Friday, September 26, 2014

Operation Sphero a Success

Phew!! Eighty-five degrees feels just a bit warmer when you're outside directing groups of excited 5th and 6th graders! I am so pleased with how today's Sphero experience went.

I had students with big grins and crazy ideas flitting in and out of the quad at our school. Here's a picture (sorry for the lame face covers... I went with a Sphero emblem).


Today we used the "Sphero" iPad app to control our Spheros (Spheroes? Spheri? We'll go with Spheros.). It is the primary app to drive Sphero around. I let them experiment with different things and enjoyed when they came up to me excited that they'd unlocked a new trick. I think it's important to let students have a little free-reign with technology before I rope them in and put them to work. Next time these Spheros will be used, we will use the "Macrolab" app to program our robots to do specific actions.

Sorry if this is the ramblings of a crazy person. :) Does your school implement any form of robotics?

Thursday, September 25, 2014

If Robots are Geeky...

If robots are geeky, guess I'm queen of the geeks this week! I am so excited to have my very first "Sphero" day with my students tomorrow. Sphero was created as a toy, but has launched a program for schools to use them to teach computer programming and coding using a tablet device.



Now, I know very little about these things, but I'm willing to learn right along with my students. School started three weeks ago and I have not gone a single day without a student spotting me in the hall and shouting out, "SPHERO!!" I almost answer to it as my name these days!

I had a small group of fifth graders gather around my room on the morning they saw my supply arrive:

 

I'm excited to share my experience with this whole thing come tomorrow! I love getting new technology in their hands - they just soak it up and the excitement beams from their faces.

Have you had good experiences with kids and technology integration? I would love to hear about any "aha!" or "oh no!" moments. :)