Upload
dinhanh
View
219
Download
0
Embed Size (px)
Citation preview
IT: Building Apps for Needs Pathways to Prosperity Network
1
BUILDING APPS FOR NEEDS
Essential Question: What Is a Need?
Learning Targets:
Students will:
Identify a design problem whose solution could benefit people.
Use a variety of media to develop and deepen understanding of a topic or idea.
Differentiate between needs and wants.
Relate the design of an app to the need it addresses.
Discuss important issues with peers.
Lesson Overview
In this lesson, young programmers will explore the distinction between wants and needs. The
lesson begins with looking at what is a need and completing another MIT App Inventor tutorial.
YPs then explore needs versus wants in a game simulation. This activity leads into a discussion
about human needs extending beyond food, water, shelter, air, and companionship. YPs
explore their needs and their relative importance by creating personal pie charts.
IT: Building Apps for Needs Pathways to Prosperity Network
2
Lesson Agenda Opening
What Are Needs? (15 min)
Work Time Personal Pie Chart (20 min)
MIT App Inventor Tutorial (30 min)
Closure Exit Reflection (5 min)
Materials
Young Professional student packet
Projector and speakers
MIT App Inventor Tutorial: No Texting While Driving
Needs vs. Wants game instructions (for teacher reference)
Needs vs. Wants Worksheets 1 and 2 (one set per group)
Blank paper (one per student)
Markers or colored pencils
Personal pie chart example (to project)
Personal pie chart question strips (one set per group and folded)
Small container
FACILITATION NOTES
Personal Pie Chart. Create your own personal pie chart example to project. It should illustrate
the most important needs in your life, other than the universal basics (water, food, air, shelter).
Setup. This lesson begins with a second tutorial from MIT App Inventor, No Texting While
Driving. The text and video of the instructions can be found at
http://ai2.appinventor.org/content/ai2apps/simpleApps/noTexting. Ensure this website is
bookmarked on each computer station.
MIT App Inventor. Explore the MIT App Inventor website and complete the No Texting While
Driving tutorial on your own in order to best support students during work time.
Differentiation. The No Texting While Driving App Tutorial best fits the class objective of
developing apps that address needs, but it can be challenging. You may need to have students
complete a different tutorial based on the learning needs of your class. Consider having
struggling students complete the Android Mash tutorial. Students who are not yet ready for the
No Texting tutorial but find Android Mash too easy can work on the PaintPot tutorial. Complete
IT: Building Apps for Needs Pathways to Prosperity Network
3
each of these tutorials on your own in advance to determine which are best for your students
and how you can scaffold and model to best support the class.
Extension. For students with more experience or a high interest in coding, encourage them to
work through more advanced MIT App Inventor Tutorials at:
http://ai2.appinventor.org/content/ai2apps/intermediateApps.
IN ADVANCE
Prepare your personal pie chart.
This lesson begins with a second tutorial from App Inventor: No Texting While Driving.
Bookmark the website on all computer stations:
http://ai2.appinventor.org/content/ai2apps/simpleApps/noTexting.
Review the <Popcorn Share> protocol included in the opening of this lesson.
Prepare the equipment needed to project the personal pie chart example.
Vocabulary
Content Tier II
canvas, user interface, arrangement, touch
drag, variables
justify, entrepreneur, traditional, research
Opening (15 min)
What Are Needs? Our first question as app designers is, “What do people need?” According to Entrepreneur
Magazine, the most common reason why apps fail is because the creators made incorrect
guesses about their potential audience’s needs. Developers sometimes build apps based on a
gut feeling about what people want and need; often, these gut feelings are not as reliable as
traditional market research. To build successful apps, we need to identify people’s needs
accurately before we imagine an app that could satisfy one of these needs. If we do not know
that potential customers would be interested in our app, we should not waste our time and
money to create something that might never sell.
1. Ask students: If you could only select 4 items to get you through your middle school day,
what would they be?
