1. Writing & Robotics: Making Literacy Connections through Technology
Lillian Carden, Graduate Assistant
Matthew Fisher, Assistant Director SELF Design Studio Makerspace
make.uncg.edu
SELF Design Studio – preservice teacher education STEM studio in the School of Education at UNCG. We primarily work with student teachers to help them integrate technology into their curriculum, but during the summer, we get to actually work with kids!

2. What is Writing & Robotics?
Collaboration with Young Writers' Camp
Afternoon add-on robotics program
Campers write texts of their choice in the morning...
...then build robots about their writing in the afternoon!
All day STEAM experience!
Students across multiple grade levels – 4th-10th

3. Tools Hummingbird Duo Kit CREATE Lab Visual Programmer
Arts/crafts supplies
LOTS of cardboard!
This kit is a “skeleton” of a robot – it has the circuit board and pieces like LED lights and motors can be attached – but then the main body is built with cardboard boxes and craft supplies.
This gives the kids a LOT of room for creativity and design thinking – and also makes it easy to prototype and change things as needed.
We have access to 3D printers, laser engraver, etc in our space – but you definitely don’t need those to make this work

4. Embedding Literacy Inquiry learning Daily journaling
Multimedia presentations
First day, had the kids write down their answers to “What is a robot?” on sticky notes – then watched videos and investigated what ACTUALLY defines robots.
Had daily journals for notes/ideas. Each day of the journal had a different focused question or writing prompt for reflection. Some days the questions were silly, like “What was the funniest thing another camper said today?” and some were more reflective like “What was the hardest thing you worked on today? How will you fix it tomorrow?”
Campers made multimedia presentations of their final projects – filmed videos demonstrating and explaining their robots, took pictures of their bots, and created Google Slides presentations.

5. Multiple Intelligences & Gamification
Introduced M.I. chart to guide collaboration
Students earned badges throughout the week for demonstrating skills
Body Smart, Word Smart, Logic Smart, etc
Special awards ceremony on the last day of camp
"Junior Librarian", "Supernova", "Stuff Lawnmower"
© Wikimedia Commons
Added a gaming element to the camp to make things more fun and encourage collaboration.
Campers self-identified with 2-3 areas where they felt they were “experts” already, and they could use these identifications to collaborate with each other.
Each day, counselors gave out badges based on skills we had observed the previous day. On the last day of camp, we had a special awards ceremony with unique awards for each camper.

6. Here are some pictures of building in action
Here are some pictures of building in action! This is what we did for probably 70% of the camp

7. What We Learned
Flipped instruction via online learning modules...not as successful as we hoped
Engineering teams (by grade) vs. individual work
Daily schedule/benchmarks
Breaks & time for journaling
Cleanup
Supplies - all together, instead of individual kits for each camper
Work stations
Only about 3/12 kids actually did the online modules…and this type of robotics kit really requires hands-on learning to understand it best anyway.
Teams w/ team leads worked MUCH better than a free-for-all approach.
Scheduling journal time right after snack break made the kids more likely to do it.
Centralizing the robot parts instead of having individual kits – some kids need 6 LEDs, some only need 1.
Work stations for each activity (hot glue, cutting, painting) was a huge help.

8. What They Learned:
"If something doesn't work that does not mean you did it wrong." - Lauren
"My favorite part...is being creative, using your imagination, and being yourself. I am SUPER DUPER GOING TO THIS NEXT YEAR" - Blakely
"I stepped into the room thinking that I was just going to be confused, but the teachers explained things very well. I do hope that I get to work with tech stuff in the future." - Bodhi
The younger kids: keep challenging yourself – always adding on new parts – constantly changing ideas
Older kids: technology isn’t as scary as it looks! Also, they CAN be good at it and there’s no wrong answer!
"I would make another robot that was more difficult. Like more...challenging." - Reese

9. Questions??

10. Learn More:
sites.google.com/uncg.edu/writingandrobotics sites.google.com/uncg.edu/writingandrobotics/learn make.uncg.edu Contact: Lillian Carden: Matthew Fisher: