Robotics and Physical Computing with Brenda Bass

In this interview with Brenda Bass, we discuss advice for educators interested in getting started with robotics or physical computing, considering equity and access with robots and physical computing devices, how to learn more about robotics and CS without a background in either area, and much more.

  • Welcome back to another episode of the

    CSK8 podcast my name is jared o'leary

    in this week's episode i am interviewing

    brenda bass now brenda is actually a

    co-worker of mine at boot up

    in this interview you're going to hear

    us talk about some advice for educators

    who are interested in getting started

    with robotics or physical computing

    as well as some considerations around

    equity and access

    how to learn more about robotics and cs

    if you don't have a degree in either of

    them

    and much more as always you can find

    these show notes for this episode by

    clicking the description

    in the app that you are listening to

    this on or by visiting jared o'leary.com

    in this particular show notes there are

    links to a bunch of robotics

    competitions and resources

    and devices and whatnot so make sure you

    check those out with that being said

    we're now going to start with an

    introduction

    by brenda hello my name is brenda bass

    and i am a professional development

    facilitator for buddha

    i was a public educator for 32 years i

    taught

    first grade 5th grade and 6th grade i

    was a computer technology application

    skills for 16 years

    a curriculum technologist library media

    specialist

    and digital learning specialist where i

    facilitated

    technology professional development for

    multiple campuses

    and help teachers integrate technology

    in their curriculum

    my last year i was in the steam lab

    before i retired

    i retired from teaching in june of 2018

    and have been with loot up full time for

    about a year and a half

    and i consulted with them before going

    full time

    so if you were to write a book about

    your cs education journey

    what would the titles of the chapters be

    chapter one

    real-time introduction to cs education

    chapter 2 fun and engaging learning

    chapter 3 provide experiences with

    authentic audiences chapter 4

    approachable teaching and chapter five

    continue learning and growing so

    what are some of the things that you

    learned in each of those chapters

    are there like any particular moments

    that kind of

    were a catalyst for moving into the next

    chapter and if so what did you learn

    through that

    chapter one real time introduction to cs

    my takeaway is you do not have to know

    everything about teaching cs

    as you can learn alongside with students

    which models and promotes a lifelong

    learning

    chapter 2 fun and engaging i think my

    takeaway

    on that would be to always look for fun

    and engaging ways to teach

    the basics one example comes to mind and

    you'll probably laugh because you're not

    this old but when i first started

    teaching keyboard you know that was

    before mario teaches typing and all

    those cool typing programs

    so i would dress up in a black

    graduation gown and i was professor offy

    a-w-f-e which just stood for posture you

    know watch your arms your wrist your

    feet make sure your eyes are on your

    document

    and sometimes i would be known to stand

    on tables and i would call out letters

    a a a and the students would type a

    a a an echo of course all the teachers

    around me would close their doors

    because my room was not

    we would also have you know time typing

    tests which i guess are probably

    pretty much a no-no now but i would even

    sit down and talk with the students so i

    think

    just looking for fun and you know

    engaging ways even just to

    teach those basics chapter three provide

    experiences with authentic audiences i

    always tried to look for

    ways students could showcase their work

    my students were always entered into

    district

    area regional state and even

    international competitions

    they wanted each of these levels i

    remember one competition this was

    a long long time ago it was called cyber

    safari

    and i had a group of students that would

    come after school

    and they were given these clues and they

    would have to go to certain websites and

    look for these clues and whenever they

    thought they found the right answer when

    they clicked on it

    it would show like a treasure chest and

    they had to register it but we ended up

    winning first in that

    one year so that was pretty cool chapter

    four approachable teaching

    you know make connections with your

    students and be there in the moment for

    them you never really know the

    impact you're going to have on someone

    at that time and then chapter five

    continue learning and growing

    continue on being that lifelong learner

    this is where boot up fits in

    it allows me to go all over and impact a

    larger

    community than i was doing just in the

    school yeah your chapter two the

    fun and engaging or however you phrased

    it that definitely resonates with me

    so when i used to teach general music

    classes at elementary school we were

    forced to teach lesson plans in a

