We love to hear how teachers in different countries have used Hello Ruby in their classrooms. There are many creative ways to adopt Ruby in classroom and we encourage teachers to use their imagination. The Chinese Hello Ruby is published by Beijing Baby Cube.
Fuli Li's class in Chongqing, China has been experimenting with Hello Ruby in teaching. In addition to reading the book and building a paper computer, the children have built interactive games of Ruby with Scratch and the classroom has been decorated with Hello Ruby posters.
"I’m very glad to share the happiness the adventures in coding bring to our kids. Children become active and concentrative every time we learn adventures in coding."
"Children learn each chapter encouragingly and finish exercises according to each chapter. During the learning process, we also teach children to create their handmade computer activity. Children follow their heart to make their computer characteristic and they are satisfied with their computers."
For Chinese speaking audience, check out the following games built around Ruby:
Drawing & algorithms
Boolean logic
Spot the bugs
Algorithms
(Game design by Fuli Li’s class at Chongqing modern economic and Trade Vocational School, Yangjiaping Jiulongpo District Chongqing China)
“Hello Ruby Journey Inside the Computer” by Linda Liukas
I chose to do 2 of the activities from this book. First, I named my computer. I liked Hardware Heaven because it has a ring to it and incorporates a part of the computer into the name. I chose the serial number by my graduation year (18), the day of my boyfriend’s birthday (28), the day of my birthday (29), and the month we were born in (03). I saw activity 20 which really sparked my interest because I think the fact that so much information can be stored in 1′s and 0′s is really amazing. I put the first initial of the computer into binary as well as my own name.
From doing these activities myself, I actually found them fun and interesting. I think it is a really cool way to get kids involved and allows for personalization. Being able to name your own computer and decipher your name through binary could really draw a young reader in by connecting with them and allowing them to be creative.
A large part of our work at Hello Ruby is dedicated to research to figure out how we can provide the necessary tools and applications to help kids think, play, and learn. We design exercises aimed at helping them build something themselves.
To design well is to design within context, and that is why we draw inspiration from real kids and their situations. We took the challenge to get to know each kid alone.
When dealing with children, gaining insight is quite a challenge as they are not able yet to follow traditional surveys, questionnaires, or even interviews and to be honest, we feel that these methods seriously limit the creativity of a child. Moreover, kids’ attention spans are short, their thoughts are jumbled, and they don’t think very linearly. They are often guarded with their responses or in most cases influenced by their peers, teachers, or parents. We needed to design something that they could take home, fill out on their own, at their own pace and own comfort, then give it back in and have fun while doing it.
This is why we designed a probe kit that doubles as an activity booklet. During its first iteration, we sent it out to 150 students (aged 8-9) at the English School in Helsinki as a way to dig deeper and get valuable qualitative data.
The kit comprises of 6 exercises that ranged from fill in the blanks to drawing, circling, writing, and finally explaining. For the kids it was a fun booklet to complete, while for us it was very valuable insight on kids and their environments.
The kit was designed having two sections in mind. The first section was about kids and their personalities, just day-to-day things to understand who they are, what they are up to, what or who are they playing with and what were their favourite subjects. Not only was it a good icebreaker to start and build on topics they are familiar with, but it was a great way to be with them while not being with them.
The second part focused on technology, computers, and building/creating. While the first section was mostly easy fill in the blanks, in this section things became a bit more challenging when kids were put to the test to build something, draw it and explain it.
We even included an A/B test to see which exercises kids responded to better. One exercise was to describe their favourite book and why they liked it, and the other was giving a detailed explanation of them building something cool. In short, the probe kit aimed to get insight on the kids themselves and also simultaneously about the efficiency of the design.
In the next series of blogposts we will take a look at some of the questions and their brilliant answers, as well as some of the biggest learnings we gained from this kit!
Download the A3 PDF of the cultural probe kit here! We would love to see your answers , share them on our HelloRuby page :)
For educators: Lesson plan for My First Computer exercise
My First Computer exercise is an introduction to the amazing machine that is the computer. Few things are as exciting as computers. And now kids will get to design their very own one.
We have heard many inspiring stories about teachers who have used this exercise.
“The children’s enthusiasm materialized as a working environment that I would compare to an anthill. The hustle and bustle was great”, Finnish teacher Mikko describes the atmosphere in the classroom while building the computers.
After school club teacher Samantha from Hawaii tells us that the kids like to sing the phrase “Software tells the haaardwaaare what to doo” while assembling the parts. Her classes have also built their own computers into lunch boxes.
Download the exercise and check out the instructions here.
Time required:
45-60 min
Learning goals:
Understanding the key components of a computer and their purpose
Seeing the big picture and realizing that it is built of many small elements. This relates to many things in life, especially problem solving.
Seeing how you can personalize technology
Motor coordination
Collaboration skills
School subjects especially suitable for this exercise:
Math, arts & crafts, languages (if done in the language taught), computing
What you’ll need:
A color printer
Scissors or a craft knife
Tape and glue
Brightly colored pens or pencils
Scrap paper for decoration.
This exercise can be done in a classroom. You’ll need to print out the exercises beforehand.
Vocabulary:
Ways to explain the components to kids:
CPU = It is the processor. It is very smart and fast at calculating things. It is super busy bossing around and telling the other components what to do.
Hard Drive = It is slow, but it keeps good care of your pictures and games.
RAM = It remembers all immediate things and runs between the CPU and the Hard Drive but it forgets everything once the computer is shut down.
ROM = It remembers all the important things and stuff that you don’t want to accidentally remove or have disappear when the computer is shut down.
