By Pam Niewman, St Robert’s School, Newtown, VIC

Dear CSER Digital Technologies Education Team

We wanted to let you know what a great resource the Beebots, accessories and lesson plans were, and just how much better the learning became when we were able to share one robot between two students. The great thing was that every grade in school from Prep to year 5/6 looked forward to their sessions with the Beebots.

Parents also contacted me to find out more about what their children were talking about – with one actually joining in a Year 1 class lesson and more dropping by to try the Beebots out after school. As well, our Principal came and joined a class, and even programmed a maze challenge to present on our Facebook page.

One Grade 1 boy in his learning reflection, mentioned that although he had learned to code on the Beebot app previously, using the actual Beebot had solved some of the problems with turning directions he had experienced.

Some of the learning experiences included – basic coding, creating algorithms, writing code, programming, testing, debugging, applying strategies and solving challenges.

We used a range of activities and challenges including coding number shapes, creating Chick-bot dances, playing various Maths games and literacy games using grids, creating and navigating mazes, solving problems and challenges, writing a program for others to follow, using large maps and charts etc.

Our most popular sessions were the Beebot Winter Games with 9 modified Olympic challenges, and also Senior Beebot task (Design and record a sequence of instructions for two Beebot robots to perform a synchronised dance, design and make costumes, film the performance, find copyright free music, insert video and music into iMovie, create and present the movie).

Several of our classroom teachers have shown interest in the Beebots and our next step is to work with the teachers to incorporate beebot into their STEM projects and classroom curriculum (unfortunately back to our own 6 beebots now).

Once again thank you for the opportunity to enhance our Digital Technologies program through the CSER Lending Library.

From Pam Niewman, and the students and staff of St Robert’s Newton

Thank you Pam for sharing this experience with us! Pam has produced some great blog posts about the use of the CSER Beebot Kit at St Robert’s and you can read more about it here.

The CSER Lending Library is made possible through funding from the Australian Government Department of Education and Training.