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photo courtesy S. McKenzie
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Who knew a little round ball could be so fun??? Enter
Sphero! Sphero and its partner Ollie are spherical robot toys designed by Orbotix. Sphero is a white orb wrapped in plastic, that can roll around, and is controlled by a smartphone or tablet. I've been following the tweets of a co-worker in our board who is having a blast using the Tickle App for iPad in combination with this simple device. They are able to program the Sphero to follow various instructions. They even had a 'guest' Sphero one day and they made them dance together! Great possibilities here. Such a great extension to some of the simpler coding programs on the iPad such as
Daisy the Dino,
Hopscotch, and
Scratch Jr.. Even if your school only had one, the experience would surely be memorable in every classroom! Check out
this video to see Tickle and Sphero in action.
Makes me really wonder about where coding and robotics will go next in the elementary setting. How do we get more teachers interested in coding apps and programs? Should we have specialist teachers in this field? We can not underestimate the abilities of our students. And we better get ready to welcome Sphero family members yet to come!
One of my students brought one of these to school and started controlling it's movements without me knowing what it was. Was pretty fun. Every time I went to pick it up, it would move. You can imagine. Certainly got the class giggling!
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