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Your Questions About Enrichment Programs: Answered

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What are Technology “Enrichment” or “After School” Programs?

Technology focused after school enrichment programs are geared towards kids mastering the key skills and competencies of technology like computational thinking, design thinking, problem solving, and communication skills in an engaging, fun and team oriented environment. Absolutely no prior  experience needed!

What makes a great Enrichment Program?

Rather than a lesson in the school day, in after school or enrichment time, enrichment classes are in the students’ time. So while they are taking their first steps into the world of technology through e.g. computer programming and applying digital skills to be creative with technology, they need to really be immersed in experiencing first-hand the incredible world of possibilities that tech provides in a way that is fun and exciting.

How do you select a theme for Enrichment Programs and how long should they last?

The best themes for Enrichment Programs spark student’s imagination around the possibilities of Tech with contextually relevant applications in their everyday life.  While you should always be careful not to misrepresent the activities and outcomes in a program, there is no reason why real world themes can’t be fun and engaging for students and connect to their interests!  

Similarly, the duration of an after school program should balance the minimum time needed to create intended projects, with the constraints and potential unforeseen changes that sometimes come up during the course of the school year calendar.  We’ve found that after school programs should run between 1 to a maximum of 2 hours per session and need a minimum of 5 hours in total for students to have an ideal experience and really create something they can take away and be proud of.

When scheduling, it is important to be mindful of potential conflicts in the school calendar that can disrupt and/or impact students experience negatively.  An example of this is winter break over the calendar new year which while a relatively short, is still long enough of a break that it can derail student’s progress and learning in a weekly program.  For situations like this we instead try to schedule a program to wrap up prior to the winter break (even if it means shortening a program) and then start a new session in mid-January when students have already gotten back into the swing of school.

There is all sorts of technology out there, how do you balance between the latest thing but providing something that is accessible?

Tech themed after school programs should always prioritize equity and access over the latest thing. The latest craze is also often expensive to deliver and becomes obsolete very quickly. While media coverage may portray new Tech breakthroughs as life altering, the reality is often that ‘the latest things’ typically take years at best to deliver an educative experience for k-12 students.

An example of this paradox are 3D Printers, which despite coming onto the market more than 10 years ago are still rarely utilized in school settings because there is no coherent curriculum for them and it’s hard to see how their value can maintained on a long term basis.

Finally, we find the best balance is also to incorporate tools as the focal point of learning that are also free of affordable to buy at home, as these allow students the opportunity to continue learning and creating on their own should they wish.

What type of people make the best teachers for Enrichment Programs?

Contrary to popular belief, the most important aspect for technology enrichment program instructors is not a strong background in CS or Technology. Instead, we have consistently found that experience and confidence  teaching, coupled with an open mind for learning new ideas are the two most important traits when looking for a tech program instructor.  Regardless of a candidate’s age or background, it is much easier to train someone how to teach Tech curricula than it is in how to effectively manage a classroom, build inspiring relationships with students and empower them to strive towards their full potential.   

What about parents? What is the best way to keep them informed and help them understand or be excited about what is being created?

While students are not the primary target audience for the content taught in after school programs it is Important to always make sure parents or guardians are kept in the loop throughout.  

BSD keeps parents updated with a series of email updates prior, mid-way and at the conclusion of programs that provide information about instructors, project themes and instructions on how they can see their child’s work, as well as how their child can share his or her work with them.

Finally parents are always invited to attend the second half of the final class to see what their child has been creating in the end of course demo.


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Our Students Answer “What is Love?”

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Valentine’s Day is just around the corner! We have found that  it’s a great day to remind our students and ourselves about the value of recognizing the people around you that make life a better place, and sharing “love” and messages of appreciation.

