The Ozobot Bit Robot was a longtime go-to STEM solution for teaching all about coding, robotics, computational thinking, and problem solving. Now that the Bit has been retired for a few years, however, you may want to try to upgrade. Its successor, the Ozobot Evo, continues to enable educators to teach CS lessons with its significant upgrades, like Bluetooth capability.
The mBot-S is one elementary robotics tool that’s perfect for students who want to build a robot before coding. For any educators throughout the K–8 grades, it’s a great tool for incorporating STEAM experiences into activities that highlight creative development as kids enjoy valuable experience with engineering and collaborating while building a real robot from scratch.
There are typically two primary options for younger kids (or older students) to get started with coding: either physical tools or digital tools. Most of our expertise involves the physical coding tools, including educational robotics kits, circuitry solutions, or even programmable drones. Especially following the remote learning era, however, there are also strictly virtual platforms.
Students in Pre–K, kindergarten, and up to first or second grade could use the Bee-Bot screen-free or mix in digital coding once they’re ready for new challenges. It’s simple coding system features directional buttons, allowing younger children to explore programming right on their classroom floors as they experience age-appropriate STEAM adventures in early education.
Similar in both appearance and functionality to the original Root Robot, the Root rt0 allows educators to deliver hands-on STEAM experiences that are practical and relevant. And, although they do look similar, there are several key differences teachers should know. Once you are up to speed, however, it’s a fantastic addition to coding lessons throughout the K–12 grades.
Coding has become much more prevalent and accessible throughout K–12 education—helping to make it less scary for a lot of students and teachers. Though it has endless applications in today’s professions, learning to code has also probably never been quite as simple. Thanks largely to classroom robots, adults, teens, and children can learn new coding skills every day.
After its impressive streak as the most advanced humanoid from Softbank Robotics, the NAO V6 has a successor. Still pretty new to the STEM scene, the NAO V6 AI Edition is packed with amazing features and new modes for your students to explore. Whether using the presenter mode, conversation mode, or coding in C++, C#, Python, or Java, it’s perfect for STEM or CTE.
Teachers could use Blockly coding to teach kids about inputs and outputs on a very basic level before progressing to various, more advanced coding concepts, like loops and logic. Best of all, there are a bunch of great STEM tools for introducing kids to Blockly programming, like the Dash Robot, the Ozobot Evo, Finch Robot 2.0, Edison Robot, and the Tello EDU drone.
There are three main environments students could use in programming the Edison Robot. They’re known as EdBlocks, EdScratch, and EdPy and all of them are completely free to use directly from your browser. And, there’s no need to download any additional software for coding with the Edison. Kids can also choose from the pre-created programs or design their own!
There are actually a lot of awesome early education technologies students could use for practicing everything from problem solving or engineering to math or even coding in Pre-K or kindergarten. Whether it is engaging them more successfully or actually introducing hands-on experiences, including coding, the right tech has a place in ECE and these are some favorites.