GPU = It is showing things on the computer screen, but it has a bad memory and it needs help of ROM and RAM.
Teacher briefing:
The purpose of this exercise is to lower the barrier for kids to get acquainted with computers. You can start your lesson with an introductory discussion about what kids think a computer does. You can use our What Is a Computer exercise (10 minutes) to show children that everything can be a computer. You can also start your lesson by asking the kids how they use computers. Do the play games, surf the web or do something completely else?
While assembling your computers (step-by-step instructions here), explain the key components of the device. You can use the vocabulary above for help.
Take time to personalize the computers and leave room for creativity. The kids can all create a different kind of computer with their own games, programs, music, movies, apps etc. You can also take the customization further by making special buttons, a mouse or decorations. We’ve heard of a kid who created a button that can 3D-print a cat and about another kid who made a glittery mouse - so the sky is the limit with this exercise!
Since the computers the kids make will probably end up awesome, it can be nice to document the process. Take pictures of the making of the devices or have the kids document it themselves with their mobile cameras.
Bonus 1: Have your students take a look inside real computers like teachers Mikko and Samantha did. Disassemble old devices, look for the key components and try to name them. It can be a real scavenger hunt!
Bonus 2: Build your paper computers inside boxes to make them feel more real. Teacher Samantha used lunch boxes and even laminated the components to make them “lunch proof”.
Bonus 3: What about drawing, cutting and folding cardboards to create other devices? You can make smartphones, tablets, TVs, or invent your own futuristic gadget!
To get more inspiration and information for teaching computing, check out our website for educators here!
For educators: Lesson plan for Universal Remote Control exercise
Universal Remote Control is an exercise where children get to practice building a remote and giving commands. In the future, more and more things will be programmable. Imagine if everything had a computer inside and you'd have the universal remote.
“During the lesson I saw countless smiles, unbelievably good teamwork and limitless imagination”, tells sub-teacher Linda who had her students videotape commands and instructions they gave each other i class.
Download the exercise and check out the instructions here.
Time required:
45-60 min
Learning goals:
Understanding the command systems behind technology
Breaking big problems into small and detailed actions
Social skills: interaction and giving clear instructions
Emotional skills
School subjects especially suitable for this exercise:
Computing, sports (once you’ve built the remotes), languages (if commands are given in the language taught), math
What you’ll need:
A color printer
Scissors or craft knife
Brightly colored pencils
Scrap paper for more code
This exercise can be done in a classroom. You’ll need to print out the exercises beforehand.
Vocabulary:
Microcontrollers = The tiny computers that live inside your every day stuff. Instead of having screens and keyboards and hard drives, everything fits into one tiny circuit. Microcontrollers still have a processor, memory and different input/output systems.
Sensors = Some microcontrollers don't need you to push a button in order to work. They have sensors that monitor the changes in the environment, for example temperature, vibration or moisture.
Events = In computer science it is an action that causes something to happen. Every time you click with your mouse, type on the keyboard or push a button on the microwave, an event is triggered.
CPU = It is the processor. It is very smart and fast at calculating things. It is super busy bossing around and telling the other components what to do.
RAM = It remembers all immediate things and runs between the CPU and the Hard Drive but it forgets everything once the computer is shut down.
ROM = It remembers all the important things and stuff that you don’t want to accidentally remove or have disappear when the computer is shut down.
Teacher briefing:
The purpose of this exercise is to help children understand the command system behind different gadgets. You can start your lesson with an introductory discussion about remote controls: which kinds of remote controls have the kids used or seen? Why are they useful?
It is also important to talk about what kinds of instructions and commands a computer understands: they need to be precise and clear.
If you want to make this a more physical exercise (for example for PE), have the kids code commands that require jumping, running around or other sporty moves.
This exercise can also develop children’s emotional skills. After you have completed the exercise, discuss how it felt to give and receive commands. How did it feel being bossy? How did different kinds of commands feel?
Bonus: Have the children videotape each other giving and executing commands. They can film their own instruction videos like Linda’s class did.
To get more inspiration and information for teaching computing, check out our website for educators here!
Who am I is an exercise where you get to meet Ruby’s friends and learn deduction skills, self-expression and self-awareness.
School teacher Margaret from Alabama used Who Am I to support her 8-12-year old students’ self-esteem and to boost their problem solving skills.
“My students often need to work on affective self-acceptance needs such as appreciating their personality and embracing their different way of thinking. Who Am I lesson is perfect for this”, Margaret tells us.
Download the exercise and check out the instructions here.
Time required:
30 min
Learning goals:
Problem solving skills
Deduction skills
Logical decision making
Emotional intelligence
School subjects especially suitable for this exercise:
Languages, drama, computing
What you’ll need:
A color printer
This exercise can be done in a classroom. You’ll need to print out the pictures of Ruby’s friends beforehand.
Teacher briefing:
The purpose of the Who Am I exercise is to learn logical thinking - the same skill you’ll need when learning computing. Before the exercise you could talk about breaking problems down into smaller elements, because that’s what describing Ruby’s friends with small clues is.
If you have the Hello Ruby book, you can read the story before doing this exercise. That way the children will already be familiar with Ruby’s friends. You can also just do this exercise by showing the pictures of Ruby’s friends (print them here), so no previous Hello Ruby experience is required.
When the kids have recognized all of Ruby’s friends, have them write descriptions of themselves. It will teach them self-knowledge and self-expression. After they have written down the descriptions, they can guess which description matches which classmate. They’ll get to know each other better and learn to pay attention to detail.
