With Ofsted focus now on pupils acquiring and retaining subject knowledge, many schools are now using Knowledge Organisers in the classroom.
What are they?
A knowledge organiser is a document containing key facts and information that pupils can use to help acquire basic knowledge and understanding of a topic or concept.
Most will include:
key facts presented in a format that is easy to take in
key vocabulary or technical terms and what they mean
images such as charts or diagrams
What they include depends on the subject. In Computing, for example, a ‘Programming’ knowledge organiser includes definitions of sequence, selection and repetition along with images of Scratch blocks given as examples.
How can we them?
There are lots of different ways they can be used in the classroom but here are some ideas:
Use the knowledge organiser for regular revision and assessment. Create mini quizzes
Use them for discussion; talk through them and ask higher-level ‘why’ questions to stretch and challenge
Identify gaps in knowledge and understanding
Determine whether the children know more than the knowledge organiser contains and encourage them to make their own additions
Improve teacher subject knowledge
Link knowledge organisers to enable children to make links between topics. For example, draw comparisons between an ‘Algorithms’ unit and a ‘Programming’ unit. What concepts/vocabulary are the same?
Use the them as a handy vocabulary reminder. Keep them accessible and encourage the children to use the correct vocabulary when discussing their work
Get Primary Computing Knowledge Organisers
If you have a current iCompute Primary Computing Curriculum licence, we have uploaded knowledge organisers for all of our KS1 and KS2 primary computing units to iCompute online; providing coverage for all strands of the National Curriculum for Computing at Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2.
If not, you can download a template to adapt for your own use here.
Free, engaging, activities for learning computing at home
At iCompute we recognise the huge impact that COVID-19 (coronavirus) has had on school communities and learning and we want to help. In situations such as these the power of digital home learning becomes increasingly evident – and important.
We are passionate about preparing children for living in the modern digital world. We teach children about and with technology. We want to encourage as many children as possible to engage with computing around the world and have created a set of home learning resources to support schools, parents and pupils continue to learn at home no matter where they are.
Created by our author, a primary computer science master teacher, we have fantastic, engaging, resources and activities suitable for children aged 4-11. They are split into Key Stage 1 (ages 5-7) and Key Stage 2 (ages 7-11).
Key Stage 1
Key Stage 1 activities are for younger children learning with their families and are computing unplugged – i.e. you do not need computers or devices.
Learning Together Computing Home Learning Activities (Ages 5-7)
Key Stage 2
Our Key Stage 2 activities include online step-by-step interactive tutorials teaching coding using a variety of free programming languages. They are designed for children to use on their own and to use them you need computers/devices with access to the Internet.
We have also converted our lesson plans designed for face-to-face teaching to online lessons. Subscribing iCompute schools get priority access to these resources which include:
🎦 Explainer animations covering the whole-class teaching section of lessons
🎞 Video clips
⛓ Links to online resources
👣 Step-by-step activities
💪 Challenge activities
🗒 Worksheets and pupil resources
These resources are compatible with cloud-based learning platforms such as Google Classroom.
What all activities have in common is that they are underpinned by developing computational thinking: the fundamental principles of computer science.
We hope you enjoy the resources and encourage you to share them so that children everywhere can benefit from them.
Visit our website for more information about highly acclaimed series of primary computing schemes of work, computing curriculum and resources at www.icompute-uk.com
Everyone likes putting a festive twist on lessons during the approach to Christmas and I’ve been making festive computing lessons for my pupils.
I’ve recently produced a six week animation unit for Key Stage 2 (iAnimate) where the children learn about the history of animation, make their own flipping book animations, make thaumatropes and/or praxinoscopes, explore different animation techniques and, of course, design and make their own fantastic animations using apps and software.
This Christmas, I’ve put together a step-by-step computing lesson plan and teacher resources for creating an animated snowman GIF. You can download the lesson and resources and use them your own classrooms for a little festive fun!
Create an animated GIF
The lesson plan contains lots of ideas for differentiation, extension and enrichment: from making a very simple animated sequence to more able pupils:
animating backgrounds as well as characters and objects
adding 3D effects (e.g. shadows)
creating more frames for smoother movement
switching backgrounds to create scene changes
animating more than one object
A little festive flavour of what our full six week animation unit offers and another Christmas gift to you!
Here’s at iCompute Headquarters there’s nothing we like more than creating Christmas 🎄 themed resources. I’ve been having a great time designing and developing new lesson plans, tutorials and programs for this year’s festive season.
