Session E of the Tallinn workshops gave participants a chance to get to know some of our child and classroom friendly robots and robot resources. (The ones pictured above are from an exhibition at the Science Museum in London who have also created a teachers resources pdf which although aimed at exhibition goers has some nice pictures and questions you may be able to use)
Why do we use robots in class?
Tangible – better for small children
Immediate impact – you do something and see it happening more vividly than on screen
Easier to spot the bugs because you can see the robot ‘doing the wrong thing’
Reinforces the idea that there is no point to coding unless is for doing something
Easy way to integrate coding with other curriculum areas.
What is a robot?
Use picture cards of robots and not-robots to aid a discussion about what a robot is.
You can download a powerpoint of the picture cards here.
There’s a ks2 What is a robot? lesson plan here.
And a ks1 plan here
And a list of discussion questions (plus a lovely video of some of the more advanced non- classroom friendly robots out there) here.
And some other resources and reviews of classroom-friendly robots here
A good task to follow this would be to generate a definition of a robot.
I’m a little Robot…
Click on the links to learn more about our favorite Classroom Friendly Robots;
Sphero and Ozobots are also worth a look, we will update the site with links and resources as we write about them!
