Tag: BSD Online

How to extract a report in CSV using the “Export student progress report” feature

Posted on by Beth

In recent years, there has been a growing interest in leveraging technology to improve education. One area where this is particularly promising is the use of data analytics to better understand what is happening in the classroom. With the help of the “Export student progress report” feature, it is possible to extract data from a classroom setting and use that data to gain insights into students’ performance and engagement.

Inside the classroom page, a new button in the tools menu has been added that allows teachers to export a CSV file containing the list of students with their progress data from the classroom.

The student’s classroom completion percentage, number of started sandboxes, student’s current location, last activity, time on a project step, errors, total classroom session duration and online status are included columns in the progress report.

This feature will help you as the teacher to track students’ progress and identify areas where students may need additional support to help them improve. Teachers can use “Export student progress report” to track student behavior, engagement, and performance and educators can gain a better understanding of what is happening in the classroom and provide the best learning environment.

If you have questions or concerns, let’s talk! Feel free to send an email to support@bsd.education or “start a conversation” through chat support!

How do I copy a sandbox?

Posted on by Beth

Copying a sandbox for various reason can easily be done by following the steps:

  1. Copy the sandbox link from the browser’s address bar.
  1. Share the link with your students. You can share it by projecting the link on the board, sending the link using Classroom Chat, email, or any means you may see fit and convenient for the class.
  2. Ask students to click/type/paste the link on their browser’s address bar and hit Enter.
  3. Now, this will only show them the output of the shared sandbox, view and edit the HTML, CSS and JavaScript codes but NO option to SAVE their customization.
  1. Ask students to click on the “Make a copy of this sandbox” button next to the Sandbox title.
  1. This will prompt to rename the sandbox. You can give suggestions on how they can name it. Click on the “Make a copy” button once done.
  1. Once a sandbox has been successfully copied, students can now start customizing it. The sandbox will also be included in their own portfolios which they can access anytime.

If you have questions or concerns, let’s talk! Feel free to send an email to support@bsd.education or “start a conversation” through chat support!

How to edit content in a classroom

Posted on by Beth

After creating a classroom, you can still edit the content if you want to remove or add lessons/projects. Follow these easy steps on how to do it:

Step 1: Click “Your classrooms”

Step 2: Click the classroom you want to edit

Step 3: Toggle from “Teaching” to “Editing” mode.

Now that the classroom is unlocked, you can do changes like removing and adding projects, sandbox templates and custom steps in the same course.

To add additional content to the classroom
Click the link “+” sign to see the classroom resources available. The additional content will go to the bottom of the classroom content list.

You can also add additional content inside a folder.

If you wish to re-order the classroom content, possible by just dragging it anywhere inside the same content group. Here’s a gif to explain the re-ordering of classroom content.

To remove content from the classroom
Hover over the content you want to remove and the three dots will display then click “Remove”.

Inside the folder, this button is also available. Here’s a gif for reference.

Another thing you can do as a teacher is to control the resources visibility 1 in the classroom.

If you have any questions or experiences to share, feel free to make a post here in the BSD community site.

Project Based Learning with Real World Experiences

Posted on by Beth

As a Project Based Learning (PBL) coach, I help teachers design learning experiences with a project-first approach, as compared to traditional models that are standard/subject-first. The biggest obstacle I have encountered in my years of helping teachers is finding meaningful and purposeful projects. Therefore, I encourage teachers to consider “real-world” connections whenever possible. While that may be a vague term, I elaborate on the term by asking this follow-up question: “will I ever need this skill in the future?”. To me, that is what defines “real-world” learning. Students should feel that what they are learning has a purpose they will find helpful now or in the future that they can easily understand. 

There are generally two ways to provide real-world experiences. You can provide a genuine experience or a simulation of an experience. An example would be an internship or a project that delivers tangible results or learning artifacts. A simulation can be just as powerful, but students should always be aware of the elements and why they are being simulated. For example, a science teacher might want to teach about volcanoes but doesn’t have easy access to any volcanoes, so students learn through models, videos, and examples. 

