Coding with Ozobots

Coding / Ozobots 

I believe tech skills by themselves don’t prompt big ideas – creative visions do.

I am amazed by the fearlessness of students when it comes to technology. Working with students using coding is like watching a child exploring a new toy.  They are always willing to try anything to see what happens. They experiment to determine what works and what doesn’t, and then are willing to fix it and try again. 

Using the Ozobots is one way for students to be creative. It can kick start creativity by sparking students to ask questions that lead them to improve upon their ideas.  In addition, coding leads to critical thinking and problem solving; skills that are vital to 21^st Century learning.

I am just beginning to use Ozobots with the 4^th and 5^th grade students here at Lincoln. We started by exploring how to create different codes to have Ozobots do various movements.  With the 4^th graders, we will then evolve our learning into application of using coding to create different landmarks of North Dakota.  The 5^th graders will apply coding to using Ozobots to lay out the thirteen colonies.  

Twitter Tuesdays

Q1: What is the importance of coding?

Q2: How are you integrating coding into current or developing projects at your school?

Q3: Without using technology, what skills can we teach that would help develop coding?

By Rhonda Bothwell with the help of Alicia Overbeck