IT: Building Apps for Needs Pathways to Prosperity Network
4
Encourage the YPs
to justify their
thinking when
making selections.
Ask: What
evidence do you
have to support
your choice? How
can you justify this
as necessary to
living and being
healthy?
2. Invite students to <Popcorn Share> their answers. List them on the board.
3. Post or project the <What Are Needs? Anchor Chart>. This chart should have a
column for listing wants and a column for listing needs.
4. Ask students to select items from the list generated by the popcorn share and add them
to either the needs or wants categories. If a disagreement arises, encourage
students to explain their reasoning. For example, a student might say that video
games are a need because entertainment and intellectual stimulation are
important for staying happy. Another student might provide the counterargument
that there are many ways to be entertained, aside from video games, and
therefore the need is “entertainment” and not specifically video games.
Needs Vs. Wants Game
1. Invite students to form groups of 3-4.
2. Follow steps 2-7 in the <Needs and Wants Game> (open source).
3. After the game, ask each group to create a definition of needs and then to share
their definitions with the class. Use equity sticks to solicit responses from groups.
4. Ask students: What is the difference between a need and a want?
5. Invite volunteers to answer the question. Listen for: Needs are required for supporting
life, wants are things that make no difference in continuing to live and be healthy. Needs
can be extended to things like transportation because we need to work to earn money so
we can buy food, shelter, etc., in order to live. Students may also make the case that, to
be a healthy human, we need entertainment and social connection.
6. Ask students: Looking at our <What Are Needs? Anchor Chart>, would you re-
categorize anything on the lists as a need or want?”
Work Time
Personal Pie Chart (20 min) Beyond the basic physical requirements of air, water, food, and shelter, every person would
identify different needs. Let’s take a little time to explore our different needs and, at the same
time, get to know each other more.
1. Distribute blank paper and colored pencils or markers.
2. Tell students that they are going to create a pie chart to show the most important needs
in their lives, other than the universal basics of air, water, food, and shelter.
3. Invite students to draw a large circle on their paper.
In a popcorn
share, the
instructor
poses a
question with
many possible
answers.
When the
instructor calls
"Popcorn!",
students may
call out to offer
answers,
taking care not
to talk over
one another.
The instructor
or a volunteer
records the
answers.
IT: Building Apps for Needs Pathways to Prosperity Network
5
4. Project the <Personal Pie Chart Example> that you created in advance.
5. Tell students that they are to first list their most important needs.
6. Explain that they then divide up the circle to represent their own needs and their
importance. They may color the pie chart.
7. Explain that students should vary the size of the pie chart’s wedges according to the
item’s importance; for one student, family time might be a large wedge and exercise very
small, whereas another student might include the same two wedges but with exercise
larger than family time. Other students might have completely different wedges
altogether.
Debrief Discussion
1. When students complete their pie charts, invite them to form groups of 3-4 to share their
charts.
2. Provide <Personal Pie Chart Question Strips>, folded up and placed in a small
container.
3. Explain that each student will choose a folded question at random from the container
and answer it in no more than three sentences, and then the group can discuss the
question together. They should continue with each group member choosing a question,
answering it, and discussing it until all the question strips are used.
4. When the share out is finished, ask students: What were some of the similarities and
differences between the pie charts in your small group?
5. Use equity sticks to solicit responses. Answers will vary.
6. Distribute the <Quick Write> to students.
7. Provide time for them to answer the question.
8. Collect the student work to review and assess their understanding of needs and how
apps can meet needs.
MIT App Inventor Tutorial (30 min)
Many computer programming professionals have one piece of advice they give to people first
learning to code: go slow and start small. Learning to code is also often compared to learning a
new language. The tutorials we are going to work through in our lab sessions should provide
you with coding “words” to add to your expanding vocabulary of coding language.
1. Invite students to sit at a computer and open the first MIT App Inventor tutorial called the
<No Texting While Driving App>. This app addresses the need of preventing drivers
from becoming distracted by texts while driving.
