Students are coming through our classroom doors with a wealth of skills and experiences with technologies. Teachers need to understand how these can be used to inspire and encourage creativity within our students. Computing and coding are tools which can connect students to real-life problems while providing interest and opportunities for creativity (Computing at School, 2013). For teachers to inspire creativity, the teacher themselves need to express creativity traits in their own lives (Henriksen, D., & Mishra, P. 2015). Being a pre-service teacher I am determined to find technologies which allow me to foster my own and my students creativity. The website https://ozobot.com/ provides a good platform for students to learn and explore.
“Learning to write programs stretches your mind, and helps you think better, creates a way of thinking about things that I think is helpful in all domains.”
Bill Gates (https://code.org/)
So what does it do? Purpose
Ozobots are a tool which can be used by students to demonstrate their coding skills while expressing their knowledge on the topic being studied. They can be used within a range of subject areas as well as by students of all ages. In saying this, it is a difficult program to understand at first, meaning it needs to be used carefully. Creativity involves giving students the freedom to express their own ideas and opinions (Fazelian, & Azimi, 2013), meaning when students use Ozobots they need to understand how they work before they can be used successfully. Once students understand how the program works they have a large range of freedom and creativity as they can play around and learn how to create their own paths or make the OzoBot do a certain task.
The most obvious use of this program would be to teach directions to the younger stages however, there are many other opportunities such as retelling stories in English or mapping in HSIE. The codes for the Ozobot have already been created meaning the students are not creating these but they using their knowledge of the program to come up with a solution to the problem being provided.
When used in the right environment, Ozobots can give students the opportunity to show their knowledge and creativity while following directions from codes given to them.
References
Computing at School (2013). Computing in the National Curriculum – A guide for Primary teachers. Available at: http://www.computingatschool.org.uk/data/uploads/CASPrimaryComputing.pdf
Fazelian, P., & Azimi, S. (2013). Creativity in Schools. Procedia – Social and Behavioural Sciences, 82, 719 – 723.
Henriksen, D., & Mishra, P. (2015). We teach who we are: Creativity in the lives and practices of accomplished teachers. Teachers College Record, 117(7), 1- 46.
21st Century Technologies and their use in the Classroom 
I think if you gave these little dudes a pair of eyes they would be so cute. I would use this to choregraph dance sequencing (maybe not specific dance moves) but to know where everyone would be once the music start and when it ends. I think this would be visually entertaining and it would reinforce memory for crew and cast to be on a set.
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I really enjoyed your blog post, so many great ideas with Ozobots. These would be suitable to most stages depending on the lesson. I agree that they would be a great tool for teaching kids about directions, it would be an engaging activity. Giving students that freedom of having them create their own sequences for the Ozobots to follow would make learning more meaningful and fun. You could even have students challenge each other at the end of the lesson. Because Ozobots do take a while to sync and start up, the older years would probably enjoy it more.
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I’ve used Ozobots with children in an Out of School Hours Care setting and the children absolutey loved them. You could use these for any stage, although the younger children would need assistance. Chances are there will be one child in the class who is already fascinated by robots and will want to tell you every little detail about them.
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Hi Emma,
Thanks for your contribution, Ozebots seem to be a great way to engage students and encourage them to expand their math skills through coding. I thought it was great that you included the usage of these technologies even for subjects that don’t include maths. It would be a great way to integrate subjects across the curriculum, including geography where the ozebots could follow a journey/world map.
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Thanks Emma, I really enjoyed your post.
Ozbots sounds like a great tool to help stimulate creativity in school children at a primary school level. The importance of stimulating creative behaviours during these early stages is immensely important and should be integrated in learning activities where possible. Like you mentioned, computing and coding help students connect real-world problems and improve metacognition in some cases. Although, I don’t feel like this specific technology can be used in secondary school environments. I do however think that this early introduction into coding can transfer skills into high school experiences. An example of this is Modding. Modding refers to the act of modifying hardware, software and video games to achieve bespoke specifications. I am studying to be a history teacher and I could ask my students to edit the code of ‘Europa Universlais IV’ (a video game) to reflect feature of the Roman empire etc.
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Thank you for an interesting post. As an HSIE teacher, I was particularly intrigued by your mapping idea. Ozobots seem to provide enticing learning opportunities across disciplines and stages. I noticed that the Ozbots classroom kits were quite costly, are you aware of a similar technology that has a less hefty price tag?
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Thanks for your insight! Yes, I was aware of the price of the kits, it is a shame they are so pricey! I am currently not aware of any other similar technologies which are cheaper but it is definitely something I will have to look into!
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