Hydroponic Gardening Business (year-long project)

Plan

Starting with student strengths and core math content goals, The Harbour School Middle School Math teacher, Learning Extension Coordinator, and Foundry (maker space) teacher planned and organized the unit together. The group decided on an entrepreneurship focus that would provide application skills of algebra, geometry, and financial literacy content and a product development component that would use The Foundry and develop new skills in using tools.

Immerse

After a brainstorming session and an introduction to entrepreneurship lesson, students decided to co-create a business focusing on sustainability and gardening. For the project kick-off, students and teachers researched gardening in Hong Kong and discovered a local hydroponic growing company. Next, they organized a field trip to their facility to learn more about gardening, hydroponics, sustainability, and business practices. Through interviewing staff and interacting with the hydroponic system, students learned hands-on what it takes to garden with Hong Kong water and soil. They also learned best practices for organic gardening with hydroponic systems and about easy-to-grow plants for their business.

 

Teach and Reflect

Students developed a business plan and designed a schematic for a 6-tier hydroponic gardening system. With a solid business plan, the students were offered an investment from The Harbour School to acquire the materials and resources to start the business and build the hydroponic system. After students built the hydroponic gardening system, they tested through several iterations of growing different vegetables. They adjusted their business projections with each iteration, settling on a plan to maximize their profits. They also learned about business profit projections, investment interest rates, organic fertilizers, hydroponic substrates, and optimal growing conditions.

Delivery

Students settled on an online pop-up launch of their business, selling vegetables and herb packages to The Harbour School faculty and staff through a simple online ordering form. They marketed their packages with posters and word of mouth and ensured timely delivery to all customers. After selling out of stock, students earned enough money to repay production costs, purchase their next cycle of vegetables and herbs, and profit to pay themselves for their roles in the business. The students are planning their next business idea and looking for potential investors.

Outcome

The hydroponics gardening system will continue to operate at the school and serve as a community model for sustainable practices. The students that started the project will conduct a hand-off meeting with incoming students to explain how the system works and other transference of knowledge. The incoming students will be allowed to decide what to do with the system and how to proceed. One idea is to start a community gardening project for residents who live nearby without access to organic vegetables and produce.

Reflect

The Middle School Math teacher, the Learning Extension Coordinator, and the Foundry teacher mapped out how students met the learning objectives, wrote narratives for student portfolios, and documented the final details of the project for future use By using the Critical Friends protocol of criticizing the success of the project by stating “I like” and “I wonder” statements. This has demonstrated that a year-long project paid huge dividends for the students involved, which is sometimes difficult to adhere to. Students met their learning goals, earned real dollars, and are now interested in starting their businesses.

 

This example shows various ways to answer the question, “will I ever need this skill in the future?” If you are interested in learning more about Project Based Learning, here are some resources you can check out:

PBL Works

PBL Professional Development

My blog with several project examples

To learn more about this, tune into our upcoming webinar on the topic. If you are reading this article after the date of the webinar, no problem! All previously recorded webinars can be found here on our website. 

Why JavaScript Is a Better Programming Language for Children

Posted on by user

Back in 2015, the “kids coding in school” movement started picking up traction. Today, programming languages are being taught in thousands of schools globally. With the availability of many programming languages, educators face a dilemma on which programming language they can introduce to students. We found that schools usually opt to get their students started on platforms like Scratch or MIT’s App Inventor which are structured with drag and drop interfaces. The visual interface and the engaging sounds and animations help captivate young learners and get them started. But once they’ve overcome the ‘getting started hurdle,’ with respect to progression, the questions that naturally come to educators’ minds are “What’s next?” or “What about real coding/programming?”

Today, kids are exposed and use a plethora of high-tech products that affect the level of standards they set on what they can build with programming. Although the drag and drop interfaces are effective in introducing the concepts of programming, they usually fall short on meeting the expectations of young learners on what to learn next. 

To be able to deliver a technology curriculum that meets their expectations, we at BSD Education choose to begin student journeys by first listening to what they have to say and understand what they are looking for. This leads to feedback from 8 – 10 year-olds asking for real-world application:

I love coding on scratch, but i haven’t built anything like the apps i download on my phone

Can I use Scratch to build instagram?

How do I build an E-Commerce website to make money?

