Louise Sallé 10:44 a.m., February 26, 2022

Programming the route of an object by detailing each stage of its journey: this is the principle of computer code.

It can be taught very young, from the middle section, with beneficial effects on the speed of reasoning, the spirit of logic and even the relationship to error. 

Computer coding is far from inaccessible.

It is even possible, and beneficial, to introduce students to the logic of this language from kindergarten.

A flagship game, used in nearly 10,000 schools in France, allows you to do this: a small robot in the shape of a bee.

The children must plan in advance the path that the animal will take on a grid floor. 

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Séverine Haudebourg, teacher of medium and large section in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques, uses this bee-robot with her students.

"Children understand very easily that it is by pressing the buttons that you can program it, make it move forward, rotate it...", she explains.

"So we start with very simple activities and then we make it more complex by estimating distances, passing on grid supports", adds this teacher who has also published an educational book on this subject,

I'm learning to program a robot,

to editions Nathan.

A more serene "report to error"

Thanks to this robot bee, his students' reasoning speed has accelerated and they have developed many skills such as logic, algorithmic thinking and location in space.

"For example, I never spent too much time teaching them to distinguish between left and right," rejoices Séverine.

She adds: "The most important concept, which they integrate thanks to the code, is the relationship to error. As soon as they make a mistake, they will have a lot of perseverance and start over again many times, until until they succeed and the bee finds its way," she says. 

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The recovery plan, which followed the Covid crisis, made it possible to release an envelope of 105 million euros devoted to "digital education".

Town halls are therefore now subsidized to buy this type of device, and more and more of them are equipping their schools.