My latest offering is an absolute Christmas cracker 🎉! A coding tutorial for Microsoft Kodu. Kodu is helping Santa 🎅🏻 deliver presents on Christmas Eve but needs your pupil’s help coding him to deliver the presents 🎁 to the right houses. I’ve made a Kodu tutorial for your pupils to use that will guide them through the coding process before letting them get on with completing the activity and then having some festive fun by making it their own.
Get the lesson plan & tutorial
Another free Christmas computing resource helps your pupils get jolly 🎅🏻 good at problem solving using key computational thinking skills such as abstraction, decomposition, generalisation and pattern spotting.
Computational thinking lies at the heart of the National Curriculum for Computing and our best selling (ERA and BETT nominated) schemes of work support schools teach it creatively and well.
Grab yourself a gift 🎁 with our free stuff for Christmas. Visit www.icompute-uk.com for more free Christmas themed lesson plans and resources to support teaching primary computing.
Regular readers will know that I’ve previously created a 6 week coding unit for pupils aged 9-11 using BitsBox. Bitsbox uses a simplified version of Javascript, and provides tools that enable pupils to develop their own apps.
It’s a great stepping stone from the blocks-based languages and environments your pupils may have already mastered (E.g. Scratch, App Inventor, Tynker etc) on to text-based languages.
PRIMM
I’ve been researching pedagogies to support computing mastery and PRIMM is a programming pedagogy developed by Dr Sue Sentence and the Computing Education team at Kings College London based on the notion that its difficult to become successful at writing code if you cannot read it.
I have created a Christmas themed step-by-step lesson plan that uses Bitsbox and I’m using the PRIMM approach for teaching programming.
Predict | Run | Investigate | Modify | Make
PRIMM stands for Predict | Run | Investigate | Modify | Make. The approach enables teachers to support pupils by giving them some code that they first understand and then build upon towards making their own.
It’s a great way to structure a lesson and think it’ll make a real difference to those pupils who have difficulty understanding some programming concepts.
Click to access the plan & resources
Feel free to download this lesson and try PRIMM in your own classroom.
Use the PRIMM programming approach to develop a program from a Christmas gift catching game into a new game
Challenge your pupils to design algorithms and program the game using a text-based programming language, variables and functions.
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As usual, lots of opportunities for differentiation. For instance, less able pupils could use pupil support cards (see support resource which is included in the pack) and/or write a more simple version. Your more able pupils could:
change the speed, direction and size falling presents
make the game multi-player and multi-level
complete the game to a time
create Game Over functions
create sound tracks and jingles for the app
Ideas for differentiation, extension and enrichment are included in the lesson plan. Lots of opportunities to be inspired and get creative.
Ada Lovelace had it worse, but as one of the few women undertaking a Computing Science degree in the 90’s, I’m used to being a minority. I’ve never understood why it is such a male dominated industry because I love it. I don’t put this down to sexism. Throughout my studies and beyond in the workplace as a software engineer and, later, project manager I have been treated with respect at all times by men in my field.
I have my own theories about why girls don’t take to computer science as wholeheartedly as their male counterparts and they are, in my opinion, largely down to teaching – or lack thereof. Which is why it’s great that, here in the UK, learning computer science is statutory from the age of 5 because it allows us teachers the (almost unique) opportunity to engage girls early in this creative and fascinating subject. Not just enabling them to enter into the tech industry later if they want to but because it’s absolutely crucial to know how to communicate, collaborate and express yourself in the modern digital world.
In her blog post of 2009 (when Ada Lovelace Day was born) Suw Charman-Anderson speaks of research pointing to need for women to need to see female role models. If that’s true then, given the amount of women teaching computing in the UK, we should surely see an upsurge in engagement in computing by girls and, empowerment through it! That is, if their role model’s are good ones; who show a passion and enthusiasm for the subject and teach it in creative, fun and challenging ways. I hope that, since its introduction into the National Curriculum in 2014, we are making good strides towards achieving this. There’s no excuse not to as there is a wealth of support and resources available to support teachers and schools. I regularly produce free lesson plans and support materials to, hopefully, inspire and motivate teachers of primary computing.
This Ada Lovelace day (13th October 2020) I’ve put together a step-by-step lesson plan and supporting resources adapted from iCompute’s Cross Curricular Computing pack for teaching Computing with History. Suitable for pupils aged 7-11, it involves researching Ada Lovelace and producing a webpage about their findings using basic HTML.
Download and use to show your pupils how women have been instrumental in the transformation of the technological world!