Nowadays, most interactions students experience occur on the web. Understanding the web starts by learning HTML and CSS, the fundamental coding languages that run on the front of every website in the world. This is compulsory for every student to learn to be able to express themselves through the web. After understanding the fundamental code, creating further complexity requires the learning of a programming language to allow for interactivity and functionalities into projects. 

At this stage, we discovered there are two popular approaches to programming that educators usually take –  Python and JavaScript. While our online platform BSD Online supports both JavaScript and Python, we opted to introduce students to JavaScript first. Here’s why:

Accessibility with any computer

Our mission as a organization is to make technology accessible to all. With JavaScript, all students need is a computer with an internet connection and a browser, no installations, no setup time.

Interactive, real-world projects which help with student retention

When teaching young learners programming, the traditional approach is to have them learn the fundamentals in a text-based environment known as the console.

But here the usual issue we discovered is the drop in engagement. Students lose interest and are not motivated to go beyond what the curriculum offers. If this continues, it would be considered as a failure in our duty as educators to inspire them to deepen their learning. JavaScript allows a natural progression after learning HTML and CSS.

We introduced it in one of our technology projects such as building an online coffee shop. In this project, they got to build an e-commerce site as well as decide on what to sell and how to price it. To further enhance the experience, students were able to share their shop to anyone, anywhere, with a click of a button. This project offers the real-world aspect to the students and what ignites their curiosity and brings the lightbulb spark that we educators always want to see among them.

Click on the images below to try these projects out yourself:

An online coffee shop built by Eugene, aged 12

A snake game built by Chloe, aged 9 (Use W,A,S,D to move)


Ease of accessing technology depth

While both languages provide an almost infinite amount of depth, we found students building more complex projects for their personal projects using JavaScript vs when they built with Python. Adding sound to create engagement for the end-user, creating more complex levels in their games, thinking about visual animations on their websites to help visitors find content, are some examples we started seeing students build into their projects.

With technology like Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence requiring steep learning curves, JavaScript allows us to scaffold the experience so children as young as 10 years old can create amazing projects using Machine Learning.

AI Personal Stylist – Built with BSDs AI curriculum – Grade 6

To conclude, we recommend JavaScript as the programming language to start with for children due to its strength in accessibility, ease of use to create visually-appealing projects, and the convenience of being able to dive into more complex concepts.

Programming plays a key role as one of the many digital skills kids will need in the future. At BSD Education, we aim to continue developing curriculum and technology to help schools educate young learners. We believe the future is exciting and holds infinite opportunities for our young minds today and if we can nurture them to continue creating and learning, the possibilities are endless.

Project Highlight: Mathematics Trivia Game

Posted on by user

BSD Education’s comprehensive teacher training and support, ready-made curriculum, and online-learning software platform (BSD Online) allow us to provide project-based technology education like no other! Our online platform offers projects with step-by-step guides which allow students to code and create a variety of projects including their very own website, 2D mini game, or even a mobile app.

One example of a great project is our Mathematics Trivia Game, which is currently available on BSD Online. It is one of the many projects housed under our TechConnected curriculum for students aged 8 to 14, and also includes tech projects for English, Science, Geography, Humanities and Languages. Our projects are
aligned to US/UK/IB curricula, and are also mapped to ISTE/CSTA standards.

Now let’s look at the Mathematics Trivia Game in detail:

What is it?

The Mathematics Trivia Game is a short 8-step project on how to create a trivia game. Using a list of multiple-choice questions, it is designed to test a player’s math knowledge. Students are guided on how to add their own questions, as well as program the correct answers that players need to provide in order to score a point.

What do students learn?

To create their trivia game, students first need to learn how to use JavaScript – a coding language used to make a webpage more interactive. Learning code and immediately putting it into practice with a fun project develops students’ computational thinking, logic, and problem-solving skills. It also encourages them to pay attention to detail and be creative.

How can students use it?

This project is a unique and creative way for students to summarize their learning, or as a fun way to review for a test – students can even play each other’s trivia games to reinforce new concepts learned during math class!

After completing the project steps, students are offered the opportunity to further customize their Mathematics Trivia game – they can add more questions, add additional answer options, change the visual display of the quiz itself, and even change the topic of the quiz from math to history!

