Pupils at Moorfoot Primary School used their understanding of angles and computer programming to code a sphero to trace 2D shapes. The next challenge they have is to create a code for the sphero to draw a pentagon by calculating the angles it must turn.
Sphero at Moorfoot PS from Midlothian LTT on Vimeo.
Angles and Spheros at Moorfoot PS from Midlothian LTT on Vimeo.
Creating Animations Using I Can Animate from Midlothian LTT on Vimeo.
As part of our Technology Experiences and Outcomes, all learners should have experience of “developing problem-solving strategies, navigation and co-ordination skills, as they play electronic games, remote control or programmable toys” TCH 0-09a/ TCH 1-09a.
Today at Saint Matthew’s Primary School, I delivered a lesson on giving instructions and positional language. Learners from Primary 1 to 3 discussed different places they can find instructions and what they are used for. They also played Simon Says to consolidate their understanding of the commands forward, backwards, right and left. From there, the children were asked to open the Beebot app and work through the game, programming the Beebot to move onto the flower.
The children had to use problem solving skills and collaborated with others to find the correct sequence of instructions to complete each level. At times this was tricky as they had to think about the direction the Beebot was facing and not the position they were in.
As groups worked on this independently and with teacher support. Small groups had a chance to give instructions to a physical robot, Dash. This was a great way to demonstrate to younger children the realistic outcomes of programming.
Meet Dash and Dot, robots that make learning to code fun. There are 5 free apps available from the apple store which provide learners the experience of simple to more technical programming. We now have a Dash and Dot available in our Loanbank. For extra information please contact the team.
Last week, pupils at Saint Mary’s Primary School experienced controlling the spheros from an iPad. They used a variety of apps to programme the robotic device and used some of the kit to create obstacles. If you are interested in using these in your own class, please contact the Learning Technology Team for more information.
Clicker is the complete literacy toolkit which allows planning, writing and proofing. Clicker has all the tools some of your pupils need to succeed in literacy outcomes.
In the loanbank we have 3 sets of 10 iPads (2 sets are iPad mini, 1 set are iPad 2). In each iPad there are apps for Clicker Sentences and Clicker Docs installed.
Clicker Sentences allows you to create differentiated sentence building activities for your pupils in seconds. Clicker Docs enables you to transform your iPad into a portable primary word processor.
If you are interested in using Clicker in the classroom, please contact the Learning Technology Team for further information and advice. You can also visit the Clicker website here for more information.