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.

Resources/Links Relevant to This Episode

Other podcast episodes that were mentioned or are relevant to this episode
- How to Get Started with Computer Science Education
  - In this episode I provide a framework for how districts and educators can get started with computer science education for free.
- micro:bit, Rhizomatic Learning, and CS for Healing with Katie Henry
  - In this interview with Katie Henry, we discuss the micro:bit and the do your :bit challenge, rhizomatic learning, the potential for CS for healing, and much more.
- Performing Algorithms: Weaving as Promising Context for Computational Learning
  - In this episode I unpack Keune’s (2022) publication titled “Performing algorithms: Weaving as promising context for computational learning,” which explores weaving as a potential practice for exploring computer science concepts.
- Project moveSMART: When Physical Education Meets Computational Thinking in Elementary Classrooms
  - In this episode I unpack Fritz et al.’s (2021) publication titled “Project moveSMART: When physical education meets computational thinking in elementary classrooms,” which summarizes pilot study findings and activities that integrate CS/CT with physical education through a micro:bit.
- More episodes related to physical computing
- More episodes related to robotics
- All other episodes
Some of the physical computing devices mentioned
Competitions and resources related to robotics and physical computing
Here’s a link to the webinar I mentioned on “Integrating Computational Thinking Across the Elementary Curriculum”
- Description: “What are different approaches that elementary schools are taking as they integrate an instructional focus on computational thinking (CT) across their curricula? In this webinar, EDC researcher Heather Sherwood will present different case models and approaches that high-poverty NYC schools are taking to implement school-wide computational thinking integration into elementary instructional practices across all grades and core subject areas. She will explore the ways in which CT integration has unfolded through teacher professional development (PD) and classroom implementation, and highlight the emerging themes of challenges and successes of those models in different contexts.”
Connect with Brenda
- Brenda's Twitter handle
Find other CS educators and resources by using the #CSK8 hashtag on Twitter