Meeting ISTE Standards with the Hummingbird
The ISTE Standards are not divided by age or grade level. Instead, these six standard describe general skills that students should exhibit in age-appropriate ways as they use technology. Computer science and engineering with the Hummingbird can be used to meet all of the ISTE standards. Each of these standards is listed below with a short discussion describing how it can be met using the Hummingbird.
Creativity and Innovation: Students demonstrate creative thinking, construct knowledge, and develop innovative products and processes using technology.
The Hummingbird kit supports open-ended projects that enable students to use their imagination to design and create their own robot. Students can build an animal, a wheeled rover, a robotic diorama, and more. The possibilities are endless!
Communication and Collaboration: Students use digital media and environments to communicate and work collaboratively, including at a distance, to support individual learning and contribute to the learning of others.
Students often work in small groups to create a Hummingbird project and must communicate respectfully and effectively to do so successfully. Working with the Hummingbird also provides students with the opportunity to share their project with others in their class or members of the wider community.
Research and Information Fluency: Students apply digital tools to gather, evaluate, and use information.
The Hummingbird enables students to creatively demonstrate the results of their research by making a robotic diorama to demonstrate their findings. For example, Energy Transformations Using Hummingbird Robotics shows how students can use the Hummingbird to depict a scientific process.
Critical Thinking, Problem Solving, and Decision Making: Students use critical thinking skills to plan and conduct research, manage projects, solve problems, and make informed decisions using appropriate digital tools and resources.
Problem solving is essential for working with the Hummingbird. Students must plan how they will build and program their project within the allotted time. They must consider how to use mechanisms and motors to create movement, as well as how to use sensors to make the robot respond to its environment. To complete their projects, students must also test and revise both the hardware and the software to ensure that it works correctly.
Digital Citizenship: Students understand human, cultural, and societal issues related to technology and practice legal and ethical behavior.
Like any computing resource, the Hummingbird provides opportunities to practice digital citizenship. Students must care for the kits to maintain them in good working condition for other users. In addition, working the Hummingbird encourages students to share building and programming insights with one another. This can be an excellent opportunity for students to discuss how to collaborate ethically and appropriately attribute the ideas of others.
Technology Operations and Concepts: Students demonstrate a sound understanding of technology concepts, systems, and operations.
As students create their Hummingbird projects, they will gain experience troubleshooting problems with hardware and software. In particular, students will need to distinguish whether a problem can be best solved by a change to the program (software) or a change to physical design of the robot (hardware).