Learn Computer Science fundamentals without technology
Introducing our brand new computing unplugged resources for Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2. Learn the fundamental principles of computer science.without tech!
iCompute Unplugged – Learn Computer Science without Tech!
iCompute unplugged offers teachers, parents and pupils a rich variety of resources enabling them to teach and learn computing inside and outside of the classroom without the need for devices or software. Our resources have been downloaded and used tens of thousands of times by teachers and pupils around the world.
Developed initially as a response to school closures due to COVID-19, the need to equip teachers and pupils with the skills necessary to communicate, collaborate, teach and learn has never been more important. Our creative, engaging, activities are designed by a Computer Scientist and Primary Computer Science Master Teacher to enable children to develop the fundamental principles of computer science.
Unplugged for Mastery
Computing Mastery
Unplugged activities are part of our principles for Mastery in Computing. The judicious use of activities away from devices and computers are crucial to young children’s learning in computing. Our activities are physical in nature and provide kinaesthetic experiences which help pupils understand abstract concepts and deepen learning. Having activities away from computers is effective as children know that computers are a tool in their learning, rather than the subject itself. Stepping away from computers enables them to think about concepts and teachers can convey fundamentals that are independent of particular software or technology. Find out more about achieving mastery in computing.
The Resources
The resources are divided into activities suitable for pupils aged 5-7 (Key Stage 1) and ages 7-11 (Key Stage 2) and are matched to the National Curriculum for Computing for Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2 Programme of Study.
Key Stage 1 Unplugged
Our Key Stage 1 resources are intended to be used by children working either together with their families or in small supervised groups. The activities are ‘unplugged’ and intended to be used by children working either with their families or in small supervised groups. They are split into the fundamental principles of computer science (algorithms, decomposition, abstraction, logical thinking, and generalisation) to help develop the computational thinking skills that lie at the heart of the National Curriculum for Computing.
Key Stage 2 Unplugged
KS2 Unplugged
The Key Stage 2 unplugged resources are designed for teaching groups of children some of amazing concepts that computer science includes. From simulating networks and data transfer using string and sticky notes to ‘crawling’ the world wide web as search engine spiders, they all provide active, kinaesthetic learning experiences and are collaborative, engaging and fun!
“The activities are wonderful, engaging and with clear learning objectives”
“iCompute has introduced a more creative way of learning and this has been seen in the enthusiasm of the children”
“This is a very good resource. Not only for younger learners but for anyone teaching Computer Science. The exercises practice sequencing, abstraction, pattern generation, decomposition and object relationships.“
Our children grow up surrounded by technology. Their everyday interactions and experiences involve it, whether that is inside their homes, at school, out shopping or playing.
Their world is an ever-changing digital world. We owe it to our children to prepare them for living in it. It is never too early for children to start learning the fundamental principles of computer science because, as Edsger Dijkstra famously pointed out “Computer Science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes” (attrib) .
Much of computing as a subject can be learned without using computers at all. Primary aged pupils are perfectly capable of understanding and executing algorithms. They do so every day: they use algorithms to solve problems in mathematics, learn letter sounds, spell, use grammar – I could go on and on! Algorithms are designed and can be applied in a myriad of different situations. Understanding them has become a core skill because, increasingly, the world we live in is governed by them.
Computing is much more than the computer, the device or the tool. It’s about developing computational thinking skills (more on that in this post) so that our children can become effective, analytical, problem solvers. It’s also about equipping children with an understanding about how computers and computer systems work so that, combined, they develop transferrable skills which will enable them to design, develop or even just adapt to new tools and technologies in this ever changing digital age. But much more importantly, they develop digital literacy: the ability to be able to express themselves and communicate ideas using tools and technology and participate fully in the modern digital world.
The best practice for Computing in the Early Years (EYFS computing) is where activities:
are imaginative and fun
challenge
involve being creative
require collaboration and sharing
involve listening, understanding, following and giving instructions
encourage describing, explaining and elaborating
encourage investigation
involve problem solving
include lots of ‘unplugged’ activities: computing without computers
By offering your children an imaginative, engaging, introduction to computing you help them make solid steps towards understanding the world.
iCompute’s expertise and innovation in teaching & learning with, and about, technology has been recognised by BETT and BESA with iCompute in the EYFS being nominated for two awards. Find out what BESA (chair of the judging panel) has to say about the finalists:
Regular readers will know that I’ve previously created a 6 week coding unit for pupils aged 9-11 using BitsBox. Bitsbox uses a simplified version of Javascript, and provides tools that enable pupils to develop their own apps.
