With the New Year still fresh, I wanted to come up with a fun activity for students to do that involved coding and goal-setting. While I came up with several coding activities using Stratch.com, I ended up with having my students code on my favorite little robot, Dash.
Why Dash?
Coding can seem daunting at first, but Dash makes it simple. The easy-to-use coding programs that you can download when you get Dash makes learning to code even easier. Some teachers are understandably apprehensive about incorporating technology into their classrooms. Dash can show them that combining writing and coding can be simple and fun! Dash is a great beginner activity to help familiarize teachers and students with new technology.
Goal-Setting Dash Activities
I have used Dash with my middle school students to solve math problems, write a short narrative, and now to write New Year’s resolutions.
Even though my students are in middle school, I realized that not all of them knew what a New Year’s resolution was so they needed a bit of help with this part. To help students understand different kinds of New Year’s resolutions, we made a circle map with different goals like saving money, cleaning your room, doing laundry, etc.
Once we had a list of about thirty different New Year’s Resolutions, the students helped me write them down on paper and place them around the room. Then students developed their own plan for programming Dash prior to implementing the code. This was especially helpful for students who were new to coding.
Students programmed Dash to go travel to at least four New Year’s resolutions. They wrote their New Year’s Resolutions using the four that they programmed Dash to go to and shared them on FlipGrid. Students were very engaged throughout the entire process and loved the integration of coding with goal-setting. The entire lesson was the perfect way to end the first semester and to start the new year.
Keep your resolutions by adding Dash! Check them out here:
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