If you’re interested in bringing the Mathematics Trivia Game project into your classroom, or if you’d like more information on our tech curricula, feel free to contact us! We offer prep guides which assist teachers on how to use and teach this project in class without requiring any prior coding experience.

Advantages of Real World Technology Camps: Build a 2D Mini Game Camp

Posted on by user

In the current digital era, there is no denying that video games are among the most popular pastimes for people of all ages, genders, and backgrounds. For children, many of them will tell you that playing games is one of their favourite hobbies! However, many have only ever experienced games as a player.

By attending a camp to Build a 2D Mini Game, not only will kids get to work on a project related to one of their interests, but learning to build a 2D mini game helps foster both tech skills and soft skills that will greatly benefit them in the future – both in school and beyond.

Let’s take a look at some of the real-word skills your child will learn if he/she/they enroll for an 2D Mini Game Camp here at BSD Education:

Coding

To build a 2D web game, students will learn to code using languages such as HTML, CSS and JavaScript. Our 2D Mini Game camp focuses heavily on JavaScript, a programming language used to add logic, interactivity, and behaviour to a game. For example, JavaScript is used to add a point system, create animations, or to make images on a screen that respond to a mouse click or keystroke. Learning to code fosters patience and helps develop computational thinking skills.

Problem-Solving

Building a 2D mini game with code means that children will commonly run into challenges with their game, such as points not being added correctly, a button not responding to a mouse click, or a character on the screen is moving up instead of down. Kids will quickly learn that encountering bugs is a common process when coding, and that they will need to be organized, adaptable, and resourceful in order to come up with a variety of solutions. This will include checking their coding syntax, researching by themselves online for a fix, or rearranging their code in a different way.

Design (User Interface and User eXperience)

Building a 2D Mini Game encourages children to develop their skills in design. Children must think about how and where to place components – such as text and buttons – on the screen in a way that makes for a visually pleasing interface. They must also think about the emotionally rewarding and challenging aspects of their game that may encourage or discourage further gameplay. This design process helps to nurture empathy and adaptability in kids, as they will need to place themselves in the mindset of their players.

Attention to Detail

Throughout the process of building their 2D mini game, kids will learn that they will need to be diligent, thorough, and focused when working on every aspect of their game. They must make sure that their coding syntax is correct, or map out the game flow and logic of to account for all the different scenarios that players will encounter.

Technology camps are a unique, eye-opening, and engaging way for children to pursue their interests in  a collaborative environment and make new friends, learn new skills, and be exposed to a variety of disciplines. At the end of a camp, children will leave with a greater appreciation of the technology that is so deeply ingrained in their daily lives, and will get to proudly showcase to their friends and family, a game that they programmed by themselves.

The gaming industry is among the fastest growing industries today that will be even bigger in childrens’ futures. Learning to build games helps equip children with digital skills that are the foundation for exploring other areas of tech, such as app development, animation, graphic design, and web development.

If you are interested in bringing our Build a 2D Mini Game Camps into your school, let us know by contacting us here.

Advantages of Real World Technology Camps: App Development

Posted on by user

Technology camps are a creative and inspiring way to expose children to a variety of real-world skills that will benefit them in the future. Not only will they be learning something new, but technology camps also allow children to explore areas of interest that they may not have experienced at home or at school.

In our current digital era, people of all ages use apps every day intrinsic to their ways of life in their daily lives. However, what is an app exactly? Why do people choose to build apps instead of websites? What does it take to build an app? What makes an app “great”? These are all questions that kids will have the opportunity to explore by attending App Development Camps.

Beyond simply learning how to code, creating a mobile app also encourages children to foster skills in a variety of areas. This includes tech-related skills such as programming, UX (user experience) design, UI (user interface) design, and soft skills such as creativity, resilience, computational thinking, and communication.

Let’s take a look at some of the real-world skills your child will learn if he/she/they enroll for an App Development Camp:

Coding

To build an app, students will learn to code using languages such as HTML, CSS, JavaScript, as well as using coding “libraries” and “frameworks” (these are large bodies of code create by teams of professionals to make complicated but frequently used things we want to create easier and faster to build). Learning how to code teaches kids computational thinking, adaptability, organization, and also how to be focused and thorough when completing tasks – that’s because one small error in your coding syntax might cause a bug in your app!

