Using VEX 123 Printables
Watch this video to learn about the VEX 123 Printables available, and how to use these resources to support students project planning, project saving, and group work. See examples of how to incorporate the printables into your teaching and classroom environment, so that you can incorporate these worksheets with your students.
(upbeat music)
Hi, everybody, welcome back to the VEX Classroom. My name is Audra, and today we're gonna talk about using VEX 123 printables with your students. We have a wealth of different kinds and colors of printables, literally, different colors. We'd just like to take a moment to talk to you about some of the different ways that you can use these in your teaching to support project planning, project saving, creating project archives, and much, much more.
So to begin with, why did we create these printables? We created them with teachers in mind. I know that at least for me, when I was teaching, I was really great at teaching so many things, but coding and robotics was something new to me. It was something outside of my comfort zone. So with that kind of a mindset, we created these printables to be able to give you a vehicle to kind of bridge from things that you're comfortable with, right? Hands-on, worksheet-based, tactile sorts of styles of learning and teaching. And to take that and kind of give you a bridge between that and using the robot in your classroom.
So let's talk about what some of these printables are and the ways that you can use them. There are many that you can use with your students that they can write on, that you can use and give out in a learning center or as part of your STEM lab. For instance, we have printables like this one that have all of the touch buttons laid out. If you're doing project planning and you want your students to plan their projects before they press the touch buttons, this gives them a really great way to be able to kind of color in each of the buttons that they're going to be pressing, then code it into their robot.
This also gives you as the teacher a wonderful tool when your students say, "Oh, Ms. Audra, Ms. Audra, my robot didn't do what I wanted it to do." Well, I can look at this sheet and say, hmm, all right, it was supposed to drive in a square. I know the pattern that I'm looking for, but I can see that something's wrong in the middle. So we can say, all right, well, let's take a look at this step. Let's watch what our robot does. It gives you a place to be able to know what the students have done already, 'cause pressing those touch buttons is a fleeting moment, right? If you don't catch them in the moment, you might miss what it was that they coded into their robot. This gives you a way to do that and to support that kind of project planning for individual students and individual groups.
This also works with the Coder and motion planning. If you want to talk about project planning and being able to plot where your robot is supposed to go in your project, we have motion planning sheets that support that. We also have planning and project sheets that do both at the same time. These are available for Coder and for touch buttons, where students can enter in their project and also plot where the robot is supposed to go. These are great for students to use individually or in their groups to be able to code things. This gives you a great tool for saving projects as well. Again, using touch or using the Coder.
The Coder's a fantastic tool, but if you don't want to have to take pictures of your Coder every time, students may want to save their projects in a way that they can do in a VEXcode or in a computer-based program. But with touch and Coder, the beauty of it being off the screen is that we have to find another vehicle for them to be able to save projects. The printables give you a way to do that. You can save touch projects now, you can save Coder projects. This also gives students a place to practice that beginning writing, so they can draw their Coder cards in.
Thank you for joining us today to learn about VEX 123 printables. We hope these tools will enhance your teaching and help your students succeed in coding and robotics. If you have any questions or need further assistance, feel free to reach out. Happy teaching!
They can practice writing, they can practice uppercase, lowercase, whatever kinds of things you're working on in the literacy aspect of your classroom. They can save projects to show other students how to do their project and how their project is supposed to work. These can be great things to keep in a learning center to keep an archive of saved projects. This way, students can take some pride in some ownership over what they're doing.
In addition, we also have things that you can use that are kind of tangible items as well. We’ve made large versions of the touch buttons. If you are teaching whole group instruction and you have students in their pairs, one is going to be in charge of pushing the buttons on the robot. The other student can be in charge of either lining up their Coder touch buttons or completing the fill-in sheet. You, as the teacher, can build the project together with your students. You can print out these big touch buttons, laminate them, throw a magnet on the back, and now we can teach with these touch buttons.
As I put my project together, I can say, "Okay, is everybody ready? Hold up your printable. Let me see, all right, everybody has these same three buttons. Now we're gonna code it in together, ready? First, we're gonna press this, okay? Next, we're going to press this. Number three, we're gonna press this." This way, it gives you a way to organize your group instruction.
