Librarians use Star Wars popularity for out of this world lessons plans
Fri, 2016-01-15 05:00
News Staff
Special to Leader-Press
Boys and girls, no matter their age, are imagining themselves as Han Solo, Luke Skywalker or the new female heroine, Rey, fighting the first order in the latest installment in the Star Wars movie series. Some clever Copperas Cove ISD librarians have taken the hype to become a super hero and turned it into a learning lesson.
Hettie Halstead Librarian Teresa Ingram attend the Texas Library Association Convention this year to learn about a variety of topics including what’s new in literature and computer education trends. Librarians return to their campuses and incorporate what they have learned into meaningful lessons for their students. This year, Ingram also attended a coding session and was determined to open up a new galaxy of learning for her students.
“I wanted to teach coding but felt like I did not have enough knowledge to effectively teach her students,” Ingram said. “Sandra Carswell, librarian at S.C. Lee Junior High, shared what she did with her students by using Hour of Code. So, I decided to try it at Halstead.”
Students in grades 3-5 had a free trial run last week with the Hour of Code. The students had to use the pre-programmed java script blocks to follow directions and problem solve using a Star Wars game.
“Hour of Code is challenging in a good way….so we can learn how to program,’ student Kenya Dorsey said.
This week, students in grades 3-5 had the opportunity to use the concepts: -commands, -repeat loops, and -if statements while using the game Mine Craft.
“I plan on using this every day because I want to be a game designer,” student Dailyn Rivera said.
Students at S. C. Lee Junior High also used coding to work to defeat the enemies of the Galactic Empire by turning their electronic devices into lightsabers.
“Besides learning to code with Code.org Hour of Code, we are having fun with this Star Wars game using our phones,” Carswell said smiling. “Kids being kids.”
Students learned how to turn their tablets, desktop computer and phones into lightsabers and began an epic battle that taught them coding lessons but were so enjoyable they did not realize they were learning.
“This is a good way to challenge us in problem solving,” student Simone Vallott said.
Anyone can turn his electronic device into a lightsaber by visiting lightsaber.withgoogle.com.