Today, we are excited to announce a brand new tool for educators called Wonder Workshop Class Connect, available for a free trial as part of My Wonder Workshop online.
More schools are adopting coding and robotics every day as a way to build 21st century skills. Classrooms around the world have successfully integrated Dash & Dot into core subjects like ELA, math, and science, and are seeing a special kind of student engagement and perseverance through tough challenges. While they solve problems with robots, students reason out loud, collaborate towards complex goals, and celebrate tangible evidence of success along the way. It’s inspiring!
But while passion for coding and robotics learning continues to grow, educators wonder how to differentiate instruction with the right activities, lessons, and challenges. Additionally, many education leaders seek a way to support more teachers with a clear, efficient, and approachable way to get started.
We created Wonder Workshop Class Connect so that any teacher, regardless of experience, can successfully reach every student with inspiring and relevant coding and robotics curriculum.
All of our Wonder Workshop products are tested in real classrooms during design and development and Class Connect is no different. We piloted an early prototype of our Blockly Dashboard with 30 educators and hundreds of students across the country and quickly learned what was effective and where we needed to improve.
Kayla Sadd, a K–5 Technology Teacher from Iowa, said it best when referring to Class Connect, “It helps me to see where students are getting stuck and where they could use more of a challenge. I am able to easily plan for a conversation with students to push their learning based on a quick glance at the dashboard.”
But what we found during this pilot was that many educators needed more robust classroom management, just-in-time resources, and ways to facilitate collaboration with more teachers. These conversations led us to improve the features that address those needs and make schoolwide coding and robotics success possible.
Capture student progress instantly
Class Connect provides a way to track progress for every student using the Blockly app. With an online classroom manager, cloud-based student profiles, and an always-on dashboard, teachers can get their class up and running quickly and know exactly where students need more help or a greater challenge.
Teach with relevant resources
Teachers using Class Connect can diagnose their students’ coding level and check for understanding throughout our K-5 Learn to Code Curriculum. You will see exactly what code your students wrote and which concepts were involved, plus find additional lessons and opportunities for independent practice to help students succeed.
Integrate coding and robotics schoolwide
With Class Connect’s classroom sharing feature, technology leaders and coaches can introduce Dash & Dot to new teachers and continue to support them with shared access to class roster and progress. Discover opportunities to co-teach, try new cross-curricular lessons, or simply encourage integration.
Starting today, you can sign up for a Free Trial of Class Connect or purchase a license as part of our brand new Teacher Success Pack and School Success Pack, which give teachers access to all of our premium tools to maximize the impact on student learning. These tools include curriculum, professional development resources, as well as the Class Connect service.
We look forward to seeing how Class Connect can support our teacher community in bringing coding to life with robotics in their classrooms!
