Warm up

Share the learning objectives and success criteria from the PowerPoint Presentation.

Read the story text from the presentation that explores the difference text can make on understanding what is presented, particularly when the symbol is complex.

A variety of signs, that should be familiar to learners, are included in the story presentation, first without and then including the text. Follow the suggestions in the presentation to ask learners what it is that the text does to support the symbol or sign. Follow up by asking, is the text absolutely necessary? What does the text do to add to the symbol? After completing the story, have learners complete the task from the workbook that explores the effect that text can have on code that is presented in the different MartyBlocks Jr and MartyBlocks components of the Marty the Robot app.

Get Learning

From the next slide, show the first image from the graphic novel for The Witches; explore with learners what they see happening from the images on the page: have learners record group ideas in their workbook. Show the next slide, with the text, and have learners again describe what they see happening. Have learners compare the two examples of the same text and record their group's thoughts, in their workbooks. The text is based on Roald Dahl's text of the same name and can be found by clicking here. The images are below, for reference.

You could expand on this to compare examples that are in books / graphic novels/comics / film / TV. The goal is to see how an item that is not reliant on text, for consumption, compares to one that makes use of text. Additionally, if you are engaging in story-writing tasks, at this time in the term, you might compare the storyboard, largely graphics, that plans out the scenes, with a final text.

Share the comparison slides, after the story text, that showcase the blocks from MartyBlocks Jr and MartyBlocks. The difference that is immediately apparent is the text and symbols, that communicate the purpose of the block. Ask learners if they think one is clearer in describing its purpose, with reasons for why they think this.

Time for Practice

This practice focuses on determining the purpose of the blocks as well as comparing the equivalent blocks from MartyBlocks Jr. If learners want to see Marty moving to their blocks, they could open MartyBlocks Jr to see the sprite move to the equivalent code blocks; a physical Marty the Robot is needed in order to see the result of the MartyBlocks code, in action.

Introduce planning diagrams. These are drawings developers use to organize the code they write to keep their thoughts and ideas organized. There are different symbols that are used for each part of the program. Today's lesson will introduce the first two:

• The round corner rectangle, which is used to identify the start and end of a program
• The rectangle, which is used to identify the actions in a program, individually referred to as a process
• In addition, arrows are used to indicate the direction of the flow of the program

A quick example is given to describe an action for Marty, in the presentation, after the comparison slides. Show this slide after learners have completed tasks in their workbook before they begin to test out any linked commands from MartyBlocks.

Encourage learners to build a short routine within MartyBlocks and predict what they think it will do, to see what the code will do will require a physical Marty the Robot or it will require learners to build the equivalent code in MartyBlocks Jr to see the sprite in action.

Model opening MartyBlocks in the app (video below). There is a slide on the presentation that illustrates a video of this. Feel free to delete if you do not need it.

Cool Down

Bring learners back together to discuss their discoveries and thoughts of MartyBlocks. Have groups share their thoughts regarding the comparison between the two environments. Try to get thoughts that cover a range of different blocks that were shown in the workbooks so that you get as much interaction from different learners as possible.

Suggested questions you might ask:

• Were there some blocks that where the text seemed unnecessary, but you still understood?
• Were there some blocks that were made much clearer with text?
• Were there some blocks that are not present in MartyBlocks Jr that would be very difficult to present without text?

Carry out any end of lesson routines.

Log off devices and clear everything away.