But how do you share “love”? As a fun Valentines Day read, we wanted to show you responses we’ve received when we asked our students what love was:

“Love is sharing my last piece of candy for my sister”

Nicole, 9

“Love is being able to trust someone, more than you trust yourself”

Leo, 12

“Love is going to the carnival with Mommy and Daddy”

Ella, 6

“If I were going to say it like in the books, love is going to the ends of the earth for the person you love”

Ellie, 11

“Love is kissing and hugging a lot”

Olivia, 7

“Love is feeling happy and light”

Claire, 8

“Love is when everyone gets the same respect and trust”

Eric, 13

“Love, is peace and honor!”

Jason, 8

“Love is JT’s class” (referring to BSD’s Innovation Academy)

James, 10

“Love is anything that makes you laugh”

Shaurya, 11

What do you think of their answers? Aren’t they great! What do you think your students will answer if you asked them the same? We’d love to hear it! Tag us at #BSDLove2019 and get a chance to be featured in our upcoming newsletters.

Technology Projects That Will Inspire Your Students To CARE

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At BSD Education, we are passionate about education technology and project-based learning.

As a wise 6-year-old once said, “Love is when you go out to eat and give somebody most of your French fries without making them give you any of theirs.” (Disney Baby)

You might not be able (or want!) to share your French fries, so we came up with a few creative digital ways that you can show you care.

1. Online Card

The technology project ‘Design your own Valentine’s theme online card’ is complete with pictures, graphics, and of course, your views about love.

Read our step-by-step project breakdown of this project here.

2. 3D Printed Creations

For the people in your life that you can’t live without, you can design a heart-shaped custom 3D printed creation.  Other options include a unique design about a place you visited together, their favorite hobby, an inside joke – this is entirely up to you! Designing and printing it yourself will undoubtedly show them how much you care.

3. Poem Website

Design your custom website complete with a loving or appreciative poem for that particular person in your life. Are you a writer? Try combining technical skills with a bit of “iambic pentameter” to show off your inner Shakespeare to loved ones.

How else do you teach your students to care about other people? We’d love to hear from you in the comments below.

If you’d like to learn more about our projects at BSD Education, please reach out to us at info@bsd.education!

Why We Aim For Students To CARE

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“… I do not publish nor divulge [methods of building submarines] by reason of the evil nature of men who would use them as means of destruction at the bottom of the sea, by sending ships to the bottom, and sinking them together with the men in them.”

– Leonardo da Vinci

Our aim is to give students the confidence and skills to work with the most powerful technology tools of their generation.  And as Spiderman teaches “with great power comes great responsibility.”

This is a lesson that every inventor learns.  Early inventors were often tied to military purposes.  Leonardo da Vinci famously focused on defensive rather than offensive technology, and went as far as destroying some of his advanced designs to avoid what he believed would be the inevitable human destruction.  This responsibility expanded to scientists focused on chemical warfare – the wife of the German inventor of chemical warfare ultimately committed suicide when she couldn’t convince her husband not to publish his results – and even DNA – as scientists feared their recombinant DNA experiments would lead to accidentally incurable pathogens.

As we have seen around the world in the last few years technology is not only ubiquitous, but more powerful than ever. A power at the hands of everyone. From a young age, then, we want to equip students not only with the technical skills to use tools but also the moral compass to use them for good.  We call this teaching students to CARE – to be curious, adaptable, resilient and empathetic to the world around them.

We work with students to use technology in ways that benefit their communities.  We have students that are building connected scales to measure and reduce waste at their schools and others creating websites to donate to people in need.  Even something as simple as making virtual Valentine’s Day cards to show people some love can have a positive impact on others. In each case, our students look around themselves to see real problems and create solutions that really work for people in their communities.

Ultimately, we’ll measure our success by the impact that our students have and we want to give them every chance to make that a positive one.  Our moral compass guides BSD and we aspire for it to guide the projects, tools and movements our students create too.

