals and the team with the highest score in that match wins. Awards are given in every category & if warranted an excellence award is given to the deserving team. The winners of the excellence award & teamwork awards (three teams) are given invitations to the State championship. Everyone goes home & rebuilds their robots to make them better and comes back to another tournament to try again and again, and again, and again until the season is over.

As you can see both competitions change annually, but the robot and field/table can be reused. So to start, both programs seem pretty similar – a robot on a field doing stuff to get points. The team with the most points win. Initial cost to play (without grants) is somewhat comparable although FLL is more.

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Both competitions give adults lots of room to mess around even though they shouldn’t. As an adult/coach/mentor/teacher I take my notes, I go over data with my teams. I answer direct questions, usually with other questions. I get them to think. My students are brilliant, frankly all kids are if given the chance in the right situation. Too many times it is us, the adults, who have trained them to give up when the answer isn’t easy. The student who asks the same question over and over again because at some point they annoyed an adult enough to break down and provide the answer. They give up easily and ask for “help”. When you start talking to these kids, asking what they’ve tried, you discover that frustrated adults somewhere turned “help” into just doing it for them and that’s what they want. I walk away and they get mad, but sometime later they return exploding with excitement because they could do it. Let them play. I know it’s hard, because we didn’t have this kind of stuff growing up, and it is so awesome you want to play yourself. I didn’t say you couldn’t but don’t take away from the kids learning. If it’s robotics or anything – Just let the kids play, let them discover – the world will be a better place without our meddling.

“Even a man who’s pure in heart and says his prayers by night, may become a wolf when the wolfsbane blooms and the autumn moon is bright.” Wait a second… isn’t school supposed to start in the autumn?

In education everyone looks for the silver bullet, that one thing that will engage students, get them to learn and (in this day & age most importantly) raise test scores. In over 30 years I have seen many come and go, some accompanied by “experts” who charge millions and have never actually taught, others grounded in the reality of experience. Do the people sitting in the ivory tower know what’s best? Do the elected officials? Do the testing companies & their lobbyists? Or do the people in the trenches, day in and day out? I think you already know my opinion.

Once upon a time, I was able to attend conferences and learn from other teachers. Sure, I learned from keynote speakers, and got inspired by nationally recognized educators, but I think I learned more just talking over lunch with classroom teachers. How they dealt with the buzzword of the day, how they engaged students in spite of everything they were supposed to do, but then to attend a conference usually meant you had an interest in the topic. So everyone tended to be evangelical about the subject at hand.

See, at an educational conference you tended to have people running the spectrum of newbie to expert. But no one goes unless they have even the slightest interest, even if that interest is forced upon them from above. As you talk to these teachers you find almost all of them agree that if more time, energy, resources were spent on whatever the conference was about, the world of education would be a better place. All problems would be solved. If only people realized the power of reading, writing, math, economics, science, gardening, aerospace, and now (more than ever) STEM or STEAM or whatever. The sad thing is they’re all right. If only we could harness the passion of the classroom teacher, in my opinion, education would be entirely different, and may be more successful.

If a teacher is allowed to teach their passion, or weave it through their lessons, kids will be engaged. In most cases if you are talking to someone really excited about something, it tends to rub off a bit. In a world of scripted lessons, it is the script that kills engagement, and when the students see a bored teacher (“Bueller, Bueller”) why should they care? Every class doing the same worksheet, the same day, going into every room and seeing the same thing… boring. When I was a classroom teacher life was a little simpler – or I was just a rebel. My class was a space station one year and, while we learned the same stuff as everyone else, the kids were astronauts going on missions. Then my class turned into a movie studio. Again, same standards, but this time everything was done through the lens of film… our class roster outside the door was a movie poster. Papers were turned in to a ticket booth by the door. Most importantly, at the end of the year my class had a video record of pretty much everything we did. If we went on a field trip, a camcorder recorded it. Kids presentations – recorded. Poetry recitations, book talks… you name it it ended up on video. Did we learn? Yes, but more importantly, we all had fun.

I am fortunate enough now to be able teach through my passions. The state has yet to mandate a robotics curriculum for elementary schools, although computer science is mixed in along with some engineering bits. I’m pretty much lucky enough to work with classroom teachers on projects to help add to what they are doing. If they don’t have anything then I’m on my own, hoping not to step on any toes. For the most part I get to teach using my passions as a compass. From robots, to rockets, to comic books – I can figure out a way to get almost anything to fit. Right now third graders are learning basic drawing skills along with character development, plot, etc. by making their own comic book characters – while I tend to use Gizmo Girl, I fell into Spider-Princess last week and have been enjoying using her as an example. Sitting on a tuffet eating her curds & whey, when along came a radioactive spider and… you know the rest.

I was talking to a fellow teacher, who realized how frustrated they had become with the cookie cutter scripted educational model. They spent a lot of time dealing with discipline, until they went off script. They did something they thought would be cool. The kids reacted in a rather interesting way… they became engaged. The ones normally following the rules, took it to the next level, those normally disrupting, got involved, got engaged. So why don’t we do this every day? Fear of the test? Fear of our school grade? Fear of it not looking like traditional learning?

What do you believe? Do you believe that one generic silver bullet will kill every werewolf? Do we instead need to craft our own silver bullets to slay our own educational werewolves?

