Computational Thinking: Microbits

Computational Thinking is a growing field in education (Shute, Sun & Asbell-Clarke, 2017) that extends students thinking skills and fosters their creativity through several ways. This week in our tutorial we explored an interesting digital technology called Microbits. I found that this would be useful for students to learn the basics of programming and coding skills. However, I did find that some concepts of the coding process could be quite difficult for younger students to grasp. Although, if teachers allow students to work in pairs or small groups, collaboration between peers will allow better understanding. The interactions that happens between peers during the experimenting and creating allow for collaborative as well as individual engagement (Ryu & Lombardi, 2015).

Students are given the freedom to create anything that appeals to their interests which effectively broadens their creativity. In class this week, we programmed our microbits to play the game we are all familiar with ‘Rock, Paper, Scissors’. Not only did it use good collaboration skills to achieve our goals it was also very engaging. The sense of joy and accomplishment when all the codes worked out and showed up on the LED screen was rewarding. This would be a worthwhile experience for students to explore computational thinking, particularly by solving problems effectively and efficiently (Shute, Sun & Asbell-Clarke, 2017) in different contexts.

Microbits have many practical uses within the classroom particularly with guiding students in the basics of coding and computational thinking. Moreover, with the use of experimenting and problem solving throughout lessons will build students confidence and knowledge (Chalmers, 2018). An appropriate use of microbits in the classroom would be when further exploring STEM concepts through digital technology. I would use this digital technology specifically in a primary Mathematics class. For example, a lesson where students are learning about (x,y) co-ordinates on a number plane. Students can work in pairs to write down a pair of co-ordinates and another pair of students must illustrate the answer. This could also be used as a form of assessment for the teacher to test student’s understanding.

Students are faced with challenges when using microbits as they discover multiple computational concepts, practices, and perspectives (Chalmers, 2018). The use of microbits in lessons is a fun and exciting way to develop the 21^st Century skills amongst students as well as helping to break down concept’s students may find difficult.