This week in our Digital Technology module we are looking at programmable toys, specifically Bee-Bot which I have previously been briefly introduced to so I had a basic knowledge of what it involved. We began our lesson by looking at our learning intentions and success criteria before moving on to a brief history of programmable toys. Here we looked at Logo which is an online programming opportunity where children type various pre-composed directional commands to move around an arrow head which then draws lines (Transum, 2018). This system is similar to one I used when I was  in Primary school, without the new addition of an animal to move around in place of the arrow head. Even this small advancement from an arrow-head to an animal shows the ways in which technology is constantly improving to new and engaging heights. Reflecting on how far programmable toys have come, children can now physically programme a colourful, engaging toy themselves which also has an app with the same Bee-Bot children can use, making the toy more accessible to all the children as whilst some are using the Bee-bot toy others can be playing the Bee-bot game on their tablet.

We were given some time to explore the Bee-bot app for ourselves which is similar to the Bee-bot itself however with obstacles on-screen to avoid and a goal to reach. Having forgotten the basics of reseting Bee-bot every time you input more directions I at first found this task surprisingly challenging however after being reminded of the reset button which you had to use every time you were inputting new information this task was a lot more enjoyable, although still required a high level of concentration. I was therefore surprised when I read Alison Lydon’s Sharing Good Practice article which discussed using Bee-Bots in the nursery setting. I found it especially interesting when she discusses how 12 out of the 28 children, after the initial instructions were then able to use the Bee-bot without any adult help (Lydon, 2008). For children of nursery age to be able to understand and use a programmable toy  such as this, the benefits for learning, development and confidence would be extremely beneficial. In the British curriculum practitioners are encouraged to use programmable toys particularly as a way of both developing knowledge and an understanding of the contemporary world (Janka, P, 2008).

After looking at the background of programmable toys and more specifically at Bee-bot itself we seperated into small groups to begin our assessment task. We had to create a mat for Bee-bot which we could use for an activity specifically focused on mathematics. We had a chance to look around at some other examples from previous years and were then given resources and time to think and create our own Bee-bot activity. Emily, Emma and myself began thinking of what sort of activity we wanted to do. At first we decided on a fun shopping activity incorporating Spanish where we would give the children various coins so they had real-world materials to use and ‘spend’ as Bee-bot went shopping with the items labelled in Spanish. However, as much as we liked this idea as a creative  and engaging activity for the children it became clear rather quickly that it was quite complicated to set up and explain to children in early level as subtractions became involved if they only had a certain amount of coins to spend so we decided we would look into this further on another day but that for the assessment we would focus on daily routine and time.

‘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’ (Curriculum for Excellence 2004).

This is one of the first level outcomes we decided to focus our Beebot activity on. We wanted our activity to be fun and engaging as well as a meaningful learning activity which really would help towards children being confident in telling the time, in 24-hour, using analog clocks alongside their daily routine. As well as the clocks we also put words beside each clock and one option for the activity is children would have to find their way around their morning routine. This means they would take Beebot to the square which was the time for them waking up, then getting dressed etc. Another option for running the activity; we created cards with instructions on as can be seen in the pictures below. Some of the cards said ‘the time school starts…’ and so the learners would take Beebot to the clock that said 9 O’Clock this means they would have to recognise the time whilst also linking this to their routine and remembering what time their school starts at. Alongside set times we wanted to make our activity more interactive and so some parts of the daily routing, e.g. ‘I brush my teeth at…’ has hands for the children to place on themselves. As well as being a more ‘hands-on’ part of the activity this could also help the children understand that everyone has their own routine and so not everyone in their class does everything at the same time. It also allows the children to place their own hands on and can then explain to you at what time they have chosen, this could help check for further understanding of how the hands on the clock work to tell us the time.

References

Curriculum for Excellence (2004) Experiences and Outcomes [Online] Available at: https://education.gov.scot/Documents/all-experiences-and-outcomes.pdf [Accessed: 16 January 2018]

Transum. (2018) Logo [Online] Available at: http://www.transum.org/software/Logo/ [Accessed: 16 January 2018]