It’s a great stepping stone from the blocks-based languages and environments your pupils may have already mastered (E.g. Scratch, App Inventor, Tynker etc) on to text-based languages.
PRIMM
I’ve been researching pedagogies to support computing mastery and PRIMM is a programming pedagogy developed by Dr Sue Sentence and the Computing Education team at Kings College London based on the notion that its difficult to become successful at writing code if you cannot read it.
I have developed a new step-by-step lesson plan that uses Bitsbox and I’m using the PRIMM approach for teaching programming in this one.
Predict | Run | Investigate | Modify | Make
PRIMM stands for Predict | Run | Investigate | Modify | Make. The approach enables teachers to support pupils by giving them some code that they first understand and then build upon towards making their own.
It’s a great way to structure a lesson and think it’ll make a real difference to those pupils who have difficulty understanding some programming concepts.
Feel free to download this lesson and try PRIMM in your own classroom.
Download the Lesson Plan
Use the PRIMM programming approach to develop a program from an ice cream dodging game into a variation of Hungry Hippos.
Challenge your pupils to design algorithms and program the game using a text-based programming language, variables and functions.
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As usual, lots of opportunities for differentiation. For instance, less able pupils could use pupil support cards (see support resource which is included in the pack) and/or write a more simple version. Your more able pupils could:
change the speed, direction and size of flying ice creams
make the game multi-play and multi-level
complete the game to a time
create Game Over functions
create sound tracks and jingles for the app
Ideas for differentiation, extension and enrichment are included in the lesson plan. Lots of opportunities to be inspired and get creative.
Easter is just around the corner and I’ve been busy creating more themed computing activities so that your pupils can demonstrate their computational thinking and coding skills.
Click to get the plan and resources
I’ve prepared step-by-step lesson plans and some teacher/pupil computing resources that I’m using and have added to iCompute to celebrate Easter and/or Spring.
It’s Easter and the Easter Bunny has forgotten where she has hidden all of her eggs. Challenge your pupils to create algorithms and program the bunny to get all of her eggs in her basket any way they know.
Pupil Support Card
As usual, lots of opportunities for differentiation. For instance, less able pupils could use pupil support cards (see Egg Hunt card which is included in the pack) and/or write a more simple collecting less eggs. Your more able pupils could:
program the ice-cream truck sprite to move across the x-axis
program the hot-air balloon to fly
add the Easter eggs to a list variable when collected
add ‘enemies’ to thwart the Easter Bunny in her quest
add extra, increasingly difficult, levels (e.g. mazes to navigate)
Ideas for differentiation, extension and enrichment are included in the lesson plan. Lots of opportunities to be inspired and get creative.
I’ve also created an Easter Egg Hiding Robotics activity using Sphero SPRK+ and Sphero Edu. The Easter Bunny (Sphero) needs your help programming it to hide a collection of Easter Eggs (hollow plastic balls or eggs filled with treats). Lots of cross curricular links here with Science and Mathematics so get rolling.
Help your pupils get flipping fabulous 🥞 at problem solving using key computational thinking skills such as abstraction, decomposition, generalisation and pattern spotting with this free Pancake Day problem.
Computational thinking lies at the heart of the National Curriculum for Computing and our best selling (Educational Resources Awards nominated) series of Computational Thinking Puzzle books 1-4 help pupils independently practise the skills they learn in their computing lessons.
Grab yourself a treat 🍬 with this free Shrove Tuesday resource. Visit www.icompute-uk.com for more free themed lesson plans and resources to support teaching primary computing.
iCompute is delighted to announce that we are available on Puffin Academy, allowing pupils and teachers to easily access primary computing resources on tablet and mobile devices for free! Puffin Academy…
Puffin Academy Free App
Schools using our primary computing resources can access games and tutorials from our whole-school pack on iPads and tablets, through Puffin Academy, the free Flash mobile browser that provides access to whitelisted online educational resources.
What is Puffin Academy?
Puffin Academy is a ‘Mobile Flash Browser’ for pupils, teachers, and parents and always enforces site filtering by only allowing whitelisted educational websites to be accessed.