Problem-solving

Throughout the process of building their app, children will encounter challenges such as their code not working, not knowing how to make their code perform a specific action, or not understanding specific parts of their code. This means that they will have to devise different solutions, whether that’s collaborating with their peers, researching online, or figuring out how to synthesize the coding syntax that they’ve learned to test a different approach.

Fosters empathy

Deciding to create an app means that developers must place themselves in the shoes of their users, and adopt a variety of perspectives. Developers must consider a number of questions, such as: “Will my app be easy to use?”, “Why will people want to use my app?”, “Who will want to use my app?” and “What problem(s) will my app help solve?”. The success of an app depends on the experience of its users, and kids will learn that app development is not about creating an app for themselves, but rather, apps can be solution and community-driven, and are built to solve problems and help others.

Communication

At the end of a BSD App Development Camp, all the kids are required to present their app – what they built, why they built it, and how they built it. Not only does this allow them to reflect on their entire camp experience as a whole, but presentations help build confidence by showcasing their hard work, improve their public speaking skills, and demonstrate to them that their work is valued and recognized.

Technology is ingrained in nearly every aspect of our lives today. Learning to build apps is a fun, engaging, and unique activity that exposes children to a variety of disciplines empowers them with digital skills required to succeed in the future and deepens their understanding of the world around them. They are able to socialize and make new friends in a fun and collaborative environment and create an app that they can take home to show their friends and family that might even solve a problem for their community, or be a unique portfolio piece for a school, college, internship or job application in the future.

If you are interested in bringing our App Development Camps into your schools, let us know by contacting us here.

Our Students Answer “What is Love?”

Posted on by user

Valentine’s Day is just around the corner! We have found that  it’s a great day to remind our students and ourselves about the value of recognizing the people around you that make life a better place, and sharing “love” and messages of appreciation.

But how do you share “love”? As a fun Valentines Day read, we wanted to show you responses we’ve received when we asked our students what love was:

“Love is sharing my last piece of candy for my sister”

Nicole, 9

“Love is being able to trust someone, more than you trust yourself”

Leo, 12

“Love is going to the carnival with Mommy and Daddy”

Ella, 6

“If I were going to say it like in the books, love is going to the ends of the earth for the person you love”

Ellie, 11

“Love is kissing and hugging a lot”

Olivia, 7

“Love is feeling happy and light”

Claire, 8

“Love is when everyone gets the same respect and trust”

Eric, 13

“Love, is peace and honor!”

Jason, 8

“Love is JT’s class” (referring to BSD’s Innovation Academy)

James, 10

“Love is anything that makes you laugh”

Shaurya, 11

What do you think of their answers? Aren’t they great! What do you think your students will answer if you asked them the same? We’d love to hear it! Tag us at #BSDLove2019 and get a chance to be featured in our upcoming newsletters.

Technology Projects That Will Inspire Your Students To CARE

Posted on by user

At BSD Education, we are passionate about education technology and project-based learning.

As a wise 6-year-old once said, “Love is when you go out to eat and give somebody most of your French fries without making them give you any of theirs.” (Disney Baby)

You might not be able (or want!) to share your French fries, so we came up with a few creative digital ways that you can show you care.

1. Online Card

The technology project ‘Design your own Valentine’s theme online card’ is complete with pictures, graphics, and of course, your views about love.

Read our step-by-step project breakdown of this project here.

2. 3D Printed Creations

For the people in your life that you can’t live without, you can design a heart-shaped custom 3D printed creation.  Other options include a unique design about a place you visited together, their favorite hobby, an inside joke – this is entirely up to you! Designing and printing it yourself will undoubtedly show them how much you care.

3. Poem Website

Design your custom website complete with a loving or appreciative poem for that particular person in your life. Are you a writer? Try combining technical skills with a bit of “iambic pentameter” to show off your inner Shakespeare to loved ones.

How else do you teach your students to care about other people? We’d love to hear from you in the comments below.

If you’d like to learn more about our projects at BSD Education, please reach out to us at info@bsd.education!

BSD Education (Build Something Different) partners with educators to bring technology education into classrooms through our programs of learning, online learning platform and professional development training.

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