    specific order like even

    on specific weeks like every elementary

    school

    in the district all 50 plus of them had

    to teach the exact same thing

    every week and it was very limiting and

    so

    like we had an entire unit where it was

    all about folk dances and we were

    supposed to spend an entire 30 minute

    class like learning one or two folk

    dances but i could teach it in as quick

    as like five minutes

    so it's like okay what are we supposed

    to do with the remaining time

    we're supposed to do this dance over and

    over how can we make it fun engaging so

    be like all right

    now we're gonna do the stance but we're

    all going to be dinosaurs what would a

    dinosaur move like when doing this dance

    or

    what would you do if you were a middle

    schooler and they'd like move all slow

    and zombie-like and

    like just like things like that so i

    that definitely resonates with me

    finding

    okay we have to do this thing and this

    thing is not very fun but

    let's find an interesting way to make it

    engaging for everybody involved

    because we have to do it yeah that's

    awesome i love the dinosaur

    and walk like a middle schooler in

    slo-mo that's funny

    and it was also for me because like if i

    had to spend an entire month doing the

    same thing

    and i was bored with it like then kids

    aren't gonna have fun in the class so

    okay how can i make this entertaining

    for myself and for the kids

    right great idea so can you tell me a

    story about an experience

    in your time in education that continues

    to impact you

    i had a high school english teacher my

    junior and senior year

    that she would always have one-on-one

    conversations with each of her students

    just to check in with us just to see how

    we were if we needed help with anything

    or just to talk

    i remember one of my last visit with her

    it was before graduation my senior year

    she kind of asked me what my plans were

    she told me she thought i would make a

    great teacher

    i laughed because i wanted to be a

    graphic artist

    but during my sophomore year of college

    i kind of started

    doubting that path i was going on and i

    kept remembering what mrs halwick said

    you know about being a teacher

    i changed my major and really never

    looked back

    when i retired my best friend got

    letters from my former students and

    colleagues and videos and put them

    together in a slideshow

    being a positive role model always

    having a smile

    which was not always easy as a teacher

    as you know

    uh but being a champion for students

    providing experiences

    were all a theme across these letters

    and videos

    you never really know that what

    influence or impact you have on others

    but i knew i had a high school teacher

    that believed in me

    and i always wanted to have that same

    impact on others around me

    what are some things that you wish you

    know when you first started teaching csr

    coding

    i started teaching middle school 6th 7th

    and 8th i did a multimedia class in a

    web design

    and those students needed something else

    so i started scratch and i wish there

    was a manual or a guide to

    you know that teaching scratch or cs

    coding at the time

    because we just kind of had to learn it

    actually they probably taught me as much

    as i taught them we kind of learned

    together

    in the moment yeah nowadays it's the

    opposite problem

    yes too much in terms of like there's

    just too much

    like too many platforms too many guides

    too many things to learn from

    so kind of filtering or curating for new

    teachers is definitely necessary

    so what about something related to

    education that you're really good at

    or maybe knowledgeable of that most

    people don't know about you

    whether it comes to what you are

    currently doing

    with pd facilitating or when you were in

    the classroom well

    i'm pretty good at computers and

    technology but that's not

    always been the case when i first

    started in the computer lab

    i didn't even know how to turn on a

    computer i remember one friday

    you know the computer technologist told

    me that she was going to retire and i

    thought you know i want that job

    so i went home and i told my husband i

    said you need to teach me

    everything i need to know about

    computers because i have an interview

    with the director of technology

    on monday and he said you can't even

    turn one on i said i know we got to get

    busy

    and we had an apple 2e at the time now

    that was state of the art

    technology back then i guess people are

    amazed that i really didn't even know

    how to turn on a computer

    it's amazing how much stuff has changed

    since then in terms of like just

    the technological advances that we've

    made in the last

    couple of decades well you'll laugh at

    this i had a mixed lab i had the two e's

    and then we had macintoshes and then we

    moved to the

    the pc so i kind of had a plethora of

    technology so we kind of did stations

    all right you're going to be on the

    apple tui this day you're going to be on

    this

    the next day and i had the dial up modem

    and so but i was bound and determined i

    was going to teach