Puffin Academy Key Features:
Free to all users
Free app to all users on iPhone and iPad (rated 4+)
Free of charge to all educational content providers
For purely educational web sites only
Educational content providers must apply for approval
Once approved, content is available to all users
Incredible speed and Flash support
500% faster than Safari and Chrome
Supports Flash content & videos on iPhone and iPad
1) Once you have located iCompute on Puffin Academy, tap ‘Install’
iCompute will then install to the dashboard and look like this when opening Puffin Academy
How to add key iCompute activities to your ‘bookmarks’
The following steps are optional. You only need to follow them the first time you access iCompute through the Puffin Academy app. Simply follow these steps to add iCompute as a bookmark on your iPad or tablet.
1) Tap the three vertical dots in the top right corner of the address bar
2) Then tap ‘Add Bookmark’
3) Next give your bookmark a meaningful name and point the URL to:
4) The next time you want to use iCompute on your iPad or Android tablet, open the Puffin Academy app, click on the three dots, then click ‘Bookmarks’. Select the saved bookmark and have some computing fun!
*To have the best experience using iCompute’s primary computing interactive activities we recommend to accessing our website from a desktop or laptop
The file includes all Category blocks along with Extensions: Microbit, Makey Makey, Video Sensing, Pen, LEGO WeDo, LEGO EV3, Music, Text to Speech and Translate.
Available to download by clicking/tapping the Periodic Table of Scratch 3 Blocks image (see below). The blocks can be edited and scaled using image editing tools (e.g. Illustrator, Inkscape, Vectr). The blocks are also provided in .png format.
It’s important that children be given opportunities to interact with physical programming blocks to help them understand both their function and the underlying concepts. I use them in groups for the children to program me and/or each other as well as programming using Scratch 3 itself.
Click to download editable, printable Scratch 3 blocks
Published by iCompute and licensed under a Creative Commons license (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) – Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International.
Also available in the same format are Scratch 2.0 blocks and Scratch Jr blocks from this post.
Not long to go now for the Hour of Code 2018 (December 3rd – 9th) and we can’t wait to see how many pupils and schools participate around the world.
iCompute are delighted to partner with code.org again this year by providing lots of fun, creative, activities for schools to use as part of this event and throughout the year. We’ve put together, free, Christmas themed lessons and lots more, including coding apps, sending secret messages with Morse Code, animating a snowman and saving Santa! Included are detailed step-by-step lesson plans with built in differentiation and creative ideas for extension and enrichment.
The Hour of Code™ is a global movement and worldwide effort to celebrate computer science. Organised by Computer Science Education Week and Code.org it reaches tens of millions of students in 180+ countries through a one-hour introduction to computer science and computer programming.
In England, children have a statutory entitlement to a computer science education from the age of five. iCompute provides full coverage for the National Curriculum for Computing at Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2.
Each year, iCompute offer free computing lesson plans and computing resources to support the Hour of Code™ and help raise awareness of and engagement in computing science around the world.
We really hope you join us this year for The Hour of Code and introduce your pupils to the joy of creative computing!
Scarily 👻 Good Free Resources for Primary Computing
Help your pupils get dead ⚰️ good at problem solving using key computational thinking skills such as abstraction, decomposition, generalisation and pattern spotting with our free Halloween themed puzzles.
Computational thinking lies at the heart of the National Curriculum for Computing and our best selling (Educational Resources Awards nominated) series of Computational Thinking Puzzle books 1-4 help pupils independently practice the skills they learn in their computing lessons.
Grab yourself a treat 🍬 with our free puzzles for Halloween. Visit www.icompute-uk.com for more free themed lesson plans and resources to support teaching primary computing.
Teachers and pupils alike love a themed lesson so I’ve created a new activity for Halloween computing that teaches basic HTML/CSS for pupils aged 9-11.
Each term, I create free themed computing lessons and I’ve written another step-by-step lesson plan and some teacher/pupil computing resources that I’m using in my computing classes and have added to iCompute’s primary computing schemes of work. This activity has been adapted from a cross-curricular computing lesson in iCompute Across the Curriculum.
Halloween is approaching and you’re having a party! Using basic HTML and CSS your pupils will create an invitation to their party in the form of a web page. In this activity children learn how HTML formats web content and CSS styles it using age-appropriate syntax and tools.
Includes HTML tutorial
Ideas for differentiation, extension and enrichment are included in the lesson plan. Plus HTML Mozilla Thimble tutorial for teacher and pupil support. Lots of opportunities to be inspired and get creative!
I’m writing new units for iCompute’s whole-school primary computing scheme of work. I’ve started with EYFS (children aged 3-5) and decided to make a variation of the popular Pokémon Go game. Using an Augmented Reality app – HP Reveal (formerly Aurasma) – the children engage in a scavenger hunt for aliens hidden around the school.
