SIMPLEXITY to COMPLEXITY - a little idea with big possibilities from TED Fellow Ayah Bdeir

Who still thinks engineering  electronics and coding are the domain of men and boys?

Meet Ayah Bdeir a creative young inventor and engineer. Building on the brilliant idea of Lego Bricks, Ayah introduces us to her amazing littleBits, a set of simple, interchangeable electronic building blocks that snap together using magnets to create simple yet powerful circuits which can be utilised to design and make all kinds of innovative products. 

Ayah has taken her simple  idea and developed into a sleek product which makes designing and programming so simple. I love the way she has engineered the "LittleBits" electronic building blocks to be colour coded according to their functions eg

BLUE Bits:        provide the power source ; 
PINK Bits:         are the inputs including light and sound sensors; switches etc; 
ORANGE Bits : are wires which support branching and allow other more sophisticated programming devices       such as Arduino and Makey Makey to be incorporated into the circuit ; and finally 
GREEN Bits      are the outputs which make things happen. They include motors, LED lights,  Buzzers etc

lIttle Bits offer endless creative opportunities for students to design and make without having to use soldering equipment or fine wires. See the litteBits in action below

There is a wealth of resources for educators on the website too including lessons, design challenges, an online community for and even a littleBits App. 

I would love to get my hands on such a kit and see it in action in the hands of students. Perhaps it's time we had our very own Makerspace for teachers and students @ the Learning Exchange.

CODING : Making cross curriculum connections with CHILDREN’S LITERATURE

Who says engineers are simply maths nerds?

Meet Andrew King, Australian engineer and children’s author of the Engibear Series.

ENGIBEAR is the character invented by Andrew  who was seeking to engage young children with engineering concepts such as bridges, railways and robotics. He has developed a website and a series of books featuring the cute character, Engibear. The hardback books are also available as iBooks on the iBookstore. Titles currently available include : Engibear’s Dream and Engibear’s Bridge.

In the case of Engibear’s Dream, Engibear dreams of designs and starts building a Bearbot to help him at work. Early versions fail - often spectacularly. However, Engibear keeps trying. Follow Engibear as his designs improve and the amazing Bearbot takes shape. The book features beautifully detailed drawings and provides a perfect illustration of the design process in action - Dream, Design, Debug (test), Re-design. Download Engibear's Dream from the iBookstore https://itunes.apple.com/au/book/engibears-dream/id585155857?mt=11

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HELLO RUBY ADVENTURES IN CODING by Linda Liukis. 

Meet Ruby a small girl with a big imagination. Ruby and her animal friends all have secret superpowers. In Ruby’s case, she can” imagine impossible things”. “Ruby’s world has rules and reason, repetition and rhythm, ridicules and riddles and one can build something out of nothing.” 

Ruby's adventures celebrate the fact that computer coding is in fact a creative activity which has narrative at its centre. 

The book and the associated app and online presence have been under development for some time now and the book will soon be available from October 2015. In the meantime check out the website and perhaps pre-order your own copy of the book. 

Learn to code collection

Apple have recently released a curation of some resources to help you teach coding and app development across all stages of school.  The Learn to Code collection covers Apps and iBooks.

Expanding creativity, capability and capacity with coding

Students are using ICT skills in coding, robotics and a range of technology to develop creative innovative practical products that expand their literacy, numeracy and problem solving skills.

The Young ICT Explorers Competition provides a snapshot of what students are capable of with ICT.

Students at St Columbas School Wilston in Brisbane developed a small remote controlled catamaran that had the potential to assist farmers globally to assess water quality and water storage capacity of farm dams.

Brynlea Gibson from St Aidans Anglican Girls School came first in the Year 6-7 group with her project ‘ICTinMe’. A multimodal product including elements of: Arduino, GameMaker, MaKey MaKey and Weebly. An interactive game combating obesity and diabetes. Fun for all ages, fully documented by blogging and teaching tutorials,” she said.  Brynlea speaks about her project:

Brynlea also publishes many other videos teaching and sharing her knowledge and finished products. Her Brynlea youtube channel covers building robots, assembling Raspberry Pis, creating games with Python.

In her earlier channel she combines her ICT robotics and coding with a highly creative and inspiring digital story.


See more details of students projects from the ICT Young Explorers competition here.

Get inspired about coding in your classroom

This video shows how easy it is to get started in Primary with coding and the clear links to learning.

A great article called 'Why Code' points out the following about coding:

• Simply put, it is a set of behaviours and procedures that solve a problem.
• Engages, empowers and provides students with control over their tasks and their lives
• Can be done in a 'low fi, hi fi and no fi environment'.
• We already code in our everyday life when we read, follow directions etc.
• Gives students the skills to work in the current and future world of technology

Sansing, C. (2015). Ode to Code. School Library Journal, 61(5), 42.  Access the article from our CEDP Ebscohost databases or email Learning Exchange

To get started borrow a bee-bot kit from Learning Exchange.

 Email lex@parra.catholic.edu.au

Creativity, imagination and problem solving at the heart of robotics

Students in Years 4-6 at Mel Maria Catholic Primary School, Western Australia, learn via project orientated educational robotics.  Learning is open; students work together to deal with problems and find creative imaginative ways to solve them.