You can do the same thing with the Coder. We have printable Coder cards that you can print at any size. Again, laminate them, throw a magnet on the back, and now we've got Coder cards that we can add to the board. You can build your Coder project up here and have students complete it. If you have one student that's putting the Coder cards into the Coder, the other student can be adding it to the worksheet. Everyone stays involved in that group instruction, so this way everybody is working together. Then the students hold up their Coders, they hold up their printable. You check it against what you've built on there. Everybody is good, we act happy.
In addition to being able to teach with the printables and use them for individual students, they're a great resource to add to your learning center. In your learning center, you want to be able to have enough materials that the students can complete the activity at hand, but not so many that it's overwhelming. These are resources that students can use to help them as they're planning projects, the same way that you did during your group instruction. They can do that same thing when they're working in their learning centers.
It's also a great way, again, to have your saved projects, which you can send home and show parents what students have done. It's a great way to be able to communicate abstract concepts like spatial reasoning with families that may be a little bit confused about what their students are doing with a robot in first grade. You can say, "Okay, we're thinking about spatial reasoning, we're working on plotting how our robot is going to move, and this is the way that your student did it."
Because the 123 robot is so simple to use, during a parent-teacher conference where you're sharing this work, you can start up your robot, have the parents press these buttons, and in 10 seconds, be able to give them a hands-on tangible idea of what their students have learned with this robot. They learn about literacy, spatial reasoning, coding, or all of those things combined together in a really integrated and wonderful way.
If you're looking for where you can find these resources, we've got a knowledge base article that has all of the printables in one place.
Thank you for your attention and dedication to enhancing your students' learning experiences. We hope these resources will be valuable in your teaching journey.
If you're looking for the purpose of each of the printables, this knowledge base article will give you a little description in case you've forgotten or are looking for something new. It provides a description of each of the printables so that you can access and save them on your own. They're all PDF forms, so you can print them directly from this knowledge base article.
Also included are the art ring canvases. If you want to learn more about using the art ring canvas, we have a great video on using the art ring in your classroom. You can watch that to learn more about the art ring canvases. In addition to being in the knowledge base, the printables are also linked in the materials list of many of our STEM labs.
I hope this has given you an idea of how you can use printables to enhance 123 work in your classroom. The goal is for these to be a tool for you and your students to use, to bring learning to life and help connect it in as many ways as possible.
So have fun learning and working with VEX 123, and we'll see you again in the VEX classroom soon.
(upbeat music)
Hi, everybody, welcome back to the VEX Classroom. My name is Audra, and today we're gonna talk about using VEX 123 printables with your students. We have a wealth of different kinds and colors of printables, literally, different colors. We'd just like to take a moment to talk to you about some of the different ways that you can use these in your teaching to support project planning, project saving, creating project archives, and much, much more.
So to begin with, why did we create these printables? We created them with teachers in mind. I know that at least for me, when I was teaching, I was really great at teaching so many things, but coding and robotics was something new to me. It was something outside of my comfort zone. So with that kind of a mindset, we created these printables to be able to give you a vehicle to kind of bridge from things that you're comfortable with, right? Hands-on, worksheet-based, tactile sorts of styles of learning and teaching. And to take that and kind of give you a bridge between that and using the robot in your classroom.
So let's talk about what some of these printables are and the ways that you can use them. There are many that you can use with your students that they can write on, that you can use and give out in a learning center or as part of your STEM lab. For instance, we have printables like this one that have all of the touch buttons laid out. If you're doing project planning and you want your students to plan their projects before they press the touch buttons, this gives them a really great way to be able to kind of color in each of the buttons that they're going to be pressing, then code it into their robot.
This also gives you as the teacher a wonderful tool when your students say, "Oh, Ms. Audra, Ms. Audra, my robot didn't do what I wanted it to do." Well, I can look at this sheet and say, hmm, all right, it was supposed to drive in a square. I know the pattern that I'm looking for, but I can see that something's wrong in the middle. So we can say, all right, well, let's take a look at this step. Let's watch what our robot does. It gives you a place to be able to know what the students have done already, 'cause pressing those touch buttons is a fleeting moment, right? If you don't catch them in the moment, you might miss what it was that they coded into their robot. This gives you a way to do that and to support that kind of project planning for individual students and individual groups.