Source: Less Wrong

Integrate Technology Into Your Subject: Sciences

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Last week we discussed tech-ed versus edtech and introduced 3 reasons why you should bring technology learning into your subject. For the next 3 weeks, we will be sharing ways to integrate technology into different subject areas, to kick off this series, let’s begin with science.

Many educators would immediately consider bringing in hardware, such as robotics. However, this requires purchasing new kits. There are other quick and simple ways to inject tech into your existing lessons and activities!

We are going to look at the 3 main ways that technology enhances and supports the science classroom: improving data collection and analysis, supported visualization of abstract phenomena and the presentation of findings.

Improving Data Collection and Analysis

When introducing the topic of data to students, don’t stop with pen and paper! Introduce tech tools such as Google Sheets to help students organize their data for better analysis. For an authentic technology learning experience, introduce students to simple programming projects using JavaScript to create dynamic data visualizations that support their understanding of the relationships between their datasets. Through such activity, students will practice 21st-century skills in working with and interpreting meaning from data with the support of technology.

Visualization of Abstract and Intangible Concepts

In a school environment, some experiments and simulations are inaccessible due to safety or budget constraints. For many students, abstract and intangible concepts in science can become challenging to grasp without visualizations. This is where computer-generated simulations become extremely useful to support student understanding. Bring in simulation projects, such as a project that simulates the speed of orbit of different planets around the sun, a plant simulation game to learn about the requirements to keep a healthy plant or a game of Pong to understand forces. Students can be challenged to solve problems by modifying values of simple computing concepts such as variables, conditionals, and animations to represent a real-world process/phenomena through experiential learning.

Presentation of Research/Findings

Give students an authentic audience to write for. The next time you set a poster or report task or assessment, consider asking students to present their findings and research through an online poster, website, or information app. In planning to use digital artifacts, students are challenged to consider the user experience and will use graphical and organization devices effectively to present information in an engaging and dynamic way. An added benefit of this activity is the shareability of the completed artifacts. Practice online safety and digital citizenship by asking students to consider how they communicate information online.

As shown above, you don’t have to change your existing curriculum and sacrifice hours from your existing practices and curriculum to give students the opportunity to practice important tech skills! If you are interested in hearing more about the BSD cross-curricular project offerings, please contact us – we would love to walk you through what we have to offer to you and your students.

Integrating Technology Education Into Schools: The How

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In this post we will share how we work with schools globally to integrate Technology Education in their existing curricula in a simple, 3 step process. Once a school has decided to partner with us, they can be ready to start teaching with BSD curriculum in less than a week!  

1. Choosing a Curriculum

Every school’s journey begins with identifying their needs which are gathered by answering two questions:

  • What skills and competencies they want to develop in their students
  • How much time they have available

Based on what a school requires, we suggest either one or a combination of units from our 4 curricula offerings. Our suggestions are based on factors like (national) curriculum followed, lesson time available, skills to be developed, student interest, infrastructure available, etc.

Our 4 curriculum offerings are:

  • TechReady: These are focused technology courses (like Data, AI, App and Game Dev, etc) for ages 8-14 aligned to US/UK/IB curricula and mapped to ISTE/CSTA standards.
  • TechConnected: Technology projects for English, Mathematics, Science, Geography, Humanities and Language Learning for ages 8-14. Aligned to US/UK/IB curricula and mapped to ISTE/CSTA standards.
  • Technovators: After school and camp courses for ages 8-14 covering a range of topics including Coding, Robotics, Tech Entrepreneurship, E-Sports, Lego, Roblox, Minecraft, etc.
  • Connect2Work: BTEC aligned vocational courses for career readiness in technology first jobs for ages 16-18.
2. Teachers Skills Building and Curriculum Familiarisation

After the requirements have been identified and projects chosen, teachers receive professional development training by our instructors. The training gives the teachers the skills and confidence needed to adopt, implement and sustain the delivery of BSD curriculum seamlessly in their classrooms. The training covers:

  • An orientation to BSD Online – our online learning software platform
  • Skills building – hands on introduction to digital and coding skills
  • Curriculum familiarisation – understanding of the teaching resources like lesson plans or teacher prep guides BSD provides and how to use them
3. Start Teaching and Community Building

After training, teachers are ready to integrate technology education in their classroom. As teachers start teaching, we support them by providing virtual or onsite coaching with regular check-ins. Teachers who are trained and gain experience in the classroom, are encouraged to try new projects and strategies.