I had great fun creating the augmented reality lesson plans and colourful alien resources.
For teachers, I’ve written a HR Reveal teacher guide. Please feel free to download and use in your own classroom to blend the real world and the virtual world and see images come to life!
Regular readers of this blog will know that I teach primary computing and have recently added a Primary Robotics scheme of work to iCompute. Part of this scheme involves working with Sphero and programming the robotic balls using Sphero Edu. To help avoid repetitive strain injury by double tapping each block to find out what each command does, I’ve produced this handy Sphero Commands Helpsheet. Now updated to include the new look Scratch blocks.
Download to get rolling with Sphero and Sphero Edu.
Coding Apps with a Text-based Programming Language
I’ve been busy writing lots of new units for iCompute this term and, during my research, came across the fabulous coding apps resource – Bitsbox. Bitsbox uses a simplified version of Javascript, and provides tools that enable pupils to develop their own apps.
Free Lesson Plan & Resources
It’s a great stepping stone from the blocks-based languages and environments your pupils may have already mastered (Eg. Scratch, App Inventor, Tynker etc) on to text-based languages.
This post follows on from a previous post detailing my experiences of teaching primary computing, coding with Sphero 2.0. Following the successful loan of Sphero 2.0 from Lancaster University as part of my role as a Computing at Schools Primary Computer Science Master Teacher, my school bought a class set of Sphero SPRK+ to support teaching primary computing and use elsewhere across the curriculum.
The Sphero SPRK+ Edition is aimed at the education sector and includes the same sensors and electronics as Sphero 2.0 but, unlike the white shell, the clear polycarbonate material brings pupils closer to the robotic action. Children can immediately see the connection between the programs they create and how the insides of Sphero work and react. Powered by Sphero Edu app, pupils can learn programming using drag-and-drop blocks and progress to coding using JavaScript. I really like how making connections between the visual programming language (the blocks) and its text equivalent is literally at pupils finger tips: with just a tap, they can see how the block of code they are using is written in JavaScript code. That’s great for progression in computer science.
Tap to see blocks written in JavaScript
Sphero SPRK+ is certainly more stable than Sphero 2.0. Because they are equipped with Bluetooth SMART technology they are much easier to connect to devices and, thankfully, don’t require any of pairing and labelling that I needed to do with Sphero 2.0 for classroom management. Here, connections are made between your device and the robot simply by tapping them together. That said, do check your devices are compatible with SPRK+ as they need Bluetooth 4.0 LE to work. I found out only seven of our iPads at school work with my new set. Luckily, we only have six Sphero but it could have been a very costly mistake!
Sphero SPRK+ has lights, sound and voice. I made links to the work we had been doing in cryptography (iCompute, Year 5, iCrypto) studying Morse Code by using Sphero’s strobe blocks to flash lights representing the dits and dahs of letters in secret messages (changing colours between letters to make decoding easier). For the solutions, the children then added speak blocks after each sequence of Morse code, which said verbally what the letters were.
Another great feature of the Sphero Edu app is being able to easily see (and export to other apps) Sphero’s live sensory data. This is brilliant for cross curricular work, particularly maths and science. Sphero is packed with sensors — gyroscope, accelerometer, location, etc… Pupils can see the real time value of sensors within Sphero Edu with visual graphs. If you throw Sphero like a ball, pupils will see the accelerometer data rise and fall. Similarly, when they construct a maze, they can use the data to track location, distance, and speed.
Click to download
Last, but not least, Sphero Edu with Sphero SPRK+ includes a Program Cam feature which allows pupils to take a videos or images of programs while they’re running. Pupils can narrate what they’re created, demonstrate their learning (and ultimately mastery) and share their work with a wider audience.
Pupils naturally love working with Sphero, they think they’re playing. Under the guise of play, they’re actually learning invaluable programming skills alongside learning about everything from physics to art! That’s learning at its best. The SPRK+ edition, combined with the Sphero Edu app, brings so much more to the table to support teaching and learning – particularly in STEM subjects. They’re expensive but with the right blend planning and imaginative resources, using Sphero SPRK+ in your school can extend to all areas of the curriculum.
Ready to roll? The possibilities are exciting!
Our school purchased six Sphero SPRK+ at full price. I have produced lesson plans and resources for iCompute that use Sphero 2.0 and Sphero SPRK+ but am in no way affiliated with Sphero Inc.
Visit iCompute to find out more about primary robotics