    internet skills and internet safety to

    these kiddos

    and so i used a program called web

    whacker

    and i would have to figure out what

    website and how many layers deep i would

    need to go

    and i would whack that website and then

    i would put it on our server and they

    would access it that way

    and it was kind of like they were on the

    internet interesting

    yeah so it was essentially taking like a

    carbon copy of each

    web page yes and if you didn't like it

    deep enough when you clicked on the link

    it just wouldn't go anywhere

    right okay yeah that makes sense so how

    do you go from

    not knowing how to turn on the computer

    to

    now being a professional development

    facilitator like

    how did you develop that expertise to be

    a

    technologist i had to take a lot of

    clock hours i think i had to have 130

    clock hours

    so i would go take all these classes but

    i think

    i was probably a lot like the student

    you were jared

    because i would be the one that would

    sit in the back of the class i'd kind of

    listen but i would explore and do my own

    thing

    um because they moved way too slow for

    me and so you know just

    just setting their hands on i

    collaborated with

    others uh youtube was huge and you know

    how do you do this but i always had this

    mindset that

    a computer was not going to beat me and

    i remember

    there was one of my colleagues he was at

    another elementary

    school but he would write these articles

    of project students could do

    and then i was the guinea pig i would

    have my students try it

    so how did you go from working with

    computers to getting into robotics

    because again you're going from like not

    feeling comfortable or even

    knowledgeable of how to turn on a

    computer to now you're actually like

    building robots that

    compete when i was in the computer lab i

    decided to start a robotics club just to

    provide a different

    opportunity for our students that was

    different but i knew that they would

    benefit from it

    so i looked for different opportunities

    for them to participate

    in texas we have our texas computer

    education association had sponsored some

    robotics contests

    so we entered those and so i wrote some

    grants and then pta matched funding to

    purchase the lego mindstorm

    now these are the rcx kits so these are

    the older

    kits they had the yellow brick

    and you had to have a bluetooth tower

    and that's how you downloaded your

    program

    onto your robot and then you had to go

    run it and then you had to come back and

    make tweaks and plug it back in one year

    the topic was to create something that

    helps solve a problem

    so i had one group of students that

    created an automatic dog feeder

    and they built a tower and

    out of legos and they used a cardboard

    chute and a plastic boat so every time

    their robot

    would hit this tower it would dispense

    the perfect amount of dog food

    well they ended up winning second place

    in the state of texas

    now this was three boys and this was the

    year that the school that i was

    at was going to close and so the

    principal

    and everybody decided that i needed to

    actually take these boys

    to austin which was about 400 miles away

    to the awards banquet now these boys had

    never been out of lubbock they've never

    been on an airplane

    much less ridden in a taxi

    or any of that so they've never been in

    a banquet

    they had to wear dress-up clothes i'm

    like okay start with the silverware on

    the outside

    and working in put your napkin in your

    lap

    but you know being an educator i thought

    it was my duty to take them to the

    capitol when we were in austin

    and i thought they would be so impressed

    they were

    they were so impressed that there was a

    ferrari parked out in front of it

    so they were drooling and i'm thinking

    oh how am i going to get their picture

    so finally i said okay stand in front of

    the car

    so i got them the car and the capital

    and the picture

    on a previous unpacking scholarship

    episode i talk about how

    what's intended to be learned in a

    curriculum

    is often different than what's taught

    which is often different from

    what students embody and that is like a

    perfect example of

    you intended for them to really

    appreciate the capital but what was

    embodied was the ferrari

    what do you wish more educators

    understood about getting into

    robotics or physical computing at large

    i think

    the biggest thing is you don't need to

    know everything about them

    you can learn alongside the students and

    that is very very powerful

    you know start small and try one thing

    then add little by little

    as you build your program you know

    there's so many different robots and

    devices out there

    i would suggest choosing something that

    your students will get the most out of

    and will help you stretch your budget

    yeah that idea of

    you don't need to know everything right

    away like the imposter syndrome is real

    and i definitely felt it when i went

    into cs because there's like

    all my degrees are in music education

    and here i am in this field like i was

    like

    i hope nobody figures out that i don't

