Update for schools wanting any of their students to complete the Challenge at home
Learn to Speak Robot also has an Outside School option for those who wish to complete the Challenge at home with family – simply share the link with families wishing to complete the Challenge at home.
Access the Learn to Speak Robot ‘Outside Schools’ option here.
Learn to Speak Robot
The Learn to Speak Robot Challenge is a coding and computational thinking challenge for children in South Australia.
Complete any four of the free digital thinking Challenge Activities before 25 September 2020 to complete the Challenge.
Most of the Challenge Activities are well suited to students from middle primary to early secondary but students across all year levels are welcome to take part.
South Australian schools and homeschool groups are asked to register.
Registration
Check if your school is registered here.
If not, register your school now – it’s free and takes under a minute!
Schools have until 25 September 2020 to complete the challenge.
DIGITAL THINKING
FOR CHILDREN
REGISTER NOW!
STEPS FOR SCHOOLS
Step 1
Find out if your school is already registered here.
Step 2
If your school is not yet registered, register your school.
Registration is free and takes less than a minute.
Step 3
Every school that has registered will nominate a Challenge Coordinator who will print or share the Coding Record with all students taking part.
Challenge Coordinators are able to run the Challenge however they like. They may be a teacher wishing to run the Challenge with their own class or they may run the Challenge via any number of other teachers at the school.
The Challenge is open to all year levels.
There’s no minimum or maximum number of students required for a school to register and take part.
Step 4
Coordinators or teachers can choose any four Challenge Activities to work through together or students can choose their own.
Run the activities however suits your school.
Step 5
Look at the Beginner’s Guide if you aren’t sure what activities to choose.
Step 6
Take a note of the key dates to make sure you complete the Challenge in time.
Step 7
Challenge Coordinators are asked to collect all students’ Coding Records and retain them for 6 months.
Step 8
Challenge Coordinators will use the forms to complete and submit the Challenge Completion Form before the deadline of 25 September 2020.
The Challenge Completion Form invites each school to provide a student testimonial on taking part in the Challenge. The most creative and insightful entries win cool digital rewards.
The Challenge Activities
Not sure what Challenge Activities to select for your students?
Check out the recommended activities in our Beginner’s Guide.
Or explore the full range of free step-by-step activities here:
Access DT Hub™
Activities
Access Hour of Code™ Activities
Access Grok Learning™ Activities
Access CS Unplugged™ Activities
Access MakeCode™ Activities
Access Code Club™ Activities
Rewards for Schools
Schools taking part are eligible to win digital rewards for the benefit of all students when they submit their School’s Challenge Completion form for Learn to Speak Robot in 2020.
2 double-packs of VEX IQ Super Kits have been donated by VEX Robotics, a Virtual Tour of your school to add another dimension to your school’s website has been donated by EWS, plus there are many more digital rewards to be announced later in the year.
Every student completing the Challenge also earns a Learn to Speak Robot Certificate of Achievement from the Commissioner for Children and Young People for 2020.
*Terms and conditions apply. Please refer to the full Terms and Conditions for more information.
Key Dates
STUDENTS RETURN FORMS
11 Sept 2020 (recommendation only)
Schools are advised to ask students to return their completed coding records to their Challenge Coordinator well in advance of the Challenge closing date so your Challenge Coordinator has plenty of time to submit your school’s Challenge Completion Form.
CHALLENGE CLOSES
25 Sept 2020 (Last day Term 3)
REWARDS DISTRIBUTED
Term 4 2020
Forms
Coding Record
Print or share with every student taking part – to be completed by each student and retained by their school Challenge Coordinator
(PDF, 71KB)
Challenge Completion Form
(Link to online form)
EXTEND THEIR DIGITAL LEARNING POWERS
Promotional Materials
A4 Poster for schools
(502KB, PDF)
A3 Poster for schools
(738KB, PDF)
Commissioner's Message
Last year 217 schools, 31 libraries and an estimated 19,026 children got on board with my Learn to Speak Robot Challenge.
Learn to Speak Robot will run each year and I am also introducing my brand new design thinking challenge – Space to Dream.
Space to Dream is all about learning to be an effective and creative problem solver. Down the track, systems thinking, digital literacy and digital citizenship themed-challenges will join the mix.
Our future requires bold thinkers who know how to create out-of-the-box solutions – so let’s encourage as many children and young people in South Australia as possible to take a journey towards digital empowerment with my Digital Challenge in 2020.
I can’t wait to see all of your amazing, beautiful, funny, sunny, inspiring, useful and ground-breaking Space to Dream designs later this year!
Helen Connolly
Commissioner for Children and Young People, South Australia
Benefits
Ally Watson
CEO & Co-Founder at Code Like A Girl
Paul Clapton-Caputo
Leader at Learning Technologies, Leadership Development, Department for Education ǀ Director at Educators SA ǀ Principal Consultant at EdTechSA
Professor Katrina Falkner
Lead at Computer Science Education Research (CSER) Group | Lead at Centre for Distributed and Intelligent Technologies - Modelling and Analysis
Dr Rebecca Vivian
Research Fellow at Computer Science Education Research (CSER) Group
Professor James Curran
Academic Director at Australian Computing Academy | Director at National Computer Science School | CEO at Grok Learning
The Commissioner's Digital Challenge is
proudly supported by
Acknowledgement of Country
We respectfully acknowledge and celebrate the Traditional Owners of the lands throughout South Australia and we pay our respects to their Elders – and to past, present and future generations of their children and young people.