As teachers experience and confidence grows, some go ahead and start sharing their experiences and success stories of using BSD curriculum in their classrooms with their colleagues while others take the initiative of training more teachers within the school. This helps develop a robust community of technology education practitioners in the school, all supported by BSD’s online Educator Community!

The BSD Advantage

Our professional development training is designed to help teachers overcome the three fundamental barriers that we have found to consistently prevent a broader implementation  of technology education in the classroom.

  • Confidence: Teachers usually don’t have background in technology so can see bringing technology education into the classroom as risky and unfamiliar. Professional development for an area that is new and technical can be hard to access. We help teachers by providing an online teaching environment and training by professionals that gives them the skills and confidence by putting them in control of the learning experience.
  • Content: Technology is constantly changing. Curriculum can, therefore, become quickly outdated. We help overcome this by providing up to date curriculum and content with real world relevant curriculum that can be brought into every subject.
  • Community: Teachers don’t often have a community of practice or peers to collaborate with, or a core group of trained practitioners to learn from and share ideas with. We assist teachers by becoming their trusted partners. We provide ongoing virtual or onsite coaching, regular check-ins, and an online community and events with like-minded educators from around the world.

If you are a teacher using BSD curriculum in your classroom, we would love to hear your experiences. If you are not yet a BSD School but are interested to bring technology education into your classrooms, get in touch with us.

How Nord Anglia International School is Using TechEd Curriculum

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What are the MIT STEAM Challenges?

The MIT STEAM Challenges is a collaboration between Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Nord Anglia Education to enhance the teaching and learning of Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics (STEAM) by connecting MIT innovation and culture to Nord Anglia schools globally through project-based challenges.

Nord Anglia schools have been participating in three MIT challenges each year since 2016. The Challenges are in-school cross-curricular experiences for Nord Anglia students based on MIT research. TThe MIT Challenges provide a unique chance for every Nord Anglia Education school, teacher, and student to experience MIT. Each MIT Challenge embodies the teaching and learning culture of MIT, is rooted in the research of MIT faculty, and makes that research relevant and accessible to Nord Anglia students.

This Year’s Theme

The 2018-2019 MIT Challenge is themed “STEAM Superheroes”. Participants are encouraged to take inspiration from three MIT professors and their graduate student research assistants.

The three “STEAM Superheroes” challenges showcase the work of an MIT professor and a graduate student researcher. Nord Anglia students then tackle a project of their own, using the professor and their process as inspiration

The three STEAM Superheroes and their powers are:

Epic Identity featuring Prof. Leia Stirling: Students will learn about wearable technology and its ability to improve human performance.

Super Natural featuring Prof. Anette “Peko” Hosoi: Students will closely observe the natural world and understand the physics behind an animal’s adaptation, then apply that knowledge to engineering design.

Medical Marvel featuring Prof. Chris Voigt: Students will tap into the potential of applying engineering principles to biological problems to improve human health.

BSD Education and Nord Anglia International School, Hong Kong

BSD partnered with Nord Anglia International School, Hong Kong (NAIS HK) in 2017/18 to develop and deliver projects for the MIT STEAM Challenges.

As part of the partnership, BSD trained 4 NAIS HK teachers in 2017 and is currently training 8 in 2018. The 4 teachers developed in 2017, internally trained 4 teachers each, making a total of 20 teachers trained in 2017.

