Today I was learning to use a programmable toy – Bee-Bot. I have not had a lot of experience using Bee-Bot. Although I think it is straight forward and easy to use. In my group we came up with a couple of ideas to use related to a mathematical activity. The ideas we came up with were; Time, shape, times tables, counting, recognition of numbers and money. The idea we progressed on was the concept of time mixed in with a child’s daily routine. We used the Curriculum for Excellence (Education Scotland, 2004) outcomes “I am developing problem- solving strategies, navigation and co-ordination skills, as I play and learn with electronic games. remote control or programmable toys. [TCH 0-09a/TCH 1-09a]” and also “I can tell the time using 12-hour clocks, realising there is a link with 24-hour rotation, explain how it impacts on my daily routine and ensure that I am organised and ready for events throughout my day. [MNU 1-10a]”. With this concept we created a mat with a range of analogue clocks with a digital time at the bottom of each box so that children were seeing what 24 hour time looked like and also what an analogue clock form looks like. Although it was mainly for children at level 1 stage who may have had prior learning of time with a grasp of what O’clock, Quarter Past, Half Past and Quarter to looked like. With the mat that we created children were able to involve their daily routine for example; what time school starts/ends, what time they get dinner, brush their teeth and go to bed. This enhances children’s learning of time because using Bee-bot changes learning to become more interactive and allows children to work with their peers in groups. It also allows children to think of their own daily routine and links it to what they do on a daily basis. Bee-Bot can help children who struggle with sitting at a table writing as it gets the child out of their seat and able to interact with others.
The role of programmable toys in education dates back to the 1960’s when Seymour Papert created the programming language called logo. The learner will control the movement of a ‘turtle’ that will draw lines on a screen when instructions have been given. For example ‘fd 5’ and ‘rt90’. Students learn about lengths and angles while creating patterns and diagrams. (Transum 2018).
Janka (2008, p2) states the benefits from use of programmable toys, “the curriculum introduces programmable toys as a good example for developing knowledge and understanding of the contemporary world”. She also states that in the field of mathematical development, children should develop the ability to describe simple journey and instruct the programmable toys in order to develop positional language and estimation”. This Benefit was useful to me because my assessment on Bee-bot was related to a mathematical activity and to make the Bee-bot maze I had to measure the length that Bee-bot moved which is 15cm (Bee-Bots body length) and estimate how the robot turned and found that he turned in right angles.
The National Centre for Technology in Education (NCTE, 2012, p1) explains that a benefit of floor robots is that it helps with sequencing, measuring, comparing, lengths, space orientation and expressing concepts in words. Another benefit from the National Centre for Technology in Education (2012, p1) states that floor robots encourage group interaction, conversation and collaboration. Page 1 also states that floor robots are usually appealing to young children because of the design of bright, clear buttons and are a robust design (NCTE 2012).
Personally I think that Bee-bot is useful because it allows children to follow a set of instructions, it keeps their brain active, it is an interactive and hands-on activity for children to take part in, it allows children to use their problem solving skills and follow patterns and sequences. It is beneficial for student teachers and teachers as it helps teachers when teaching children about directions along with many other curricular areas within the curriculum for excellence.
References
Education Scotland (2004) – Curriculum for Excellence; Experiences and Outcomes [Online] https://education.gov.scot/scottish-education-system/policy-for-scottish-education/policy-drivers/cfe-(building-from-the-statement-appendix-incl-btc1-5)/Experiences%20and%20outcomes [Accessed on 16th January 2018]
Janka, P. (2008) Using a Programmable Toy at Preschool Age: Why and How? [Online] http://www.terecop.eu/downloads/simbar2008/pekarova.pdf [Accessed: 16th January 2018]
NCTE (National centre for Technology in Education) (2012) NCTE Floor Robots – Focus on Literacy & Numeracy. [Online] http://www.ncte.ie/media/NCTE_Floor_robots_focus_on_literacy_nu
meracy_primary_12-06.pdf [Accessed: 3rd January 2018]
Transum (2018) – Logo [Online] http://www.transum.org/software/Logo/ [Accessed: 16th January 2018]