This is great for team building and hand on exploring. (Discover your hands on learners).

Divide the class into teams of a maximum six students, ideally three students.

For the first time each team should have a supervising / helping adult who is familiar with Ed-Blocs.

Set up Ed-Blocs hardware in a permanent area (so teacher don't have to carry them), ideally a corner of the library. Book Ed-Blocs in and out like a book in the library computer system to ensure you know where they are at all times. Sharing with other schools reduces costs and creates opportunities to have school design competitions on environmental issues like saving water, etc.

If you don't have Ed-Blocs hardware use the schools computer class room to access the hardware simulator in "Open Mode" of the "lessons" section of the website. Get your school access so you can create student logins by emailing pgkpeter@gmail.com.

Download the exploring sheet, progress sheet, information cards, student work sheets and teacher manual from the "Download" section of the website.

You only need case 1 (eight Ed-Blocs) to do all activities in the 5 simple lessons. Watch the kids really enjoy the hand on experience.

Schedule 2 groups of students and 2 adults in 1.5 hour sessions. 

Give each team one of the following

(1)     Talking stick (wooden spoon) 

(2)     Throwing “dice”

(3)     “Team building and Ed-blocs exploring work sheet”

Advise teams they have

• 5 minutes to organise roles within the team.

• The throwing of the dice determines the leader - highest number becomes the leader. Only those who haven't been a leader get to roll the dice. The leader takes control of the team and delegates by his decision who does which role. It is his responsibility to ensure everyone has a chance to express their ideas to the team and that only one person speaks at a time by deciding who has the talking stick (wooden spoon).

• 10 minutes to explore the Ed-blocs function without the Ed-blocs information card. The number of inputs times the number of positions of the input equals the number of combinations to try at the same time monitoring the effect on the output and recording.

• 5 minutes to present the teams findings to the teacher

• The teacher then hands out that Ed-bloc information card to the team.

• 10 minutes to re-explore the Ed-bloc with the Ed-bloc information card.

• 5 minutes to present final report and example of where this Ed-bloc could be used to the teacher.

The teacher then inserts

• the date into each student’s own “progress sheet” against the Ed-bloc they explored 

• the date into the “role” they did in the team structure

Get the team to explore another Ed-blocs. Keep the team as is, to allow them to improve in 2nd go at the role.

The teacher then inserts

• the date into each student’s own “progress sheet” against 2nd Ed-bloc they explored.

When the team has explored two Ed-blocs give them a design challenge. If they haven’t wasted any time they should have about 20 minutes for it left from the 1.5 hours.