After investigating the content available and the technical methods of putting it together online I decided to use a tighter focus on getting the user up and running quickly with a Raspberry Pi, ranging from guiding them to choose the best model for them, through first steps in physical computing, to building a project of their own.

I have been researching Skill Atoms, following reading a paper by Dichev et al about Gameful Design, then Cook’s article about Game Mechanics. A Skill Atom is the smallest element of a game, or a gameful system, and is where an individual skill is learned and feedback given.

This is the framework Cook has defined for a Skill Atom:

This is the diagram of the most basic skill in Super Mario:

I have been teaching physical computing classes at my local home education group to primary and lower secondary aged students along with their parents with both the Raspberry Pi and the BBC Micro:Bit and we have found that the minor technical glitches of getting the things set up are almost insurmountable and have very much got in the way of learning.

To be fair, we have been using tablets and both boards are designed to be used with computers and any tablet functionality is an add-on. However, I have worked out how to do this stuff myself, a slower process than it could have been if something like an onboarding process had been in place.

For my previous project I did research into Flipped Learning, a technique where students learn the basics of a topic in a self-directed manner, often using videos, then come together in a classroom other other setting for exercises, projects and discussions.

I am seeing my learning system as the offsite portion of learning, and that it would then be more productive to work on projects in a group.