Hello Everyone!
This is Alex with a classroom activity that you can do to get students up and moving without the need of computers.
“Unplugged” Activities (ones that don’t require a computer) can be a really great resource for those days when the internet is down, the computers aren’t charged, or the lab is being used for some other reason. These activities can even just be a fun way to start or end your class, or just get your students up and moving.
These activities are pedagogically useful because they get students to truly embody what they are learning, and give them a new way of thinking about a problem they might have already solved using code!
This activity is a fun way for interacting with drones and having the students understand how being very precise is really important when coding!
Find the Spy Activity Description
“We’ve received a message that one of the students in this class is a spy. We don’t know who it is. In fact, the spy may not even know who he or she is. In the message, we were given a series of directions that we can use to find the spy.”
- Line the students up in a grid. Shortest in the front, tallest in the back.
- “We’re going to use the concept of drones to follow the message’s directions. The drone will hover over one student at a time. If a student is under the drone, they will raise their hand.”
- Stand in front of the students. The student furthest right to you in the row closest to you will be the starting point. Have the student raise his or her hand to start.
- Feed them a series of directions like: Drone moves in direction ‘back’ a distance ‘3’ or forward one, left four. As the drone moves, the next student will raise his or her hand and the previous student will lower his or her hand.
- Note: Make sure they know that ‘back’ is behind them, ‘forward’ is front, etc. The directions may be inverted from your perspective because you will be facing them.
- You could also project the full series of instructions on the board and see if they can collaborate to find who the spy is within a time limit.
- Tell them that the spy is whoever is left standing with their hand up at the end.
Variations to the Game
Hot Potato
This activity can also be hot-potato style. You project a series of drone movements on the board, more than can be done in a 20 second period. They have to move the drone as fast as possible, and the student left with their hand raised is the one stuck with the “hot potato.”
Blinded
Another fun variation is to have all of the students close their eyes while they are doing the activity. Then, at the end they can see how many students have their hands raised because they accidentally raised it when it wasn’t their turn.
Two Groups
If you have a lot of students, you can break them up into two groups (2 groups of 12, for example). Then you can play the game in the “normal” way, or one of the variations, but the students are competing against the other group. Maybe you give the winning group 5 extra minutes of recess 🙂
Teacher Challenge
How would you use this tool in your classroom?
Feedback From You!
What is another variation of this activity? Have an idea for what else we can post about? Want to share a lesson or activity? Fill out this short, 5-minute survey and give us some feedback!
Want to hear it from us? Watch this short video explanation of the Find the Spy activity:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7g1lke2k5I&feature=youtu.be