Poetry and Coding in #ENG2D and #ICS2O

Poetry and coding!? To be fair, each subject is being taught in a different class, but I argue that there is a pretty clear relationship between the expression of emotions and the development of computer operations. Both are all about creation. It was nice to see light bulbs go off in English as students figured out their poems. The same light bulbs brightened as students problem-solved HTML and Scratch in computer science. In the past few weeks, we’ve been working in hands-on, inquiry-based learning and students have been pretty engaged, which is awesome. We will be continuing this style of learning this week as we continue poetry in English and HTML in Computer Science.

ENG2D – Grade 10 English students have completed writing a poem on a social justice issue. Topics include addiction, homelessness, crime, and abuse – among others. Check out a few examples:

poetry_anna

poetry_jarryd

poetry_val

This week, we continue studying poetry by focusing on analyzing poetic elements as well as writing a variety of our own poems, including haikus, (my favourite!)

Poetry Writing
Is challenging for students
But they’re good at it

Meanwhile, ICS2O – Grade 10 Computer Science students continue learning HTML. We had a great week last week as students mastered basic code and started seeing websites come to life. This included basic elements such as different type, links, images, and tables. We are going to explore using CSS, (Cascading Style Sheets) to put more control on the visuals of our pages. We will also start using WordPress as a basis of creating a whole website.

Finally, I want to keep exploring using some great hands-on tools I’ve been given, including this awesome Makey-Makey product. Makey-Makey basically using conductive properties of objects to replace keyboard and mouse controls. The result is some pretty awesome creations, (like our chalk-paper-scissors Pac-Man controller)

img_5403

At a Superior-Greenstone DSB Tech Champions workshop last week, educators from our area got to explore with Makey-Makey. At the end of the session, students from George O’Neil Public School in Nipigon got to check out our cool tech toys. Look at the engagement!

There are only THREE WEEKS until the Christmas Vacation. I hope students continue to take advantage of these learning opportunities and that anyone who requires extra help will come and see me. Thanks!

 

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.