Problem Solving and Programming

Problem Solving


Bubble Ball-  You use wood and metal pieces to get the ball to roll to the flag.  This game was developed by a 14 year old kid.  You can pay to add-on a pack with multiple balls, springs, gravity, and even teleports.

I used the Bubble Ball app and easily went up the first few levels.


Cargo-Bot- is a puzzle game where you teach a robot how to move crates.

Then I played Cargo-Bot and it was a little more challenging for me.  Of coarse, I'm not into video games at all so the students would probably breeze through it.  I like that there was a little more thinking involved in this game.

I know it said to decide on one but we as teaching know one is not always a good fit for everyone.  What I would do is start everyone on Bubble Ball as a beginning or introduction to problem solving apps.  Then as they feel confident or bored, I would be able to say here, try this (Cargo-Bot).  It's a little more challenging but just like when you play video games at home, keep trying until you figure it out.  At first grade students don't realize there are usually several steps in solving any problem.  That is another plus to Cargo-Bot, it shows you how many steps you have to take to solve the problem and that you don't always solve it on the first try.



Programming

As I mentioned above, I think it helps students to see there are several steps to problem solving and that solving a problem may not always work the first time.  I had the all set up then played it and was like what?  The characters were talking at the same time.  Well that didn't work so I had to work with it until I had that fixed.  It took me several try but I finally figured it out.  When I was talking with another teacher this morning about the troubles we were having completing some of the assignments for this class and we talked about how we would then go ask someone else how they completed the task.  Which made me realize, that some children are also better problem solvers then others and when they showed their finished product, they could show others how they got their problem solved.