The focus of our second week in digital technologies was exploring and understanding the importance and influence of programmable toys in the classroom. Programmable toys can be used in a variety of lessons across the curriculum alongside many benefits. Throughout this session, I acknowledged that the use of programmable toys has a positive impact on young learners’ problem solving abilities and creativity skills, produces hands-on and interactive responsive learning and allows the learner control. It is believed that using programmable toys to aid child learning can “help with the development of skills such as a logical sequencing, measuring, comparing lengths, space orientation, and expressing concepts in words” (National centre for Technology in Education, 2012, p.1).

Using programmable toys as a source of learning began in the 1960s when Seymour Papert invented the programming language, ‘Logo’. This provided children with a chance to learn programming as they were able to control the movement of an online arrow resulting in lines being drawn on their screen.

During week 2 of this module, in particular, the use of ‘Bee Bots’ was focused on. Bee Bots are programmable toys which move when an individual presses directional arrows located on its back. Through personally experiencing and being assessed on this learning tool, for me, it was easy to see how beneficial this practical learning would be for children. Using Bee Bots can increase independence for pupils by passing over the control of their learning whilst challenging them. This tool also improves children’s team work skills and their ability to give others written or verbal instructions while simultaneously providing them with fun and enjoyment.

Whilst being assessed on our creation of a Bee Bot lesson, my group and I decided to focus on the Curriculum For Excellence outcome of:
“I can explore and experiment with digital technologies and can use what I learn to support and enhance my learning in different contexts. TCH-101a” (Scottish Government, 2008)
Within numeracy, my group and I aimed to provide a lesson to improve children’s multiplication of 3 skills and their understanding on compass points. We created a Bee Bot board based on a treasure hunt that consisted of a variety of 3 times table equations. Once pupils had correctly answered the multiplication their Bee Bot stopped on, a set of cards provided them with instructions for their next move, for example: “move west 1 place”.

By adding the initials of the compass points to our board in the correct positions (N for North, E for East, S for South and W for West), children would be able to visualise where each point was; helping them with their lesson and their ability to memorise the position of these compass points in future tasks.

I found this lesson very interesting and entertaining as I learned the benefits and various ways of using programmable toys in future classroom environments. I thoroughly enjoyed working with others to create a lesson with Bee Bots and being proud of our final result. This session helped me understand how children would gain so much from a similar lesson and how it is a unique way of allowing children to have fun while learning.

References

Beauchamp, G. (2012) ICT in the Primary Classroom: From Pedagogy to Practice. Pearson Education Limited.
Lydon, A. ( 2007) Let’s Go With Bee-Bot: Using your Bee-Bot across the curriculum. TTS Group Ltd.
ICTopus Article (2008) Sharing Good Practice: Robots in Early Education by Alison Lydon.
[Online] https://oponoa-programmeertalen.wikispaces.com/file/view/BeeBot_article.pdf
Janka, P. (2008) Using a Programmable Toy at Preschool Age: Why and How?
[Online] http://www.terecop.eu/downloads/simbar2008/pekarova.pdf
Scottish Government (2008) The Curriculum for Excellence [Online] http://www.education.gov.scot/Documents/all-experiences-and-outcomes.pdf

Based on my personal knowledge alone, I expected Digital Technologies to be an informative module focusing solely on how to best use online resources effectively in future classroom settings. I presumed the teaching would be based on how to construct lessons using online devices and apps. However, after experiencing the first session and reading “The National Digital Learning and Teaching Strategy 2016” by the Scottish Government, I recognise that digital technology also includes using programmable toys, coding devices and many other tools as opposed to exclusively improving online skills. Education Scotland (2015) defined digital technology as, “a term used to describe those digital applications, services and resources which are used to: find, analyse, create, communicate and use information in a digital context.” In addition, although I believed use of digital technology in the classroom enhanced the learning of pupils, I was informed during this session that it is beneficial to parents also.
I recognise that this module will be beneficial to my teaching skills since the Scottish Government have decided to begin a strategy to place an emphasis on using digital technologies in the classroom. I learned that the Scottish Government began enforcing the importance of digital learning since they believe, “if used effectively and appropriately, digital technology can enhance learning and teaching, equip our children and young people with vital digital skills and crucially, it can lead to improved educational outcomes” (Scottish Government, 2016, p. 3). One reason why there has been an emphasis on digital technologies placed is to introduce technology that will allow parents to communicate easily with their child’s school to be aware of and support their child’s learning. Alongside pupils and parents, teachers will also reap the benefits of increased digital technology in the classroom. The Government want to allow teachers to receive training on how to appropriately use new technologies in order for it to be more frequently and confidently used for teaching and assessing in education (The National Digital Learning and Teaching Strategy, 2016). This empowers teachers and older generations with additional knowledge to comprehend and use up-to-date technology in both personal and social environments as well as professional.
Additional reasons for introducing technology more frequently in the classroom are known to be: to raise attainment and achievement, to close the attainment gap, to engage learners and to develop the young workforce (The National Digital Learning and Teaching Strategy, 2016). The strategy for emphasising this new skill in schools focuses on four key objectives: to develop the skills of our educators, to enhance curriculum and assessment delivery, to improve access and to empower leaders of change.
This session also allowed us to navigate our way around ‘Glow’ which is a digital learning environment available to educators and learns in Scotland. Previously, I had limited knowledge about this learning tool therefore found this aspect of the class beneficial. I now understand the benefits and uses of Glow in more depth and hope to continuously develop my knowledge.
Overall, I believe this first session helped me in identifying my personal needs for improvement in relation to digital technology and also improved my knowledge on what to further expect in upcoming classes. I am looking forward to the additional information I am still to learn and am hopeful that I will use my skills in future classes.

References:

Scottish Government. (2016) A Digital Learning and Teaching Strategy for Scotland. Edinburgh: Scottish Government (Online) Available at http://www.gov.scot/Resource/0050/0050 [Accessed: 09 January 2018]