Great introduction to the 'open builder' app world.

Submitted 9 years ago

Community Review for Toca Builders

Donald P.
Donald P.
My Rating
Pedagogy
Supports

My Take

Toca Boca Builders is the favorite of the Toca apps both of my students and myself. It reminds me of my bucket of blocks that I had as a kid. No matter what fancy flashy toy I received, I always went back to my blocks. Why? Because they encouraged me to use my imagination to build things to play with. Toca Builders works the same way but in a virtual world. While there are limitations to how big things can be built and that everything has to be built in a gridded pattern (again think Legos), students quickly adapt to these limitations. As with most of the Toca apps, ELL and special needs students fit this app perfectly as it encourages experimentation and 'trial and error' without requiring any reading. Mistakes are easily undone and the learning curve might seem steep to us as adults, but to your students, they pick up the layout and tools almost intuitively.

How I Use It

Toca Boca Builders is the most used app of all the Toca apps when students are allowed 'free time'. I refer to it affectionately as 'baby mine craft' as it definitely has a 'Mine Craft lite' feel. In fact my students that truly loved Toca builders, I then moved on to Mine Craft. Toca Builders allows students to create and build with blocks, changing the colors, adding and taking away at will with the use of different characters. It has the feel of playing with Lego's in a virtual world. I have given students directives of what to build (Egyptian pyramids, log cabins, etc) and works well as an extension to social studies lessons as students can take pictures of their creations to then use within other apps or applications. Students however, prefer to be just let loose, much like a child with a big box of blocks.

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Margaret A P.
Margaret A P. Director of STEAM Innovation Philadelphia, PA
May 12, 2014

An open-ended virtual world ready for students' creations.

I think there is a lot of potential to use this app as a tool to support storytelling and creative expression. You could invite students to use the app as a place to brainstorm ideas and settings for a story or as a place to re-create a story they have read in class in a new way. Since the app allows students to add and remove characters, it could also be a way to animate math (e.g., adding and subtracting blocks or painted areas) and it could be a great way for students to create basic models of new places or time periods that they are learning about (e.g., the triassic period or a city in Africa). Although the app does not allow students to use multiple builders at a time, I found that this encouraged students to work collaboratively and negotiate roles, which is an important part of social-emotional development for young students. I like that the app is easy for young children to use but also complex, in that it provides six different types of builders who work in unique ways and allow for different forms of (de)construction. I think the in-app camera function is great because it makes it easy to app-smash and combine students' creations from Toca Builders with other apps. I wish it were possible for students to have usernames in the app and to know which students are working on which projects. It would also be great if you could export a panoramic view or 360 video of students' creations.
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