Ozobot, Sphero, and Safety!

Before school started, the librarians were all excited because our coordinator Richelle O'Neil was able to give each of us an Ozobot for our library makerspaces. If you are unfamiliar with what an Ozobot can do, check out this short video. Once the craziness of back to school settled down, I tried out the Ozobot at home and fascinated my dog with it. I brought it to school after being absent as a reward to the class that was the best while I was gone. The students really enjoyed getting to see Ozobot follow their commands based on what colors they used. They even named Ozobot different names and talked to him like he could understand them. We had some trouble getting Ozobot to show off his tricks, but as I told the kids...we just have to keep trying!

I am the i3: Innovation in Instruction person for our campus again this year. At our first training of the year, we got to play with a robot called Sphero. Check out this short video to learn more about Sphero. We were all very intrigued and we also started Googling how much it would cost to write a grant for a Sphero robot. Little did we know, as soon as it was time to put Sphero away...we all found out that each school was going to get to take one back to our campus! Thank you to Brian Dean and the Garland Education Foundation for giving our students the opportunity to learn using Sphero. I am still learning about Sphero and will be photographing all of Sphero's parts before he starts getting checked out by teachers to use across Bradfield. Soon, Sphero will be the most popular robot in the school!

Lastly, it is Cybersafety week in Garland ISD so students have been hearing a tip each day on the announcements, receiving lessons during library and in their classrooms, and there is a poster contest going on across the district. I cannot wait to see which poster wins for our school and goes on to compete for a BB-8 robot like Sphero. Here are some of the cybersafety booklets that my 3rd graders created today.