Effective Use of ICT
Robotic Toys
Robotic toys can be used in a variety of activities to develop skills across the curriculum such as maths, crafts, science and technology and symbolic play. They can be used indoors and outdoors to develop a wide range of skills and concepts.
They can be used with pictures, photos and props to sequence stories, journeys and visits. When used over a background or on a carpeted area, they can be used to look for colours, shapes, letters or labyrinths.
It is important that children are taught how to use them properly and allowed to use them independently to enhance their play activities. Children will need to have repeated experiences of the sequence of key presses necessary to control the robotic toy.
Visual aids can be used to support children in using the correct procedures to sequence the commands. Controlling robotic toys (such as Roamer or Pixie) develops a range of skills such as estimating, predicting, experimenting and observing the effects of their commands. It encourages the development of co-operation, negotiation and promotes positive dispositions to learning.
Young children can use the robotic toy freely in a construction area where the children create the scene and the robotic toy can take the role of a car, aeroplane, a person, or an animal.
There are a whole range of robotic toys available, but, the most widely used currently with young children are the Pixie and Pip (Swallow Systems) and Roamer (Valiant Technology).
All these have been designed so that they are a basic control box which the children can dress up to make any character they want.
The simplest of the three is Pixie, in that you do not have to be able to recognise number symbols and a turn is always a right angle.
The robotic toy can be used to recount familiar stories such as Rosie’s Walk, Going on a Bear Hunt and The Three Little Pigs.
Pixie and Pip, being rectangular, can easily be transformed into lorries or trucks, and tasks can be set which involve delivering items to different locations.
As the robotic toys can be directed to travel specific distances or turn a set amount, a number of games can be played which enhance the counting element of this activity.
All kinds of board games and races, perhaps using dice, can be made, where Pixie is used on a grid of Pixie-sized squares.
Boards such as the one illustrated above, were created to consolidate concepts and skills , such as number, estimation , prediction and use of directional language, initially introduced through Trudy’s Time and Place Jelly Bean Hunt.