2. Project the MIT App Inventor <No Texting While Driving App> tutorial and play the
introductory video.
As an extension,
turn this into a
math-rich
activity by
asking students
to calculate the
various
percentages of
the wedges in
their personal
pie charts.
IT: Building Apps for Needs Pathways to Prosperity Network
6
3. Debrief as a whole class. Ask: What is the purpose of the No Texting While Driving
app? What need does it address?
4. Model completing the first steps with the class. When the second tutorial video
plays, have the YPs pause with you at intervals to complete the tasks outlined in the
video on Appinventor.org.
5. Have students record new terms in their <No Texting While Driving Note Catcher>
as they pause the video to complete steps.
o Provide time for students to work through the rest of the steps independently.
o Circulate and assist students as needed. Encourage students to use the <Ask
Three Before Me> protocol. Explain to students that they should use three
resources other than the teacher in an effort to solve their problem. Resources can
include other students, website resources, video resources, and message board
resources on the MIT App Inventor site.
Debrief
1. At the conclusion of the timeframe, ask students: What new terms and concepts did
you learn?
2. Invite volunteers to share the terms and concepts and their definitions or
descriptions.
3. Listen for: Canvas, user interface, arrangement, touch, drag, variables.
4. Clarify terms and concepts, as needed.
Closure (5 min)
Exit Reflection
1. Gather the YPs’ attention for the <Exit Reflection>.
o Ask: What needs and wants surprised you? How do you think you can use needs to
help you think about an app to create?
2. Provide a few minutes for students to pair-share their reflections and ideas.
3. Use equity sticks to solicit responses for whole-group discussion.
Encourage a
growth mindset
as the YPs add
to their coding
knowledge. This
next tutorial is
significantly
more difficult
than the “I Have
a Dream”
tutorial.
Normalize
struggle and
emphasize that
learning how to
build an app is
like learning a
new language,
where we must
put in time and
effort before
becoming fluent.
IT: Building Apps for Needs Pathways to Prosperity Network
7
Name:
Date:
BUILDING APPS FOR NEEDS: What Is a Need?
Today’s Learning Objectives:
I can:
Identify a design problem whose solution could benefit people.
Use a variety of media to develop and deepen understanding of a topic or idea.
Differentiate between needs and wants.
Discuss important issues with peers.
In this lesson, I will explore the distinction between wants and needs. The lesson begins with
looking at what is a need and completing another MIT App Inventor tutorial. I will then explore
needs versus wants in a game simulation. This activity leads into a discussion about human
needs extending beyond food, water, shelter, air, and companionship. I will explore my needs
and their relative importance by creating a personal pie chart.
Today’s Activities:
Needs vs. Wants Game
Personal Pie Chart
MIT App Inventor Tutorial
Exit Ticket
IT: Building Apps for Needs Pathways to Prosperity Network
8
Quick Write
What need do you have that an app could meet? Describe the app.
_________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________
IT: Building Apps for Needs Pathways to Prosperity Network
9
No Texting While Driving Note Catcher
New Term Definition
IT: Building Apps for Needs Pathways to Prosperity Network
10
Exit Ticket
Directions. Reflect on today’s lesson. Answer:
o What needs and wants surprised you?
o How do you think you can use needs to help you think about an app to create?
IT: Building Apps for Needs Pathways to Prosperity Network
11
Facilitator Documents:
What are Needs? Anchor Chart
Wants Needs
IT: Building Apps for Needs Pathways to Prosperity Network
12
Personal Pie Chart Question Strips
What items do your group’s pie charts have in common? Why do you think these commonalities
exist?
How can you explain the differences between the charts? Why do your group members have
some needs in common and not others?
Why are there differences between charts? What does this say about your needs?
Would you change anything on your own pie chart, now that you have compared it to those of
your group members?
What are some needs that were not mentioned in your group’s charts, but might be very
important for a student with different abilities or access to resources? For instance, a
nearsighted student might have listed her glasses.