Tuesday 15th January
Today’s class was all about looking at the use of programmable toys within the classroom and in particular, Bee Bots. Before the class I was really looking forward to it as I remember having always loved using the Bee Bots in primary school. In preparation for the class we were advised to read an article by Alison Lydon where she talks about her observations from watching children play with Bee-Bots. I was glad I took the time to read this as it allowed me to familiarise myself with this classroom toy and some interesting points about the benefits of Bee-Bot were discussed. For today’s task, we had to design our own mat, which the Bee Bot would drive on. For this activity, I worked alongside 2 others where we decided the subject for our learning would be numeracy, specifically looking at time.
To begin, we had a look at the Experiences & Outcomes put together by CfE. We picked the outcome :
“I can tell the time using 12 hour clocks, realising there is a link with 24 hour notation, explain how it impacts on my daily routine and ensure that I am organised and ready for events throughout my day.” – MNU 1-10a
Before we got started, we talked about what we wanted to include on the mat and really thought about the age group we were planning this sort of lesson for. We wanted our mat to be colourful, simple and make the learning fun. We took 10 minutes or so just to brainstorm some ideas of what we wanted it to look like and had a quick play around with the Bee Bot to familiarise ourselves with how it worked. Once we were satisfied with our plan we got started. For this we decided that we would design a mat for the Bee Bot which had a mixture of times on it, 4 clocks and 4 digital clocks. We also made 8 flash cards which had a specific time of day on them. For example, wake up, breakfast, school and all the way through to bed time. We each took a section of the mat to design, giving us all a task. In the activity the children would have to look at the mat and decide which time they think the card matches with, e.g. school would match with 9 o’clock. Once they have decided on which time they think is correct, they have to program the Bee Bot so that it travels and stops on that time. We were so pleased with how it turned out! I have attached some pictures which shows the stages that were carried out before getting to the final design. 
Looking around at everyone’s effort, it was amazing to see other people’s response to the task and all the different approaches to it. In classrooms all over the world today, digital technologies are becoming a fundamental part of teaching and learning across all areas of the curriculum (Janka, 2008). Other groups based their mat around areas of literacy, where the children would look at different scenes in a story. Everyone had really interesting and unique ideas.
Looking specifically at the Bee Bot as a classroom toy, I think in the future I would really enjoy using this with a class. It not only helps children to work on their position and movement skills but also encourages them to interact and communicate within a group and work together to solve the problem (Janka, 2008). Furthermore, the Bee-Bot is the perfect size for an early years class and it is safe for children to use on their own (Lydon, 2008).
I really enjoyed this class and I think this is definitely something I will want to remember for future use within the classroom as it could turn something quite simple into something much more fun and engaging.
References
ICTopus Article. (2008) Sharing Good Practice: Robots in Early Education by Alison Lydon. [Moodle Resource] Available: http://moodle1819.uws.ac.uk/pluginfile.php/39830/mod_resource/content/1/Reading%20Programmable%20Toys/ICTopus%20-%20Sharing%20Good%20Practice%20-%20Robots%20in%20Early%20Education%20%20.pdf [Accessed: 15 January 2019]
Janka, P. (2008) Using a Programmable Toy at Preschool Age: Why and How? [Moodle Resource]Available: http://moodle1819.uws.ac.uk/pluginfile.php/39831/mod_resource/content/1/Using%20a%20Programmable%20Toy%20at%20Preschool%20-%20Janka%20P.pdf[Accessed: 15 January 2019]