    have a

    degree in computer science but like most

    of the people that i talk to who are in

    cs education

    don't have a background in cs and even

    if they do it's not like they're holding

    it against anybody

    it's okay to learn i mean it's almost

    necessary in this field in particular

    you just have to constantly be learning

    and you're always going to be like well

    i don't know that yet let me learn it

    yeah and that's what i would always say

    i would say well let me go ask my best

    friend google on youtube i'll get back

    to you

    so think about like hypothetically what

    an ideal

    robotics or physical computing like

    program would be out of school

    what would you have in it

    if you were to design it and how would

    kids engage in

    that program my ideal

    robotics program would not be a club

    after school with limiting the number of

    students

    but have it to be part of the day either

    as like a stem

    or steam lab or a science lab or library

    or even its own class

    one of my most frustrating things was

    with the robotics club

    i would have over a hundred applications

    but i could only take

    devices and the

    computers we had for them so that was

    very frustrating

    but by having it part of the day this

    allows for all students to engage in the

    program

    right have different devices at each

    grade level

    so maybe kindergarten maybe they use the

    go

    mouse and then first grade they use the

    bee bot and maybe they're just

    learning just to demonstrate simple

    algorithms the dash for second and third

    and then fourth and fifth may be used

    like the sphero or the

    lego mindstorm ev3s but have different

    challenges for students and even

    have students create challenges for each

    other also encourage

    other students to try to come up with

    solutions to real world problems kind of

    such as that automatic dog feeder

    right campus level district level and

    state level competitions and

    you know have fun and how did you from

    like an equity standpoint

    and wanting to be inclusive and whatnot

    how did you narrow it down from 100 plus

    applicants to

    the 25 that you could have in your class

    i finally come up with a rubric because

    i could not figure out another way to do

    it that was fair

    and so it was just weighted areas and

    then i i did get some

    feedback from their teachers and stuff

    and then they also had to write like a

    little paragraph why they wanted to be

    in it and stuff

    i was not necessarily looking for you

    know did they start it with capital

    letter did

    you know more did they read the

    application did they follow directions

    more like with that but yeah that was

    the hardest thing

    i could have had a club every day and

    you know but the problem is when you

    start building these robots and stuff

    you have to leave them for the next time

    and

    just have enough equipment yeah that was

    a problem in the

    not only the coding classes but like

    just like the maker space that i had

    it was okay but what about the next

    class now we got to take this thing

    apart and then a

    new class has to put it together and

    then if you're having to rebuild and

    tear down

    that just takes up time and if you only

    have like 40 minutes or an hour

    it's just not enough whenever i left the

    steam lab

    i had written a lot of grants and so i

    had a lot of different equipment i think

    i

    had probably 20 ev3 kits when i left and

    we had like

    so the the guy that took my place he

    said man you left me in a great position

    but they've been able to include all

    that stuff so each grade level does kind

    of something different

    so that's been nice so your previous

    answer how would you

    take what you said into consideration

    with like let's say you had a

    a colleague who came up to is like hey i

    want to start robotics at my school

    and you had mentioned you would want it

    to be

    an in-school program what would you

    recommend for them to get started

    with that so it's not just an after

    school and it's so it's not

    excluding kids what i would do is i

    would start small by

    writing grants if the district allows

    you could do donors choose

    if you have an active pta pto ask them

    to match grants or help them to purchase

    robots

    but while you're building up your robots

    your program

    start with centers and do a rotation but

    make sure you rotate

    all students throughout the stations

    until you built up all that equipment

    for the entire class

    so in speaking of equipment what like

    resources or tools

    or even questions would you recommend

    for

    either an educator and even an

    administrator who wants to get started

    with this

    their school if you're starting a

    robotics club

    after school think through how you will

    recruit and how you'll get the word out

    what grade levels would it include how

    many computers or devices and robots do

    you have

    how will students apply how will you

    determine which applicants are chosen

    i would recommend not trying to reinvent

    the will check with other districts

    campuses to see what they're doing

    there's lots of resources out there such

