Bee-Bots, Technology and Digital Media

This session was a bit of an amalgamation of several items of technology, from Bee-Bots to Digital Microscopes. However, the sheer amount of technology available is startling. Digital media is also becoming more and more available within the classroom, with a variety of programs and other activities of interest that can be used in the classroom; Messenger-Davies describes media as a collection of different medium, because every aspect of technology or print is a different medium, and as such, has value in education. It just happens that some different mediums are responded to better by the children. 

Despite having prior experience of using some of the robotic technology in the classroom, albeit when I was 7, the Bee-Bots, Pippins, and similar devices fascinated me. To be able to use and program simple robots within the classroom environment was an amazing experience, and one I definitely enjoyed when I was in Year Two. The following video shows some of the applications of Bee-Bots in the classroom.

However, at that age, I found it difficult to grasp the concepts that it brought up, and what relevance it had to computers and the world other than mathematics, we were using angles and lengths, that made sense, but making a connection was difficult. This is my only negative to using this fun, and highly accessible form of teaching as it can be used within a variety of lessons and situations.

Moving onto the digital microscopes, I found these to be great fun and very simple to use. The program itself, 'Digital Blue' was fairly self explanatory and user friendly, but having no labels for some of the more complex buttons that you could press was a bit difficult and made certain areas confusing. On the whole however, it was a fun and rewarding task, and the role for it in the classroom was ideal, especially when a twenty pence coin was put in it. Just to see how dirty it was! This tool is perfect for use within the classroom, and particularly in science, in my opinion, because it allows the children to really investigate the materials that are around them, and by letting them find objects themselves, can really exploit their natural curiosity.

Whilst these aspects of technology are useful, it is important to remember that they are not toys, and there have to be restrictions on their usage, but it is important to make sure that this does not stifle the children, and by doing that, make them lose interest. The important thing with this is to make sure children enjoy the technology, because, I absolutely love using it all!

Until next week,

Keep Calm and Eat Cupcakes!!

Alex