Learning to code by creating your
#EduBreakout
CoSpaces Edu Ambassador in Germany Sebastian Eisele explains how he introduced his students to CoSpaces Edu and coding through game creation.
Contributed by Sebastian Eisele
“When it came to introducing CoSpaces Edu to my students, I thought about what I should have my students create in CoSpaces Edu to let them both get to know the platform and then learn how to code.
Asking my students to start with things that they already knew like recreating their room, for example, turned out to be what really worked for my class and for me as the teacher.
To make students aware of what can be created with CoSpaces Edu in the first lesson, I let them start playing the jump’ n’ run game that I had created with my kids aged 4 and 6 with unicorns and other exciting stuff.
After telling my students that this is what we would be working with for the next weeks (one double-lesson each week), they could hardly believe that this could be “class”.
For their first two tasks, students watched my CoSpaces Edu intro tutorials (first steps and right-click) to get to know the main possibilities like using the CoSpaces Library, setting a background, rotating objects, etc.
Then, the first real task was to recreate their own room or a fantasy room, which gave them the choice between a very clear direction like building their room, a completely free fantasy room or a mix of the two.
With their rooms completed, I had them play another game: a mini Edu breakout game. This consisted of just one small room, in which you have to find a diamond to open a secret door.
While searching for the diamond, some simple but very useful programming CoBlocks can be observed by the students, mainly from the categories Events and Control such as the “when item is clicked”, “repeat” and “run parallel” CoBlocks.
After finding the diamond, they get to watch a walkthrough tutorial of this exact room, including explanations of all the coding. The advantage of using tutorials like this one is that pretty much every CoBlock can be individually reproduced by pausing and rewatching parts of the tutorial.
This gives the teacher lots of time to walk around and help with specific and usually more complicated problems, without being detained by having to solve the same simple problem multiple times.
With those simple Events and Control CoBlocks explained, my students easily figured out how to use those in the Transform and Actions categories and were able to fill their own rooms with hidden secrets and everything they wanted independently.
In class, one student complained about not having a Lamborghini in the CoSpaces Library. The same afternoon, he wrote me an email letting me know that he had added some cars, but also a barn, a bus stop, and even more… So he got home after school and directly continued working on his CoSpace. That’s enthusiasm!
Amongst other things, he had created a quiz in which choosing the right answer opened the door. I had never even talked about quizzes. Amazing!
To conclude, showing what can be done in CoSpaces Edu, starting with something familiar and offering support (both with video tutorials and in-person) really did the trick!
To close the circle, after their breakout game, my students will then get to work on their own jump’ n’ run game.”
CoSpaces Edu is an online platform for kids that’s used in schools all around the world and that can easily be used at home and on any device.
Kids get access to a creation toolbox to build anything in 3D, a visual coding language to program their creations, and fun ways to explore what they’ve created, including Virtual and Augmented Reality!
Learn more about CoSpaces Edu on cospaces.io/edu
