Lesson Plan

Activity 1

Courses

• Grades 3-12
• 3rd Grade – 12th Grade Courses

Materials

• Cellphone, tablet, or computer
• Internet connection

Description

In this activity, students can experiment in an introductory manner with Protobject, learning about visual programming and computer science safely and playfully using a device.

Educational Objectives

• Understand the concepts of “block programming” and “prototype.”
• Create a technological object (prototype) using a device.
• Identify relationships between technology and the surrounding world.
• Evaluate their own work and the work of others, both individually and in teams.
• Participate in dialogues and reflections to propose improvements.

Start (10 minutes)

Welcome the students to the class and briefly introduce the day’s activity: “Today, we will learn to prototype using Protobject.”

We will begin the class by providing technical knowledge to the students for a meaningful learning experience of the practical activity.

To kick off the class, we can start with a question:

Do you know what programming is?

You can give the students the floor to propose their answers and then supplement with relevant ideas and concepts.

Programming involves providing a series of specific instructions to perform a task.

This way, the computer knows how to perform the task by following the specific steps you programmed. Programmers use a special language that the computer can understand to tell it what to do. We call this language programming language, and it can be textual or block-based.

You can then inspire them to prototype with another question:

How do you think LEDs are related to the cellphone? Allow time for them to explore and propose answers.

Textual programming involves writing instructions in programming languages using a text editor. These languages can be Python, Java, or C+, among others. Sometimes these textual languages can be challenging for beginners, but there are other alternatives for programming, like using code blocks.

Block-based programming uses graphical resources to deliver instructions to the computer, allowing you to create instructions by simply dragging a block that already contains code, avoiding the need to write it yourself.

This is the type of programming we use in Protobject!

Protobject allows you to program your cellphone and interact with the world around you. How? Simple! By connecting a cellphone, creating your code, and activating your prototype!

Finally, to kickstart the prototyping process and make them feel like protagonists of their learning, ask them:

Do you want to learn how to turn on an LED lamp with your cellphone?

Development (20-30 minutes)

We connect our equipment to the Protobject platform. This will allow us to control the LED on the screen with programming commands and control those LEDs. When you are ready to test the prototype, use the red activation button.

This is Protobject:

On the left, you will see options to save, delete, view tutorials, and activate your prototype.

On the right, you will see the name of the connected cellphone and the list of blocks that you can drag to the workspace, which is the white area.

To connect the mobile device to the Protobject platform, we will generate a QR code by clicking on DEVICES and then on LAMP.

Finally, scan the QR code with the cellphone.

Explain to them that if they don’t have a cellphone or tablet to connect, they can click on “DON’T HAVE A MOBILE DEVICE?”

Remember to experiment on your own in advance before asking the students to experiment with Protobject. This way, you can anticipate any questions that may arise.

Great! Let’s turn on our LED lamp!

Explain that each block represents an action. We will start by using just one block that will allow us to turn on our LED lamp.

To do this, drag the TURN ON block to the workspace.

To test the prototype, instruct the students to click the activation button. The LED lamp should light up!

Congratulations, you’ve already tested your first prototype!

Closure (5-10 minutes)

Now that you’ve turned on an LED lamp with Protobject, challenge your students with a question:

Can you imagine how to turn off the lamp?

You can allow them to explore a bit until they find the answer. If this doesn’t happen, teach them how to use the TURN OFF block.

Then ask them why it’s not working. The idea here is to reflect on the error related to the speed of command execution.

Explain to them that the transition from on to off is so fast that we can’t see it, but if we assign a duration to each step, we’ll be able to see it.

Tell them that this is what they will do in the next exercise!