An Adult Fan Of LEGO (AFOL) can mean a lot of things- not just you never grew up. Seeing what happens behind the scenes at a LEGO show is one way to experience how serious and yet playful things can be. Over March 15-17 the Indiana State Fairgrounds hosted the Flower & Patio Show, a Gun Show, & Brickworld Indy. I displayed at one of them…

So what really happens behind the scenes? If I told you I’d have to kill you, or maybe make you step on a LEGO brick. For me it all started months before when I decided to make my intentions known at an IndyLUG (LEGO User Group) meeting. I was going to take my batcave build to the next level, it was going to be awesome (remember “everything is awesome”) so I started planning on ways I could improve the display that currently took up pretty much one table. After procrastinating for a while, something horrible happened- The LEGO Movie 2 trailers started to show up. I loved the whimsical nature of the the first LEGO movie and decided to be a part of the proposed collaborative display for it. Something simple, I envisioned a crashed ship being used as a camp in the post Taco Tuesday world. I could do that… or could I?

As time passed the collaborative fell apart, no one wanted to take a leadership role & I was one of those saying “not me.” I still liked the idea of Apocalypseburg, so I scrapped the batcave and decided to take various LEGO Movie 2 kits and build my adaptation of the that dystopian world. My original goal was to have an app controlled car drive around the landscape. Grande ideas- little time to figure out how to get it to work.

Life and work got in the way and soon I was two weeks out from Brickworld, still trying to make things work. I remember my first few displays that after building them, fell to pieces in the car while transporting them. My goal was to build everything in one baseplate sections that were sturdy enough to survive. Then build up the LEGO Welcome to Apocalypseburg set to close to movie standards. While I want my builds to be original to a point, I also want kids looking at them to see the sets they already have so as to inspire them to use what they have to build something amazing.

I finished up the major portion of the build the night before set up and crossed my fingers that it would work. Friday after school I headed to the Fairgrounds around 4:00PM and started setting everything up. Having done this before I knew it wouldn’t be close to what I wanted until sometime Saturday afternoon. This first go was a beta test and as the crowd made comments, I’d change things around.

The next morning I walked in and wandered the tables to see what everyone had built. If you’ve been to one of these you know how amazing some of the builds are. Sadly, some look the same year after year, mostly because as a viewer I don’t see the subtle changes and tweaks that have been made- the Easter eggs added. “Oh, it’s the same city I saw last year.” When it really isn’t, it just reuses a few buildings.

Then you have things like the GBC (Great Ball Contraption) a collaboration in engineering that is amazing no matter how many modules are the same each year. It is a loop of machines whose only purpose is to move a small ball to the next machine however it can. There are design constraints, but for the most part it is up to the builder to engage the audience in how it works. Google “LEGO GBC” and prepare to be in awe of the engineering behind such a simple task.

So what happens with those folks who have badges? We tend to run around and buy stuff from the vendors, compliment each other on what we brought, plan and scheme for the next show after seeing something amazing. Answer questions inspire people to build what they love. We aren’t in a competition, we all have our favorites for some it is Star Wars, for others it’s superheroes, castle, city, Technic, you name it and someone has either built a display or considered building a display. Here are just a few of what was out there this year in Indianapolis.

Short weeks can be interesting. As a classroom teacher it meant trying to fit five days worth of learning into four. Seeing the students once a week has meant, no big difference, except that when I see my Monday classes I’m trying to fit 90 minutes of instruction into 45. There are other ways of scheduling but this late in the year making changes confuses everyone. Throw a two hour delay in on Wednesday and your plans for the week swiftly go out the window. If you think I’m complaining, I’m not. Changes, while maddening also give me the chance to be creative & try things that I may not have had the chance to otherwise.

This week grade 4-6 found themselves:

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West of House

You are standing in an open field west of a white house, with a boarded front door.
There is a small mailbox here.

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Partially due to clean up time & lack of supplies- these classes got to visit Zork – a classic text based video game. A parsely game- one in which you type simple commands to move on. One of the original computer Role Playing Games. We began by discussing memory and how limited and expensive it was when home computing started. Heck, the Apollo guidance computer had 2k. I happen to have an Apple IIe and an original Macintosh in my lab. So we discuss kilobytes and megabytes and gigabytes. Then we start and by the end most of the class has been dragged into Zork, frustrated, but enjoying themselves. Learning, through play. Without getting in details – think about it, these students (many reluctant readers) have to read to play. They need to decode and use context clues to determine what to do next. Then they have to problem solve since games like this are really ginormous puzzles. “I keep trying to break this with my fist, but it doesn’t know what a fist is!” One girl got more and more frustrated, but had stopped reading the description of where she was- that now said “an open window” so she could enter a new location.

Oh, the goal in 20ish minutes was to get into the kitchen, one of the first steps. Those that made it got a Hershey’s kiss. Once the first person did it the moans and groans of how impossible it was died down. The students learned perseverance or at least demonstrated it while playing. The students left my room many wanting to continue and bookmarking the site. I used Zorkonline.net which has a wide variety of text based games for free. I originally had the kids just do a google search on their chrome books for “Zork.” Yes, I did mention that this game was part of the book Ready Player One which may get some older kids to pick that book up.

Next on the docket:

Sixth grade will begin working on a personal project to coincide with the district Science/Engineering Fair.

Fifth grade will have a couple days to integrate their Valley Forge Day experience into either a comic (we’d been studying drawing) or their own parsely game. After that the plan is to finish the year with their rovers traveling across Mars and completing the missions from this year’s FLL game “Into Orbit.”

Fourth grade will return to their robots in preparation for the inaugural Indian Creek 500 – a robot race using light sensors to travel around a track. this is Indianapolis after all.