    as wonder workshop

    has a robotics competition the scratch

    community

    there's also the sphero global challenge

    boot up td has free curriculum and

    resources

    code.org and csta

    yeah so that kind of answered what my

    next question would be is

    like what would you recommend in terms

    of resources

    questions platforms whatever for not

    just physical

    computing but cs program at large yeah

    one of the things too

    you know would each grade level look the

    same

    if it's physical computing will be used

    what what robots would you use at each

    grade level or will it be the same

    something else is how will you address

    digital citizenship

    you know because that definitely needs

    to be thrown out there but then the

    resources would be

    would work for a cs program as well as a

    robotics coding club

    yeah digital citizenship is one of those

    things where even if you don't address

    it it's going to come up

    exactly so i'm fascinated with how

    people

    kind of learn and improve themselves so

    i'm wondering how do you

    practice or iterate on your abilities as

    an educator and this could be like now

    as a pd facilitator or thinking back

    when you were in the classroom

    i still volunteer as much as i can with

    coding clubs in the district

    where i last taught at i collaborate

    with others i try to read and stay up to

    date on the latest and greatest out

    there

    i attend webinars and conferences

    continually

    create scratch and scratch junior

    projects and that's either for our

    district or even

    just kind of for fun now too so with all

    that you're

    doing and have done and for how long

    you've had a career in education

    what have you done or continued to do to

    kind of stave off burnout

    i've never been very good at this one i

    tend to be a workaholic my mind goes

    nonstop

    at the things to try or things to code

    i'm just

    now learning how to end my day

    and try not to check work email until

    the next morning that's not always

    the case but i try i usually try to go

    for a walk

    before beginning work or i usually know

    that that's not going to happen

    i always have good intentions but i

    think oh if i could just work a little

    bit longer

    i have been since i've been home eating

    lunch outside in the backyard

    as the weather permits you know for a

    nice break setting timers

    working like 50 minutes and taking a 10

    minute break is helpful

    i'm not always great at doing that but i

    try i am getting better about

    making sure i eat lunch before i'd be

    like 3 o'clock and it's like i'm hungry

    oh wait i haven't had lunch

    i am getting better about doing that

    yeah that's all

    very relatable to me

    yeah i have to remind myself to stop

    working i'm telling you you should

    really try the

    answer and respond to emails only twice

    a day and just taking it off the phone

    it has

    helped me out a lot i have started

    closing the

    tab with my email so it doesn't just pop

    up

    but i do get it on my watch i do get it

    on my phone so i probably need to just

    take that off too

    yeah just just try a week free yourself

    are there any questions that i have not

    asked that you want to discuss

    well you kind of sort of addressed this

    the one that kind of come to mind is do

    i have a computer science certification

    absolutely not

    you know my certification is first

    through eight elementary self-contained

    you'll laugh at this first through eight

    art early childhood through 12

    technology applications and then i was

    ec through 12 master

    teacher certification now in texas or at

    least they used to only have a computer

    science certification for 8

    through 12. but my first elementary

    self-contained

    was sufficient enough because i could

    include science and math i could teach

    that

    right so no i didn't have a formal cs

    background but just

    learned it as we went yeah i wish more

    people

    knew that about cs education it doesn't

    need to be as scary as some people make

    it out to be

    so what do you wish there's more

    research on that can inform your

    own practices one of the questions i get

    frequently from districts

    if there's a correlation with cs coding

    and improved state testing it's fun to

    see in the districts that we've been in

    for multiple years what their students

    are doing and how

    it's getting easier for them and

    teachers are recognizing hey they

    already know how to do this so we can

    kind of go a little bit deeper

    so teachers are seeing skills like

    problem solving and debugging

    carrying over to other subjects

    especially math so that's been pretty

    exciting

    yeah my former superintendent dr betsy

    hargrove

    in avondale she says that they haven't

    done an official study or anything but

    the teachers have noticed changes the

    administrators have noticed changes

    she's noticed changes

    like she thinks there's a direct link to

    it and it was recently on a

    webinar i think it was with robin hood

    foundation they were talking about how

    they actually now have some empirical

    data that

    says there is some kind of corollary

    between

    engaging in computational thinking or

