Today I was learning to use a programmable toy – Bee-Bot. I have not had a lot of experience using Bee-Bot although, the first literacy activity mat that I had took part in creating throughout Trimester 1 worked extremely well and I enjoyed using a resource that will be beneficial for me in my future teaching career.  Bee-Bot is a programmable toy in which you give instructions by pressing the arrows on it’s back and the toy moves in the directions you have pressed when you press the green button with a tick marked on it.

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 intertwined 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 in mind we made the Bee-bot grid. My group had to measure the length that Bee-bot moved which is approximately 15cm (Bee-Bots body length) and estimate how the robot turned and found that he turned in right angles. To test if the grid worked we put Bee-bot on to see if it would go into each box before drawing on our grid. We created a mat with a range of analogue clocks with a digital time written in each box so that children were seeing what 24 hour time looked like along with analogue clock form. This activity is for children at level 1 who may have had prior learning of time and have a grasp of what O’clock, Quarter Past, Half Past and Quarter to look 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 link 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’ or ‘arrow’ that will create lines on a screen when instructions have been given. For example ‘fd 5’ and ‘rt90’ – for the arrow to move forward 5 steps and turn 90 degrees to the right. Students learn about lengths and angles while creating patterns and diagrams with Logo. (Transum 2018).

Janka (2008, p2) states the benefits from the 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 journeys and be able to 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 where children would need to instruct Bee-bot to the square on the grid that their flash card they picked stated.

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 have 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 (CfE) for example; literacy and maths. There are also outcomes within the CfE that could link with the use of programmable toys within the technology section.

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]