Today we had a two-hour drone programming class at a local elementary school in the morning. This time, however, we will continue to focus on “A graduation gift from me, the chairman of the local town council, to the sixth graders who are about to graduate.”. However, as I couldn’t handle it by myself, so I asked our company staff and intern (She is also a graduate of this elementary school) to cooperate.
Moreover, the local elementary school happened to be repapering the floor of the gymnasium, and the inspection was completed last Friday. The first gymnasium event after the replacement was the drone programming study.
Despite the limited time of 2 hours, 4 ~ 5 6th graders were given a laptop and challenged the programing with Scratch. At a trial class held in Tokyo last summer, about half of the children had used Scratch, but at the local elementary school this time, none had any experience with Scratch (although there were several children who had used similar block programming software.). It may be just a coincidence, but I feel that regional cities are behind Tokyo.
But kids today can do things like click and drag. If you teach them some Scratch rules, it’s easy to get through the “I’ll try it first.” first step of programming. In addition, there are some teams that can take the second step of “give ~ a try”, and I think this time it has been proven that children are very understanding despite the worries of adults.
And the 36 students in 6th grade were all just fun, and I was so happy that they could do it if it wasn’t for me. First of all, I think it’s good. If you’re interested, you can move on to the next step. If possible, I would like to teach them conditional branching and repetition. It would be great if this local elementary school became an STEM advanced education school that is more outstanding than other schools in Chiba City.
It was a busy time before the graduation ceremony, but the teachers in charge of the 6th grade homeroom teacher and the teachers in charge of IT in the elementary school, and the principals and vice principals who supported this idea, I would like to thank them from the bottom of my heart.