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Sphero edu extension1/30/2024 ![]() It will be lent out to other local schools by Teaching progressive lessons using Spheros enables primary schools to meet a number of the objectives of the National Curriculum for Computing at Key Stage 2 Specifically: That is all now done and I’ve had great fun creating our new robotics unit – iCompute with Sphero – which forms part of our iPad pack, as well as being available separately. I have produced lesson plans and resources for iCompute that use Sphero 2.0 and Sphero SPRK+ but am in no way affiliated with Sphero Inc.Īs part of my role with Computing At Schools (CAS) as a Primary Computer Science Master Teacher, I have recently been fortunate enough to teach using Sphero, having been lent a set by The task was to produce a set of step-by-step Sphero lesson plans and associated teacher and pupil support materials for primary teachers to use. Our school purchased six Sphero SPRK+ at full price. Ready to roll? The possibilities are exciting! They’re expensive but with the right blend planning and imaginative resources, using Sphero SPRK+ in your school can extend to all areas of the curriculum. The SPRK+ edition, combined with the Sphero Edu app, brings so much more to the table to support teaching and learning – particularly in STEM subjects. Under the guise of play, they’re actually learning invaluable programming skills alongside learning about everything from physics to art! That’s learning at its best. Pupils naturally love working with Sphero, they think they’re playing. Pupils can narrate what they’re created, demonstrate their learning (and ultimately mastery) and share their work with a wider audience. Last, but not least, Sphero Edu with Sphero SPRK+ includes a Program Cam feature which allows pupils to take a videos or images of programs while they’re running. Similarly, when they construct a maze, they can use the data to track location, distance, and speed. If you throw Sphero like a ball, pupils will see the accelerometer data rise and fall. Sphero is packed with sensors - gyroscope, accelerometer, location, etc… Pupils can see the real time value of sensors within Sphero Edu with visual graphs. This is brilliant for cross curricular work, particularly maths and science. For the solutions, the children then added speak blocks after each sequence of Morse code, which said verbally what the letters were.Īnother great feature of the Sphero Edu app is being able to easily see (and export to other apps) Sphero’s live sensory data. I made links to the work we had been doing in cryptography ( iCompute, Year 5, iCrypto) studying Morse Code by using Sphero’s strobe blocks to flash lights representing the dits and dahs of letters in secret messages (changing colours between letters to make decoding easier). Sphero SPRK+ has lights, sound and voice. Luckily, we only have six Sphero but it could have been a very costly mistake! ![]() I found out only seven of our iPads at school work with my new set. That said, do check your devices are compatible with SPRK+ as they need Bluetooth 4.0 LE to work. Here, connections are made between your device and the robot simply by tapping them together. Because they are equipped with Bluetooth SMART technology they are much easier to connect to devices and, thankfully, don’t require any of pairing and labelling that I needed to do with Sphero 2.0 for classroom management. Sphero SPRK+ is certainly more stable than Sphero 2.0. That’s great for progression in computer science. I really like how making connections between the visual programming language (the blocks) and its text equivalent is literally at pupils finger tips: with just a tap, they can see how the block of code they are using is written in JavaScript code. Powered by Sphero Edu app, pupils can learn programming using drag-and-drop blocks and progress to coding using JavaScript. Children can immediately see the connection between the programs they create and how the insides of Sphero work and react. The Sphero SPRK+ Edition is aimed at the education sector and includes the same sensors and electronics as Sphero 2.0 but, unlike the white shell, the clear polycarbonate material brings pupils closer to the robotic action. Following the successful loan of Sphero 2.0 from Lancaster University as part of my role as a Computing at Schools Primary Computer Science Master Teacher, my school bought a class set of Sphero SPRK+ to support teaching primary computing and use elsewhere across the curriculum. This post follows on from a previous post detailing my experiences of teaching primary computing, coding with Sphero 2.0.
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