This also works with the Coder and motion planning. If you want to talk about project planning and being able to plot where your robot is supposed to go in your project, we have motion planning sheets that support that. We also have planning and project sheets that do both at the same time. These are available for Coder and for touch buttons, where students can enter in their project and also plot where the robot is supposed to go. These are great for students to use individually or in their groups to be able to code things. This gives you a great tool for saving projects as well. Again, using touch or using the Coder.
The Coder's a fantastic tool, but if you don't want to have to take pictures of your Coder every time, students may want to save their projects in a way that they can do in a VEXcode or in a computer-based program. But with touch and Coder, the beauty of it being off the screen is that we have to find another vehicle for them to be able to save projects. The printables give you a way to do that. You can save touch projects now, you can save Coder projects. This also gives students a place to practice that beginning writing, so they can draw their Coder cards in.
Thank you for joining us today to learn about VEX 123 printables. We hope these tools will enhance your teaching and help your students succeed in coding and robotics. If you have any questions or need further assistance, feel free to reach out. Happy teaching!
They can practice writing, they can practice uppercase, lowercase, whatever kinds of things you're working on in the literacy aspect of your classroom. They can save projects to show other students how to do their project and how their project is supposed to work. These can be great things to keep in a learning center to keep an archive of saved projects. This way, students can take some pride in some ownership over what they're doing.
In addition, we also have things that you can use that are kind of tangible items as well. We’ve made large versions of the touch buttons. If you are teaching whole group instruction and you have students in their pairs, one is going to be in charge of pushing the buttons on the robot. The other student can be in charge of either lining up their Coder touch buttons or completing the fill-in sheet. You, as the teacher, can build the project together with your students. You can print out these big touch buttons, laminate them, throw a magnet on the back, and now we can teach with these touch buttons.
As I put my project together, I can say, "Okay, is everybody ready? Hold up your printable. Let me see, all right, everybody has these same three buttons. Now we're gonna code it in together, ready? First, we're gonna press this, okay? Next, we're going to press this. Number three, we're gonna press this." This way, it gives you a way to organize your group instruction.
You can do the same thing with the Coder. We have printable Coder cards that you can print at any size. Again, laminate them, throw a magnet on the back, and now we've got Coder cards that we can add to the board. You can build your Coder project up here and have students complete it. If you have one student that's putting the Coder cards into the Coder, the other student can be adding it to the worksheet. Everyone stays involved in that group instruction, so this way everybody is working together. Then the students hold up their Coders, they hold up their printable. You check it against what you've built on there. Everybody is good, we act happy.
In addition to being able to teach with the printables and use them for individual students, they're a great resource to add to your learning center. In your learning center, you want to be able to have enough materials that the students can complete the activity at hand, but not so many that it's overwhelming. These are resources that students can use to help them as they're planning projects, the same way that you did during your group instruction. They can do that same thing when they're working in their learning centers.
It's also a great way, again, to have your saved projects, which you can send home and show parents what students have done. It's a great way to be able to communicate abstract concepts like spatial reasoning with families that may be a little bit confused about what their students are doing with a robot in first grade. You can say, "Okay, we're thinking about spatial reasoning, we're working on plotting how our robot is going to move, and this is the way that your student did it."
Because the 123 robot is so simple to use, during a parent-teacher conference where you're sharing this work, you can start up your robot, have the parents press these buttons, and in 10 seconds, be able to give them a hands-on tangible idea of what their students have learned with this robot. They learn about literacy, spatial reasoning, coding, or all of those things combined together in a really integrated and wonderful way.
If you're looking for where you can find these resources, we've got a knowledge base article that has all of the printables in one place.
Thank you for your attention and dedication to enhancing your students' learning experiences. We hope these resources will be valuable in your teaching journey.
If you're looking for the purpose of each of the printables, this knowledge base article will give you a little description in case you've forgotten or are looking for something new. It provides a description of each of the printables so that you can access and save them on your own. They're all PDF forms, so you can print them directly from this knowledge base article.
Also included are the art ring canvases. If you want to learn more about using the art ring canvas, we have a great video on using the art ring in your classroom. You can watch that to learn more about the art ring canvases. In addition to being in the knowledge base, the printables are also linked in the materials list of many of our STEM labs.
I hope this has given you an idea of how you can use printables to enhance 123 work in your classroom. The goal is for these to be a tool for you and your students to use, to bring learning to life and help connect it in as many ways as possible.
So have fun learning and working with VEX 123, and we'll see you again in the VEX classroom soon.
(upbeat music)
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