What students will learn to build using BSD Online in 2018-19

Year 3-6 students at NAIS HK are using BSD’s cross-curricular TechConnected to create their own MIT STEAM Challenge inventions. BSD’s cross-curricular TechConnected helps NAIS HK students construct MIT STEAM Challenge inventions. Creating digital artifacts and displaying their work are among the topics covered in this technology education course.

The BSD projects recommended can be used by students to showcase and present work or to apply their learning. For example, students will showcase their work by documenting their journey of researching and building their own STEAM Challenge and present this by creating a digital portfolio. Students learn about the challenges of space travel, the preparation required and what astronauts do when they face problems in space; then students apply this learning by creating a Mission to Mars theme Choose Your Own Adventure game.

All students will be building their own Personal Portfolio Showcase to document their learning and showcase what they have built. In addition to this, students will complete the following projects in each year group:

Firstly, Year 3: Introduction to coding in HTML & CSS followed by coding and designing their Online Poster with a Keep Calm and Carry On theme.

Secondly, Year 4: My First Website to explain and document their STEAM Challenge

Thirdly, Year 5: My First Website with the theme of “Into the Unknown” and Choose Your Own Adventure with a “Mission to Mars” theme.

Lastly, Year 6: Trivia Game and MicroBit Wearables with a “Medical Marvel” theme.

At BSD, we believe in and advocate for introducing technology education, including coding, to students during the primary years. This builds a strong foundation of skills,  knowledge, and experience applying technology that they have created in a real-world context to make them future-ready and prepare them for technology first careers.

If you are infusing your regular lessons with technology skills we would love to hear from you.

Bring Technology Learning In Your Subject

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Technology learning is already fundamental to every industry and this will only increase. We can’t ignore the way the world is going or the facts: 65% of children entering primary school today will do jobs that don’t yet exist.

At BSD Education, we believe there are three core reasons that more educators should bring technology into their subjects. This is especially true if those subjects aren’t traditionally technical. Read on for our top three!

1. It prepares students to be future-ready

For students to succeed in the future, it is critical they learn digital skills. Some schools believe that this can be done through a computing class or an after-school club. But in the real world, technology touches everything and impacts everyone.

It needs to be infused across subjects so students can make connections, follow their interests and understand how to apply technology to build solutions across contexts.

2. It increases engagement

Not only does it provide students the opportunities they need to succeed in the future, but teaching digital skills will also increase engagement with your subject. Teachers we have trained have reported that students are more engaged in classes using BSD Online and our curriculum. It can enable a more interactive learning environment and helps make the learning more authentic.

Students can struggle with the real-world context of some topics and a common question is ‘Why are we learning this?’. Allowing your students to explore, build and create with it helps to make the connection to the real world much stronger and helps to pique students’ interest.

3. It develops vital soft skills

Point 1 highlighted the importance of learning technical skills to help students succeed in the future. However, the skills developed by bringing technology learning into your subject don’t stop there. Technology learning expands the mindsets of young people by developing ‘21st-century skills. By focusing on designing real-world products, students are learning how to apply technology, developing a range of critical competencies. For example:

When creating a solution or product, students often have to work together to combine complementary skills and must always consider whether the end product is actually going to work for the end-user. Students, therefore, need to work with others to: determine who will do what; understand potential users’ requirements; request and act on feedback; and share information about what they have designed and built.

None of this can be done without communication and collaboration skills.


Creativity links to building with technology in two main ways: Creativity in problem solving and creativity in design. When solving a real-world problem, students need to think creatively about how to solve it using a technological solution. Once students have decided on the product or solution, they need to think about the best way to design it. Thinking about the end-user, they need to consider user experience and user interface – nobody wants to use a poorly design product.

Computational thinking takes complex problems and breaks them into tiny pieces, which is exactly what students have to do when they are deciding how to use technology to provide solutions. In a rapidly changing future, students will have to solve problems constantly to adapt to the world around them.

Bringing technology learning into your subject is a win-win. Your classes will be more inspiring and engaging, whilst also giving your students the skills and competencies they need to succeed in their futures.