    coding or cs

    and improvement in other test score

    areas i forget if it was

    ela test scores and math or if it's just

    one or the other but

    i'll see if i can find a link to that

    included in the show notes yeah i would

    like to see that

    do you have any questions for myself or

    the field my question would be

    if a district could only purchase one

    type of robot

    what would be your recommendation and

    this would be like for kindergarten

    through

    fifth honestly i know i'm biased because

    katie henry works at microbit but i'd

    probably go with microbit because

    it's very robust in terms of the amount

    of things that can do

    at very low cost and integrates with

    scratch

    like there's just so much that you can

    do with that little device

    much more capabilities than even devices

    that are like twice the cost of it

    so i'd probably recommend that and that

    one can be used

    probably as young as second grade and do

    pretty well with it

    for the earlier kids i'm not sure i'm

    hesitant when it comes to recommending

    physical

    devices and robots in particular because

    it's such a

    closed platform where i feel like

    there's not much else you can do outside

    of what has been intentionally designed

    into

    robots in particular for like the k2

    grade levels

    yeah i like the micro bets as well the

    only thing i was telling mckay

    we were talking about micro bits the

    other day is

    for one of my districts i had them

    purchase a kit

    that had like the alligator clips and

    the led lights and stuff so it just made

    it a little bit more versatile

    and just but it wasn't that much more in

    terms of cost so it made it where they

    could do a lot more with it

    yeah and that's one of the things that i

    also really appreciate about microbit is

    it's not just this

    self-contained thing like there are i

    believe hundreds of potential

    accessories that you can use with it

    granted they don't all work with like

    scratch or anything like that but

    they do work with like make code which

    is uh

    microsoft's i believe uh language yeah

    it had that mate code has a python

    editor and then

    the make code editor i think is what

    it's called so which is like the block

    based coding like what we use with

    scratch and scratch junior

    so i'm curious do you have any

    suggestions on how

    this podcast like the cska podcast could

    better serve the cs education community

    personally i've enjoyed and gained a

    great deal from these podcasts

    i know that they're on all major podcast

    directories

    but i'm wondering if we could reach out

    to iste or other

    international organizations that could

    just help us get the word out

    so it could reach more people you know

    across the world

    yeah if anyone from iste or csta is

    listening

    and wants to share it please feel free

    to do so i give permission

    where could people go to connect with

    you and the organizations that you work

    with

    i'm on twitter at brendabass63

    boot up pd.org and be sure to follow

    boot up on

    twitter and facebook and with that that

    concludes this week's episode of the

    csk8 podcast

    i hope you enjoyed this interview with

    brenda she has been an excellent

    co-worker to

    work with over the last couple of years

    at boot up as a friendly reminder you

    can find all the links to

    various robots and physical computing

    platforms and whatnot that were

    mentioned in the show

    just by visiting jaredlery.com or

    clicking the link in the show notes

    stay tuned next week for another episode

    where i will unpack some scholarship and

    two weeks from now where i will have

    another interview

    thanks so much for listening and i hope

    you consider sharing this with somebody

    who might be interested in learning more

    about robotics and physical computing

    hope you're all having a wonderful week

    and i will talk to you later

Guest Bio

Brenda Bass has over 30 years of teaching experience, most recently as the Science/STEAM Lab Teacher for Fort Bend School District in Sugar Land, Texas where she taught K-5 coding, STEAM challenges and physical computing to help support science standards. She was also the coding/robotics sponsor. Prior to the Science/STEAM Lab, she was a Digital Learning Specialist supporting multiple campuses with technology integration, facilitating Professional Development as well as supporting coding/robotics clubs. At the District level, she provided support for district-wide initiatives such as STEM/LOGO Institute, Scratch Day, training coding/robotic sponsors and Film Festival.

Before moving to Fort Bend, Brenda taught in Frenship and Lubbock School Districts. She taught 6-8 grade Multimedia and Web Design where she incorporated Project Based Learning. Brenda assisted with BEST Robotics Team. She was a Curriculum Technologist Specialist as well as a Computer Technologist. She was a student sponsor for TCEA Robotics Contests where students placed 2nd in 2006 and 2nd and 3rd in 2007 at the Regional Technology Fair.

Brenda has presented on technology integration in the classroom at TCEA and ISTE. She was a part of the We Teach CS Collaborative Grant where she received over 60 hours of Computer Science Training.


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