Digital Citizenship Creative Coding Lesson Plan
In this lesson plan, adaptable for grades 3-12, students explore BrainPOP resources to learn about topics related to digital citizenship. Then they’ll show what they know about the topic by completing one of BrainPOP’s four Creative Coding projects: Stop Motion Animation, Meme, Newscast, and Doodle Augmented Reality.
Lesson Plan Common Core State Standards Alignments
- Brainstorm what they know about the topic.
- Take notes about an assigned topic using Make-a-Map.
- Complete a Creative Coding project.
- Present their project to a small group.
- Internet access for BrainPOP
- Interactive whiteboard
Preview the movie to plan for any adaptations.Lesson Procedure:
- Share with students the BrainPOP topic they will be learning about today by reading aloud (or have a volunteer read aloud) the full description that appears at the bottom of a topic page.
- Display a KWL chart on the whiteboard. Ask students what they know about the topic, or their experiences related to it. For example, if the topic is Information Privacy, prompt them by asking why they think it is important to keep their information private and/or encourage them to share experiences related to information privacy. Write their responses in the K column.
- Next, ask students what they want to learn about the topic that they don’t already know. Write their responses in the W column.
- Show the associated movie on a whiteboard or other display for the whole class. Turn on closed captions for accessibility.
- Next, divide the class into groups of four. Use the Assign tool to assign a different Creative Coding project to each student in the group. At their own computers or devices, instruct students to open their assigned Creative Coding project and read the prompt at the top.
- Now working independently, have students open the Make-a-Map feature within the movie. As they watch, have them take notes responding to the prompt for their Creative Coding project. For example, in the Information Privacy topic, the stop motion project prompts students to demonstrate a strategy for keeping information safe. So, as they watch the movie, they should create a concept map that identifies ways to keep information safe.
- After students complete their maps, they can print them out or keep them open in a separate window and have them open their assigned Creative Coding project. Using their notes from their concept maps, have students code their projects.
- Circulate as students are working on their coding projects, providing help as needed.
- When everyone has completed their coding projects, have the small groups of four come together to present their Creative Coding projects. After each presentation, encourage students to ask the presenter questions.
Invite students with same assigned projects from different small groups to compare and contrast how their coding projects. How are they alike? How do they differ?Students can test their Digital Citizen smarts by challenging themselves to the topic’s quiz or taking the associated Challenge.