Today was the funnest of days in our Ed Tech classroom, perhaps because we were not in our classroom at all but instead down at Nusdeh Yoh Aborginal choice school with Noelle Pepin! Noelle was our guide into the wonderful world of cute little Ozobots, in class robots to help kids learn coding!

I have never seen our class so engaged as we eagerly dove into trying to have our Ozobots race through pre-made and self-created tracks with the help of colourful codes laid out in marker before them. See coding isn’t really that difficult when you learn what it really is, simply giving directions to a computer, but often when we hear the word we recoil in fear as images of computer script, be it Java or .html race through our minds.

The Ozobots create a hands on concrete intro to coding where kids can learn about what coding actually is, and have fun doing it, without being overwhelmed by the advanced languages that we use to code today. As I watched Monty (our name for our little bot) attempt to navigate our track with our sloppily scrawled colour codes I was struck by just how much kids would love this, because I loved it too.

See the real win from today for me was not just another Ed Tech activity to bring into the classroom, (which I am beyond excited to do), but seeing how to foster a lifelong love of new subjects by introducing them in creative ways. Thanks so much Noelle!