Lesson Objectives

Students will:

• Repeat commands given by an instructor
• Recognize actions of the teacher as signals to initiate commands
• Practice differentiating pre-defined actions and event-driven ones

Teaching Guide

Materials, Resources and Prep

For the Student

• Assessment Worksheet: The Big Event Assessment
• Pens/Pencils/Markers

For the Teacher

• Lesson Video
• Teacher Lesson Guide
• Print one The Big Event Activity Worksheet and Event Controller
• Print Assessment Worksheet: The Big Event Assessment for each student

Getting Started (15 min)

1) Review

This is a great time to review the last lesson that you went through with your class. You can do this as one large group or have students discuss with an elbow partner.

Here are some questions that you can ask in review:

• What did we do last time?

• What do you wish we had had a chance to do?

• Did you think of any questions after the lesson that you want to ask?

• What was your favorite part of the last lesson?

2) Vocabulary

This lesson has one new and important vocabulary word:

Event - Say it with me: E-vent
An action that causes something to happen

Activity: (15 min)

4) The Big Event

• Do you remember helping the Flurbs find fruit? How about making maps where you helped your friend get to the smiley face?
  • In those exercises, you knew in advance exactly where you wanted your character to end up, so you could make a program that took them from start to finish without any interruptions.
  • In most real programs, we can't do that because we want to have options, depending on what the user needs.
    • Say that I only want my character to move when my finger is on the screen of my phone. I would need to program the character to only move when I put my finger on the screen of my phone.
    • Putting my finger on the screen would then become an "event" that tells my character to move.

In earlier lessons, we created algorithms that allowed us to control a friend or Flurb for several steps at a time. It was fun and useful, but what happens when you don’t know everything that you want your friend to do in advance? This is where events come in!

Directions:

1. Project the Event Controller onto your classroom screen.

1. Decide with your class what each button does. We suggest:
   • Pink Button -> Say “Wooooo!”
   • Teal Button -> “Yeah!”
   • Purple Dial -> “Boom!”
2. Practice tapping the buttons on the overhead and having your class react.
3. Add some button sequences into the mix and have the students try to keep up with their sounds.
4. Let your class know that every time you push a button, it is an “event” that lets them know what they are expected to do next.
5. Get the class started on a planned task before interrupting them again with the buttons. We suggest:
   • Counting to 10
   • Singing “Old MacDonald”
6. Once their plan is underway, interject button presses sporadically.
7. Continue the blend until they understand the difference between actions that are guided by a plan and those that are event driven.

Wrap-up (10 min)

5) Flash Chat: What did we learn?

• Why do we need to be able to handle events in a program?
• What are some other kinds of events that you can think of?

Assessment (10 min)

6) Assessment Worksheet: Controlling by Events Assessment

• Hand out the assessment activity and allow students to complete the activity independently after the instructions have been well explained.
• This should feel familiar, thanks to the previous activities.

Extended Learning

Use these activities to enhance student learning. They can be used as outside of class activities or other enrichment.

One Person's Event is Another One's Reaction

• Assign each student an event to watch out for, and an appropriate reaction to that event. Chain the actions so that each child's reaction becomes an event that triggers the reaction of another student. Keep assigning until everyone has something to do and everyone makes someone react.

Eventopalooza

• Break the class up into groups. Using the Events Controller, assign each group a different reaction to the same button. Do this for all three buttons, then watch the chaos!