IoT course

Last week, we had the final presentations of our first initiative using CLIL (content and language integrated learning). We offered a course about Internet of Things (IoT). For the hands-on sessions, students programmed a board with built-in Wifi, called NodeMCU ESP12-E.
It was really great to work with them! Special thanks to my colleagues, professors Denize, Caroline, Renan, and Ciro, that accepted the challenge and did a great job.

Green ICT & ICT Industry in Finland

Very glad for having prof. Jari Mustajärvi, from HAMK University of Applied Sciences, here in Florianópolis to talk about Green ICT & the ICT Industry in Finland.

Coworking space from former students

Very proud for attending a talk from former students. They opened a coworking space in Florianópolis, Base Coworking, and discussed with our current students the challenges of creating their own business.

Swiss-Brazilian internationalization

Last week, I attended an event promoted by ACATE (the Association of Tech Companies in the State of Santa Catarina), Swiss Business Hub & Swissnex. The goal was really simple and straightforward: build bridges between companies in the two countries.

Everybody knows how strong the Swiss economy is. Did you know that:

• even with the global crisis, Swiss GDP growth in 2015 was 0.9%?
• 90% of all textile machines worldwide are from Switzerland?
• 3.1% of Swiss GDP is spent on R&D?

But the main point I'd like to highlight is that a strong economy and quality of life comes from strong education. Switzerland has a great public education system, with a dual system composed by Universities of of Applied Sciences and the traditional Universities, like in Finland.

It is also interesting to note the degree of internationalization in higher education. Half of professors and PhD students are foreigners.

Presenters emphasized that internationalization is a challenge for all the actors, but it is a necessity and opportunity for all companies.

Avaliação formativa - formative assessment

Além da simples nota final, a avaliação também serve para o propósito de guiar a atividade docente e dar feedback para o estudante. É o que se chama de avaliação formativa.
Com esse fim, uma das minhas práticas é aplicar pequenos testes ao final das aulas para verificar o aprendizado. Mas o desafio desse semestre é: como fazer avaliação formativa para uma turma de 60 alunos? Acho que encontrei uma forma: usando tecnologia.
Procurei uma ferramenta que me ajudasse a avaliar os alunos e encontrei duas: Zipgrade e Plickers. Vou comentar sobre a primeira aqui.
Zipgrade é um aplicativo para Android (também para iPhone) que usa a câmera do celular para escanear formulários de resposta - isso mesmo, aqueles famosos formulários de concursos, que precisavam de uma máquina para correção, agora podem ser avaliados com um celular. Além disso, também fornece uma análise das respostas e, se bem empregada, essa é uma grande aliada do processo de ensino-aprendizagem.
Vejamos um exemplo.
Na turma de 60 alunos, estamos fazendo uma revisão matemática. Apliquei um teste de 20 questões em uma das aulas e recolhi os formulários. O resultado individual é como mostrado na figura seguinte.

E o resultado da turma toda permite a verificação do que ainda precisa de mais trabalho em classe. Observe que no meu teste, só 36% dos alunos acertaram a questão 17 (que tinha resposta B) e grande parte das respostas foi C e A.

Com a análise fornecida de forma rápida, no dia seguinte entreguei os resultados para os alunos e, conhecendo os temas que ainda geravam dúvidas, trabalhei novamente esses temas com o grupo. Além disso, pedi para os alunos que erraram muitas questões para tirarem suas dúvidas de forma individualizada.

Resumindo, Zipgrade é uma ferramenta excelente, muito fácil e prática de usar. Recomendo.

=ENGLISH==================

Formative assessment can help to guide teacher work and also to provide feedback to students.
With these goals in mind, one of my practices is to apply exit tickets (tests at the end of classes). However, this semester I've had a great challenge: one of my classes has 60 students. How to apply formative assessment with such a big group? I think I've found a solution: technology.
I was looking for a tool to help me to grade students and I've found two: Zipgrade and Plickers. This post is about Zipgrade.
Zipgrade is an app for Android (tand also for iPhone) that makes your smartphone an optical grading machine. Moreover, it gives you a complete analysis of students' answers and this is a great way to improve teaching and learning.
Let's check my example.
In the class with 60 students, we are reviewing some topics about Math. Students answered a 20-question exam. Individual answers from Zipgrade are as follows.

The class analysis can  give important information. In my exam, only 36% of students answered correctly item 17 (right answer was B). Most of students answered C or A.

With this instant analysis provided by Zipgrade, the following day we worked again the most difficult topics. Besides that, I could give for some of the students more personalized instruction.

Zipgrade is a great tool, and it works like a charm. I strongly recommend it. 

