philscomputerlab's Forum Posts

  • 7 posts

  • That seems easy enough, but I would like to store ongoing data. Like a logger. Every time a valid test results is obtained, it is stored. Ideally with a user name. But it seems this isn't as easy as I thought...

    And of course be able to later view and analyse it somehow.

    EDIT:

    I might have found a solution.

    I'm using the NodeWebkit object, which has an Append action. This seems to be working well

    I'll have to open it in a better text editor than notepad, but it's easy enough to copy. Might just use , to separate the data.

  • Hello!

    I teach Computing and this semester we worked on building a reaction tester. The goal is to invite students , and teachers, during lunch and find the quickest student and teacher

    Not everyone was able to complete the project, but everyone learnt something. I'm planning now to hand out a template that students can use to add their own sprites.

    I've attached the project file.

    What I would like to know / implement, is some form of submission of final test result.

    Basically when the average reaction time after the three tests is calculated, I would like to save the result somewhere. Could be in the cloud or local, doesn't matter too much. If possible, I'd like to extend the program so that at the beginning users have to enter some information such as student or teacher and year level. So that later we can do some data analysis, create some histograms, box-plots. A way to save into an Excel or Google document would be awesome.

    The event sheet is pretty straight forward. I use a single sprite with 4 frames to switch between modes. It has cheat detection built in, you will get a red screen when you "jump the gun" and the game reloads shortly after.

    Please help!

    Phil

  • In general, if I'd teach programming fundamentals, I would not use C2.

    Have a go at creating the tasks in C2 vs. Scratch and tell me which one you find more suitable for teaching.

  • I would say I spend around the same amount of time on each of them. In upper school we only do Scratch however because this is what the curriculum dictates. Here I use C2 for "filler" lessons towards the end of term before holidays for example.

  • Oh don't get me wrong, I'm a huge fan of C2 and use it in all year levels. Especially during year 7 and 8 when everyone does Computing. In later years they actually choose it and you have more students who are actually interested in Computing.

    It also makes students promote your subject. Often Computer teachers struggle with having enough students for their classes and need to make it fun. Having other students play games of students spreads the word and many students become interested. It would even better if it was easier to get games onto phones and tablets. I admit I only just recently got a very cheap tablet (Pendo Pad) for testing and found that there are way to many steps to get a game onto your tablet. It really needs to export into something you can just copy via USB/

    App Inventor 2 does this, you export into an APK file and copy that onto the phone and install it.

    But maybe there is an easier way, I haven't looked into this a lot.

    There are also other areas you can branch out to. Especially creating assets which is great for teachers with good media or art skills. My art skills are shocking so we use sprites from C2 and create sound effects with sfxr. I haven't found something easy to do music yet though...

    To avoid students getting a false sense of programming I always also teach them Scratch (and Logo) so that they see other programming languages. I tell them that Scratch is what they will need to master when they do Computer Science in upper school. By then most are very comfortable with it and they are able to do decent programs with selection and iteration. Projects we do for example are: age checker, password checker, pay calculator, tax calculator, times table quiz generator...

    So in a way the closer you get to graduation the "less fun" Computing becomes. In the early years there is a lot more "fund" so to speak

  • For starters Construct 2 is event driven. This makes it difficult to teach sequence. Putting commands in the right order. In Construct 2 it doesn't matter what comes first, a collision event with a sprite or a create object event to spawn new objects.

    Doing trace tables is something you can't do with C2. Well not properly.

    In your country, I recommend you look at the Computer Science Curriculum and see what final year students need to demonstrate.

    In Australia Computer Science students create all sorts of diagrams, trace tables and write algorithms using pseudo code. Construct 2 is not well suited to prepare them for this.

    In Australia only the lowest upper school Computer Science course (Stage 1 ) uses "visual" programming languages like Scratch, Game Maker, Alice. Stage 2 and 3 all advise to use a "proper" language like Python, Visual Basic...

    When students get to the final exams, they don't get asked about games and other "fun" things. It's usually very traditional questions regarding processing income, tax, orders and that sort of thing.

    Personally I see C2 as a great tool to attract students to the discipline, excite them for Computing and build a foundation of what Computational thinking is. Then you can build on that.

    Scratch has a huge following with lots of resources. The resources for teaching C2 and not that good. I mean many teachers expect ready to go lesson plans, assessments, marking keys, tests and here Scratch has a much richer library.

    Building something is great but you only learn so much. To extend students and get them thinking you need to have tasks such as:

    • Fix a broken game
    • Modify an existing game to do something else
    • Find a mistake
    • Investigate a behaviour or event / action using documentation and building a demo
    • Designing their own game, writing user manual, project planning

    There aren't many resources like that available.

    Scratch has some similar alternatives out there such as Blocky. It is very similar to Scratch and also used for App Inventor 2 for making Android Phone Apps.

    One big negative for me is the difficulty in exporting games to mobile devices. It's not easy enough for students and they can't just save the game onto a USB and play it. So the "seeing it work" argument isn't one as students quickly give up on things they like to do such as sharing their games with friends, family.

    But, seeing it is your research paper, I throw some tasks at you:

    • Create a C2 project that demonstrates a nested selection (nested if statement) and do the same in Scratch.
    • Use C2 to teach the concept of a procedures with passing a parameter
    • Use C2 to teach the difference between FOR, Repeat until and While loop

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  • Hi there!

    I've used Construct 2 across most of my Computing classes. It has positives and negatives compared to other programming languages and I guess every teacher will see this differently so I can only talk from my point of view.

    What is really good about Construct 2 is that it is engaging and fun. Most students have a good go at it and enjoy building games. I teach via video tutorials, so everyone gets to build something and then differentiate students through extensions, modifications, investigations and their own projects depending on their skill and motivation.

    My other main resource for programming is Scratch and, in Australia, when you look at the Computer Science syllabus for upper school, I find Scratch prepares students better for traditional programming concepts such as sequence, selection, iteration and procedures.

    What both achieve is learning how to think and problem solve, but I find that Scratch prepares them better for traditional programming which students will encounter in upper school, school exams.

    Let me know if you want to know anything specific.

  • 7 posts