Molokai Service Project Part 2

This last week leading up to the Molokai workshop was a little crazy!

Before running the coding session on Saturday, we were fortunate to conduct a mock run of the tutorial at TCCO (Trinity Central Church Oahu) in Mililani for a group of homeschool volunteers. While there were no native Hawaiians represented in the group, we were able to reflect and revise on some issues that came up during the tutorial that led to a better workshop on Saturday. At the mock version, Wifi connection was spotty. This kept making the screens freeze, so we thought that it would be good to have a few alternative activities available in case we encouraged a similar situation on Molokai. Here were some of my thoughts from the experience:

Observations from practice coding session:

Initial set-up: It took roughly 10 minutes to set up five devices with the wi-fi and get the Wayfinding tutorial up and running.

Four children were observed and two adults. Two children were in first grade, one child was in second grade, and the third child was a fifth grader

Each child had individual access to a laptop. The first graders were paired with adult helpers.

The beginning activity went well. I explained how coding worked and had them “code” my actions by giving me directions. I think using the cards will work fine, but I need to provide clearer instructions and call on individuals rather than allowing them to call out at random. This will work as one instructor can be coded while the other calls on the students.


I showed had the students turn off their sound and when the video popped up, they had to wait for everyone to catch up so we could watch it together. We may need to have an activity to do for kids who progress faster than others. Maybe we could have some station activities.


I think we should have a timeframe for how long each task will go. In general, the first segment took students about 20 minutes to move through. Once we started loops, it took longer as the students tried to experiment. The attitudes of the students were interesting, as well. The fifth grader was a perfectionist and kept getting very frustrated when he couldn’t code right. It may be beneficial to explain at the beginning that part of learning to code means making mistakes/trial and error, and be willing to be wrong in order to learn how to code more efficiently.

There were also competitions going on to see how fast they could get through the tasks, and I’m not sure these were beneficial. They were students led, since I only encouraged do-it-your-own pace.


One student did not have a mouse and using the track-pad to grab and drag was very difficult for her. If we can have a mouse for each student, that will be hugely beneficial. Pairing the students together will mean ensuring they get equal time to try the tasks. I recommend we tell paired students to alternate who drags and drops between each task.


One student’s computer had a lot of lag and this was frustrating to him because he solved the tasks before everyone but was behind because the avatar moved slowly with the lapse.

From set-up to completion of task 19 took roughly 90 minutes. This also included me talking and hands-on activity, videos from the Moana coding session, and time to play at the end by making the kakamora dance. I had no projector available for the session, so I showed the videos from my chromebook.

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My suggestions for Saturday’s session:

1. Make sure all chromebooks have a mouse (if possible), are connected to wi-fi, and set up at the first coding task prior to starting the session.
2.  Open space for hands-on activities 
3. Separate table for alternate activities (the switch maybe?) while students wait for everyone to catch up. 
4. If we have one long session, extra activities are definitely needed