To find out how BSD empowers all teachers to bring technology learning into their classroom and give their students the tools of tomorrow, get in touch!

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Education Technology vs. Technology Education

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As educators, we want to bring our students the most relevant and engaging learning experience to prepare for the future. Furthermore, providing “meaningful digital activities” within courses is effective, and what does this mean? Where do you start? First of all, let’s debunk the differences between Education Technology (EdTech) versus Technology Education (Tech-Ed).

To boost the learning process in STEM, teachers use search engines to conduct research or write using Google Docs. Through EdTech, students use appropriate technology tools to do a traditional classroom activity more effectively, efficiently, or engagingly.

However, while using technology to improve formal education, many teachers are not changing “what” students learn. Unfortunately, many teachers are not changing “what” students learn by using technology to improve formal education. We need to teach our students to create rather than consume.

To learn more about how technology works, we recommend studying technology education which encompasses coding and programming, technology innovation, and computer science. Your school’s coding elective or technology class will likely cover technology education learning.

However, we still find the absence of a real-world connection and authenticity in classroom technology projects.

Education Technology
Technology Education
Using technology in your classroomTeaching how technology works

At BSD, we believe in a holistic approach to learning, where students are creatively pro-active and their education is sustainably relevant. So in our curriculum, we take on a blended approach to bring balance to technology learning. It shouldn’t be EdTech or tech-ed.

Additionally, we enable teachers to integrate technology meaningfully into their lessons by offering a project-based technology curriculum. These include projects like building a website to present research for history using HTML and CSS or reinforcing the learning of planets and orbit using JavaScript.

In the K-12 Comp-Sci Framework, the ‘practice’ highlights the opportunities and benefits of a cross-curricular approach to developing computational thinking purposefully.

Supported by tech in English, Mathematics, and Science, students develop their skills in defining problems and developing models through abstraction. Additionally, students hone their communication skills through exciting projects such as building an information chatbot to showcase their subject understanding. 

Therefore, schools prefer a more specialist approach to offer students the depth of learning, especially with the current curriculum demands.

Code Is: Your Voice

Try Code Is Your Voice today with 6 free coding projects to start building something different today!

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Advantages of Real World Technology Camps: Robotics with Micro:bit

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What is a micro:bit?

A micro:bit is a pocket-sized microcontroller designed by the BBC to enhance technology education in schools. With its versatile features, it can be programmed using JavaScript, Python, or block code. At BSD Education’s technology camps, students harness the power of micro:bit to build innovative projects like gaming consoles, fitness trackers, wearables, and more.

Using micro:bit, students develop valuable skills like design thinking, prototyping, coding, and working with materials and electronics. They also learn the importance of collaboration while creating their projects.

A micro:bit is a pocket sized microcontroller designed by the BBC for use in Technology Education education in schools. It can be programmed using JavaScript, Python or block code. A micro:bit has:

– 25 red LED lights that can flash messages and be used to create games.

– two programmable buttons that can be used to control games or hardware prototypes.

– an accelerometer, so it can detect motion and knows when the user is moving.

– a built-in compass which can be used to detect the direction and it can use a low energy

– a Bluetooth connection to interact with other devices and the Internet.

– power input and can be powered by a battery and additional sensors can be attached.

You can find more information about the micro:bit features here.

Students can use micro:bit to build a wide range of tools like gaming consoles, fitness trackers, wearables, autonomous vehicles, soil moisture and temperature sensors. In the process of programming a micro:bit and building tools with it, students develop skills like Design Thinking, prototyping, coding, experience working with materials and electronics, using hardware and collaboration. Let’s take a look at the skills students learn:

Design Thinking and Product Design

To build any functional tool, it’s of utmost importance to understand who the users are and to clearly define the problem – this is a direct application of Design Thinking.

