Robotic Readers Updates - 10/10 and 10/13

Word on the street is that Friday's core values game was fantastic -- Thanks, Cashion!

The team discussed areas of interest:  We're definitely seeing the value of screening to catch dyslexia early.  The lids have a great understanding of the role a feeling of success and confidence plays. They've put forward one technology idea of an app that listens as a child reads allowed and gives positive reinforcement to build confidence.

The plan is to move forward with trying to get a contact from one of the states or districts where they do routine screening and see how effective it is and what lessons they've learned along the way.

The have more progress on logos and expect to be able to vote on our favorite on Friday 10/16.

Friday was Carnival Day at school, so the kids get a huge pat on the back just for being able to focus and make progress on such a frenetic (sugar-filled) day!

Monday we started with progress updates, then broke into groups:

• Mateo and Ashton continued work on their mission.
• Ainsley and Bryce mapped their mission on the table with the bamboo skewers, then broke it into discrete steps.  They'll make quick progress when the programming starts!
• Hudon, Charlotte and Eva started looking into the Schenck School in Atlanta.  They specialize in dyslexia and we're hoping they will be willing to talk with us.  They came up with a list of questions and started investigating who we can reach out to. 
• Will, Fiona and Cashion worked on the "Who" part of our presentation and a team motto.

For this Friday, we'll pikc up where we left off.  Hudson will be our game leader!

Neon Notes, Monday 10/13

The decision was unanimous!

Our goal is "how can we improve the way dyslexic people learn to READ music," 

More robut update to follow, but that's the big news!

Neon Notes Friday, 10/10/14

Discoveries by Melana, Jackson, Margaret, Sally and Attia:

1]Easy piano/recorder version of familiar "Happy Birthday" song contains all 7 notes.

Part of group worked on possible 'Jingle" aka word change to become skit song:

Sort of got something going and asked the team to try to come up with lyric ideas too since I don't think any of us felt like it was rock solid (since we also discovered it is really hard to change the words when they are so engrained in your head!)

sketchy lyrics thought: 

Learning music is fun.

Reading music is fun.

sometimes it's frustrating

but it ca-an be done!

Ideas~7 kids with recorders can be all mixed up and 1 conductor trying to get them to play and the 9th team member moves them around/in to place order?

OR, that 9th kid actually sings the song in key, it becomes obvious that the notes aren't being read/conducted in the correct order and they have to sort it out, false starts, further corrections after soloist begins singing again~ 

2]Isaac and I found the following web address proved to have some great clip art options for possible Neon Note 'logo'.  Like with Robotic Readers, seems you could go off in different directions (Bryce vs. Will vs. Charlotte's ideas) so, we suggest any one that wants to, put together a little logo (and save it!) and vote on it as a group?  

3] In an effort to get more focused~ I tried to lead 3 (and then, 5) kids toward what we were trying to acheive, thinking then we could work backwards toward a possible game; mixed success with this...

All agreed that, thanks to visiting educators and beginning research, we have learned about various ways to meet that goal; generally: 1) sight reading 2) playing by ear 3) interval method but, in that discussion, it was clear even, in our small group, there were various learning styles: e.g.,  interval method made zero sense to one and Ms.Thompson's approach completely escaped someone else.  One of them needed to hear a piece first and then could start to make sense of the written music.

With all that in mind, one solution/game idea was something to help a person with dyslexia figure out what their learning style for playing music might be (without all the frustration, emotional trauma and expense of 'wrong' approaches) but came up with nothing solid for what that game might look like.

We need to clarify if the goal is playing music by what ever means you use to get there or if it is to actually learn how to read a piece of music, if the latter, should their solution focus be on sight reading music?  

Well,  there you have my input after Friday's FLL.  

Celie

Robotic Readers Update 10/6 update

We’ve been starting practice with reporting to get them all used to talking about their accomplishments.  We've also done away with raising hands and are trying to manage our group conversation by paying attention and working on giving and recieving focus through careful attention to who has something to offer.

We had a fantastic discussion of the brainstorming they did last Friday with Annie.  Lots of great ideas that are falling generally into areas of early identification/screening, assistive technology/devices and learning methodology.  We'll keep going with these working toward a solution.

During practice:.

• Will and Ainsley met with Joan and a couple of Neon Notes to talk about about fundraising.
• Charlotte and Bryce (and Will a little) began work on logo idas
• Fiona and Cashion continued studying how to create a line follower using the color sensor. They showed up for extra work Wednesday after school and created a program for the left side of a line and a program for the right side of the line.  It was great that Cashion was wearing a black shirt, and CHarlotte had on a white shirt.  I really helped to clarify the point that the robot looks at the amount light reflected.  (We made a diagram on the white board, but you can find the same general diagram in this post).
• Ashton and Mateo continued to refine the Changing Conditions/Sports mission they've been working.  They identified issues with the model, changed the design of the arm and worked through issues of how/where to start consistentl.  
• Eva and Hudson spent Friday looking at the other missions in prep for waht to work on next.

·         Everyone should be able to report something from Roots & Wings.  New facts go on post its and get stuck to the Who/What/When/Where/Why/How board (rolled up in the closet).

Friday Game:  Cashion is up.