Day: July 13, 2015

Ozobots


You never know what might strike your fancy and take your imagination into places unknown.  For many of us, we crowded around a table this afternoon at the Computer Science Teachers Association conference and watched Ozobots in action.

For me, this was a new entry into the category of robotic toys. 

Sometimes, the introductory efforts at teaching coding and logic can be stifled just because of the learning involved in getting up to speed in yet another new language.  Imagine doing introductory programming just by drawing a few coloured lines.  A complete of the action codes is available here.

But then you’ll want it to do a little more.  And you can.

Using Blockly as a the programming language, Ozobots can be programmed to perform various functions based upon what they see.  If you visit the Ozobot website, you can see a number of ideas and actions these little robots can do.

For some schools, the price of robots and the coding languages that go with can be prohibitive.  Ozobots are relatively affordable and may be just what’s needed to fit into that affordable, introductory programming niche.

 

OTR Links 07/13/2015


Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.