The robotics program at Mel Maria culminates in participation in the Robocup competition integrating science, technology and the arts.

At the heart of such a robotics program ICT is the tool that stimulates creative, fluid thinking and develops critical problem solving skills.

Introducing Coding through Game Based Apps in Early Childhood Classrooms

A number of coding apps have been developed for early childhood classrooms. Most are “game based” apps which provide opportunities for students to engage in programming using visual programming language to create command sequences to solve a problem.

These apps are often heavily scaffolded, gradually increasing in complexity and gradually introducing key coding concepts such as :

• logical command sequences, 
• branching ( decisions based on conditions) and 
• looping (repeating patterns). 

Examples of apps in this category include Kodable, Beebot App and Daisy the Dinosaur.

While these apps promote success through incremental learning they do not necessarily allow for much creativity because the solutions are generally pre-determined. In some instances, however, there is the potential to develop more efficient or “elegant” solutions.

Participating in these experiences is engaging and fun for young learners. They provide students with a sense of achievement and encourage the development of problem solving skills, and important learning dispositions such as risk taking, task persistence and self efficacy.

Engaging in these elementary game based coding apps also provides a useful bridge to more sophisticated and open ended computer programming applications such as Pyonkee and Scratch Jr which combine the use of drag and drop visual coding blocks with the potential to create more open ended and creative digital products eg animations.

In subsequent posts we will include reviews of the apps mentioned in this post and recommended for introductory early years coding learning experiences.

Coding for Early Stage 1

Sam Patterson at Edutopia has posted a very useful article on Coding for Kindergarteners using tablet devices.

Many of our CEDP schools have tablet devices and this article provides links to a range of practical tips for teachers to implement coding in the classroom.  Sam recommends that students work in small groups, so schools who only have shared iPad sets will be able to integrate the ideas in this article very easily.

Coding Apps on tablets can be good entry points for students to understand sequencing, problem solving and develop higher order thinking skills.  Many of the available Apps are free and introduce coding in a fun way with visual programming cues which also help develop students vocabulary around coding.

A key part of the article lists the elements of programming that supports pre-readers.  Read more here:

Beebots Downunder

In 2007 teachers in Parramatta Diocese engaged in a collaborative learning project to introduce students in K-2 to control technologies and programming  using a programmable floor toy called the Beebot. 

So what is a bee-bot? 

A Bee-bot is a bright and colourful programmablefloor robot, suitable for students in Early Stage 1 and Stage 1. It enables young children to learn through play about control and directional language and provides a perfect "hands on" introduction to robotics. The Bee-bot is just the right size for little hands and is easy to use. The students simply program the toy to move forwards, backwards, turn left or right by pressing the large arrow buttons on its back. It moves accurately in 15cm steps and can store and recall up to 40 steps. Bee-Bot confirms moves and commands with flashing eyes and signals the end of his programmed journey with "BEEP BEEP" sounds.

The progress of the project was documented in a blog called BEEBOTS DOWNUNDER. The project continued to be shared also as part of the "Successful Language Learners" program (2010 -2011) in linguistically diverse communities in Western Sydney. 

Since then the blog has  been taken down However, the teaching and learning resources are still available for those teachers engaging in the re-establishment of our Parramatta Diocesan PL STEM program, which seeks to engage teachers with coding and control technologies in our schools - developing a continuum of learning from K-12.

Click here to download the Beebots Downunder Teaching Resources or view the Slideshare presentation.

Meet The Bee Bots from nsprainger

Welcome to the Parramatta Diocesan Home for Bots and Coding

Welcome to our new Parramatta Diocesan Learning Exchange blog which will provide a home for all things about Coding and Robotics. Over time we hope that this resource will grow to hold research, resources and shared experiences of students and teachers in Parramatta Diocese.  As they explore learning and teaching ideas for integrating coding and robotics into the teaching of Mathematics, Science, Design and Technology.

Have you ever considered learning to code as a creative activity? We believe learning to code is a contemporary way in which students can express their ideas and create solutions using technologies With code, students often design stories, build games, apps, create digital stories or even build robots that can perform simple "tasks"?

Educators around the world are now recognising that the ability to program or code, is an important part of being literate today. It is helpful to think less about 'learning to code' and more about 'coding to learn'. By this we mean that, learning to code provides students with contexts in which they learn to become "thinkers" - to apply design processes as they seek to solve real world problems and further develop their ability to think logically and creatively.

Chris Betcher, an Australian educator claims:

Coders are thinkers: “The ability to clearly analyse difficult problems and come up with innovative, clever, reusable solutions is the kind of thinking that pushes our world forward.” 

To get our discussion started you may like to watch the following TED TALK "Let's teach kids to Code" by Mitch Resnick, Professor of Learning Research at MIT Media Lab. Resnick's research group developed the "programmable brick" technology that inspired the LEGO Mindstorms robotics kit. They are also the developers of the visual programming tools called Scratch/  In this TED TALK, Resnick outlines the benefits of teaching kids to code, so they can do more than just “read” new technologies — but also create with them.