Brazil: a game of cards

For a presentation in Finland, I prepared a set of cards about Brazil. The main idea is to make audience curious about the theme. It's also a starting point for discussion.
Brazil - Game of Cards

PBL Game Development - Desenvolvimento de Games

(Texto em português depois do inglês)

After the teacher training program "VET Teachers for the Future" in Finland, I came back to my classes at IFSC, in Brazil. I have extended a practice  that I had started in 2011. In the course "C Programming", at the vocational degree in Electronics, I proposed to the students the development of a computer game as a final project. They agreed with the proposal and 25% of the course schedule was dedicated to the project, as a PBL approach.

As a result, working in groups, 21 students developed 11 games (some screenshots below). The source code is available at GitHub.

Game ShockEffect, with the theme "ions".

Game APR, for music learning.

Game Tower Defence, regarding computer viruses.

Game Leukocyte, with the theme "viruses".

GitHub is an excellent platform, and many professional teams develop applications there. We were able to try out how to develop a collaborative project. Besides our weekly face to face meetings, I posted some comments using the tools available at GitHub, as in a professional development.

Teacher-student interaction via GitHub

The assessment was divided into three parts:
- self evaluation;
- peer evaluation;
- evaluation by the teacher.

For me, it was a new way to assess the students, and it showed very good results. Students demonstrated great responsibility during this process. Below, there are two self evaluation forms.

And two peer evaluation forms here.

There is a short video with some of the games here.

It was a great experience. Some of the planned activities did not worked as expected, but this is part of the learning process for the teacher and students.

Projects are available at:

Shock Effect

https://github.com/GSimas/Game-C
(with precompiled binary for Windows)

APR

https://github.com/Sophiafk/apr

Pacman

https://github.com/gschoninger/C---Game.git

4096

https://github.com/Rafaela1995/4096game

Electronics vs Zombies

https://github.com/vitorgmorigi/Electronics-vs-Zombies

Der Durchfall

https://github.com/jschmitdinger/derDurchfal

Tower Defence

https://github.com/danielScariot/projeto_Jogo

Drug Dibre

https://github.com/pedro-rb/JogoC

Imuno Force

https://github.com/gamebean/imunoForce

Silicon_Quest

https://github.com/Dsbaule/silicon_Quest

Leukocyte

https://github.com/thyago-reboledo/ProjetoC.git

===============

PORTUGUÊS

Após a capacitação pedagógica na Finlândia e voltando à sala de aula no Brasil, estendi e aprofundei uma prática que já realizava. Em uma turma de "Programação em Linguagem C" do curso técnico em Eletrônica, fiz a proposta de criação de um game como projeto final da disciplina. Os alunos gostaram da ideia e ao longo do semestre, separei 25% da carga horária para o desenvolvimento desse projeto, em uma abordagem PBL (aprendizado baseado em projetos).

Como resultado final, tivemos o desenvolvimento de 11 games (capturas de tela de alguns são apresentadas abaixo), todos com código-fonte disponível na plataforma GitHub.

Jogo ShockEffect, com o objetivo de neutralização de íons.

Jogo APR, para aprendizado musical

Jogo Tower Defence, com o tema vírus de computador

Jogo Leukocyte, com o tema vírus

 Usar o GitHub foi importante para mostrar aos alunos como um trabalho colaborativo pode ser desenvolvido. Fiz a comunicação de problemas nos projetos usando o GitHub, como se fosse em um projeto realizado em empresa de software.

Interação com alunos via plataforma GitHub

A avaliação, seguindo o que foi discutido na Finlândia, foi feita em três partes:
- autoavaliação;
- avaliação pelos pares (outros alunos);
- avaliação pelo professor.
Esse tipo de avaliação foi uma experiência nova para mim e teve resultados muito bons. De modo geral, os alunos foram bastante conscientes em suas avaliações. Há duas autoavaliações abaixo.

E duas avaliações de projetos pelos pares.

Um vídeo de amostra dos games está a seguir.

De modo geral, foi uma experiência muito boa. Algumas coisas que haviam sido planejadas não funcionaram como se esperava, mas isso faz parte do processo.

Os projetos estão disponíveis em:

Shock Effect

https://github.com/GSimas/Game-C
(com executável para Windows já compilado)

APR

https://github.com/Sophiafk/apr

Pacman

https://github.com/gschoninger/C---Game.git

4096

https://github.com/Rafaela1995/4096game

Electronics vs Zombies

https://github.com/vitorgmorigi/Electronics-vs-Zombies

Der Durchfall

https://github.com/jschmitdinger/derDurchfal

Tower Defence

https://github.com/danielScariot/projeto_Jogo

Drug Dibre

https://github.com/pedro-rb/JogoC

Imuno Force

https://github.com/gamebean/imunoForce

Silicon_Quest

https://github.com/Dsbaule/silicon_Quest

Leukocyte

https://github.com/thyago-reboledo/ProjetoC.git