lego wedo 1.0 effect on education research

#Lego wedo 1.0 effect on education research how to
#Lego wedo 1.0 effect on education research full

Our new units do not require the full educational LEGO WeDo sets to be bought. The robotics elements of LEGO WeDo include motors and sensors. Children learn more quickly when a model executes a program, physically, right before them. Mechanisms, built by and ultimately designed by, the pupils themselves set computer programming in a meaningful context. Using robotics promotes interest in science and engineering, as well as computer science and helps develop motor skills through model building. They build models using the bricks they know and love and then program them interact with the world around them! Lego WeDo is a fantastic opportunity for children to bring the physical world to life through code. This helps schools address the controlling physical systems objective of the National Curriculum for Computing at Key Stage 2.

#Lego wedo 1.0 effect on education research how to

This week sees the launch of iCompute’s new six week programming unit for Year 3 and 4-5 week unit for Year 4 which uses LEGO™ WeDo to teach children how to program robots and models in primary computing lessons. The children have been great, understanding the clear rules and why we have them. I explain the necessity of keeping the models and construction kits within hoops to that we don’t lose the parts. You need to be really firm about pupil movement around the space you’re using with LEGO parts! I use hula-hoops placed around the hall with big gaps between them. This helps keep the kits organised so that, combined, the model and the kit = a full construction kit. Whenever I need everyone’s attention, or if we’ll be working on the same model a few weeks in a row, we park the robots in their baskets on top of the construction kit boxes. I also arranged space in the classroom for a ‘robot parking lot’. I’ve assigned each pair of pupils a LEGO WeDo Construction kit and a labelled basket for their models. I’ve found it’s much better to work on the floor to prevent bouncing bricks, so book out the school hall if you can or clear your classroom of desks.

I admit to a rising sense of panic as I approached my first session: young children, small LEGO parts, computers and stuff that moves! However, we’ve been having a great time and thought I’d share some of the practises I’ve found necessary to manage these very active learning lessons.įirst of all, get organised before each session. I recently published two new 4-6 week physical programming units to iCompute’s Key Stage 2 scheme of work which I blogged about in my post Teach Programming with LEGO™ WeDo