We’re all scrambling to make these final weeks of the school year meaningful—like we do every year. This year—you might have noticed—is a bit different, however. Learning is almost completely online. Teachers miss their students. Graduations and proms have been cancelled. Most students already know they won’t be in a school again until (at least) the fall. It’s seriously strange, but, like all of us, we’re trying to make this period of time as normal and productive as possible. That’s why we’re very excited to share more about what they’ve been up to at Wonder Workshop and how one of our most creative partners are keeping coding education alive with new tools in their Class Connect platform.
Wonder Workshop is the company behind the Dash, Dot, and Cue Robots—all of which can help students learn coding, computational thinking, and problem-solving skills in a fun and engaging way. The Dash and Dot are typically used in lower elementary grades and the Cue is gradually introduced to students as they build a computer science foundation in upper elementary or middle school. Both the Dash and Dot (or the Dash by itself) makes use of block coding and the Cue allows them to take the next step—text coding.
Few students (and teachers for that matter) are able to use the physical Dash, Dot, or Cue robots while they’re learning remotely, however. So, Wonder Workshop ramped up design of their virtual environment known as Dash's Neighborhood so that educators could continue to teach coding remotely and, more importantly, students could continue to learn about computer science. Wonder Workshop announced the creation of the Dash Playground during the opening keynote of their Virtual Summit, which was held over the last few weeks and we were very grateful for the opportunity to sponsor Jasmine Saab's session.
With that being said, we all know that no distance learning solution is perfect, but the summer slide has essentially been extended by two or three months this school year. That means, when (and if) students return to school in the fall, there’s a very high chance they’ve forgotten a lot of what they learned in the previous school year—both in the classroom and remotely. Unfortunately, coding is not immune from the summer slide. The robot simulator from Wonder Workshop is designed to minimize the summer slide and, hopefully, provide just that little bit of continuity to keep kids engaged and learning while they’re home.
While the Class Connect technology is fantastic, there's no doubt that there are learning gaps resulting from school closures, most notably, the access gap. We know that not every child can access the Internet every day—it’s no secret that every education company is considering this as they develop their distance learning solutions. Unfortunately, online learning is, for all intents and purposes, the only way of teaching.
With that in mind, Wonder Workshop developed the Dash Playground to work in a blended environment, to be accessible anytime and anywhere, to be learner centric, to allow teachers to track student progress and provide support, and to provide parents with knowledge and comfortability. It might not be totally perfect for everybody, but the features for making it as ubiquitous as possible are there.
The introduction of the virtual Dash environment in Class Connect allows students to keep up with coding at home and, ultimately, ease the transition for them when they return to their classrooms. It will also help teachers to continue to lead coding instruction, monitor the progress of their students, and, likewise, jump back into traditional instruction more fluidly in the fall.
So, how can an educator get started with using the Dash Playground? It launched in the middle of May and all you need to have a Class Connect account in order to get started.
Normally a paid service, Wonder Workshop is offering a free trial of Class Connect through June 30, 2020! Educators can log in or create a Class Connect profile on the Wonder Workshop website. Upon signing up for an account, teachers will receive a teacher code via email to enter at the Blockly website. Once logged into Class Connect, the teacher code can be found in the ‘Classrooms’ tab. Also, check out the complete, step-by-step launch guide.
In addition to the free trial of Class Connect and chance to use the robot simulator, Wonder Workshop is now including a 1-year subscription to Class Connect in their K-5 bundles. If interested, educators could also purchase a 2-year or 3-year subscription to Class Connect, which are available with added savings. You can find the Wonder Workshop bundles as well as all of the Wonder Workshops kits on our store.
If you have any questions about Class Connect, the Dash Robot Playground, Blockly, or Wonder Workshop products in general, please feel free to contact us. Also, you can find all of the Virtual Summit sessions on the Wonder Workshop site. We hope everyone continues to make the most of distance learning and we thank Wonder Workshop for all they continue to do for teachers and students. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram for our latest updates and check out the Wonder Workshop bundles on our store.