While building tools with micro:bit, students will be encouraged to research and define who their user is, what the users’ needs are, and what problems their tool will solve. If students do not have this information, they will spend time researching.

Students will also learn to think about their tools as a product, so they will not only consider how it works and what problem it solves but will also have to consider what it looks like and what the user’s experience will be i.e. how the user will use it and interact with it. 

At our technology camps, students are encouraged to apply design thinking principles, understanding their users’ needs and the problems their projects will solve. This helps them create functional and user-friendly products.

Prototyping and Testing

Building a commercially viable product is a resource intensive task. In the industrial world, it takes the combined effort of numerous experts backed with R&D, financial resources and time. Before a product is ready for commercial use, it has to go through cycles of prototyping, testing, feedback and improvements.

Using micro:bit to build tools, Students learn the real-world industrial skills of prototyping and testing, using low-cost and easily available materials to iterate their designs based on user feedback. 

Materials

Most products or tools are built using numerous components and materials, the same is true for working prototypes.

While building products with micro:bit, students will have to consider:

1. The users: who will use it and how

2. The use case: where and in which situations will it be used

3. The wear and tear: does it have moving parts or does it need to be carried around or is it exposed to air and water

4. The safety for the products: are there any moving parts or open wiring

Students explore various materials like cardboard, paper, acrylic, PVC, and wood while building their micro:bit projects. They learn the basics of electronics, working with circuits and understanding electricity requirements for different components.

Basics of electronics

Micro:bit is powered by electricity, either via two AAA batteries or via a USB port. Students who use Micro:bit will learn how electricity works, how to wire different components together to create a circuit, how to ensure that device has the correct amount of electricity and what the electricity requirements are for different components like LED lights and motors or sensors like ultrasonic and moisture sensors.

Sensors

A micro:bit comes with four inbuilt sensors, and students can connect additional sensors to expand its capabilities. They learn to code in JavaScript, Python, and Blocks, developing computational thinking, creativity, and problem-solving skills.

These additional sensors include: 
– light sensor: detects ambient light
– temperature sensors: detects the current temperature of the device, in Celsius
– accelerometer: detects the acceleration of the micro:bit; it senses when the micro:bit is moved and other actions like shake, tilt, and free-fall
– compass: detects the earth’s magnetic field, allowing it to detect which direction the micro:bit is facing

Connecting additional sensors to the micro:bit opens a world of opportunities. A micro:bit can be connected to sound, ultrasonic, temperature and moisture sensors. For example, a micro:bit powered plant watering bot will need light, moisture and temperature sensors.

Learn to code

A micro:bit can be programmed using three coding languages – JavaScript, Python and Blocks. Learning how to program a micro:bit enables students to learn how to code as well as empowers them to have total control over the features of the micro:bit.

Learning to code is more than a technical skill. Coding develops soft skills like Computational Thinking, attention to detail, collaboration, creativity and problem solving.

Teamwork and collaboration

As previously mentioned, building a product or a working prototype requires collaboration between numerous people with different skills and working styles. Our technology camps emphasize teamwork and collaboration, mirroring real-world professional situations. Students work in groups, taking on different responsibilities and learning from each other as they create their micro:bit projects. Every member of the team has to select a specific responsibility, decide on deadline, communicate progress with the team members and learn from each other. 

Learning to make products or prototypes with micro:bit is a well rounded activity which teaches students technical skills like electronics, prototyping, testing, and coding. Students also gain transferable life skills like design thinking, communication and collaboration. Activities like this expose students to the emerging technologies they interact with every day, and encourages them to not just be consumers of technology but also creators of solutions while preparing them for technology first careers.

Join BSD Education’s technology camps to help students become creators of technology solutions and prepare for technology-first careers. Share your micro:bit experiences and projects with us, and we might feature them in our future newsletters!

If you are using micro:bit in your lessons we would love to hear how you are using them and would love to feature your experience and your students’ products in our future newsletters.