Challenges for Using Robots in Elementary Education WEBINAR

Challenges of using robots in elementary education

Friday, February 19

15h30 Azores | Georgia 11h30 | Lausanne 17h30

Robotics for education in and out of the classroom

• Jeffrey H. Rosen (Georgia Institute of Technology - CEISMC)

He will focus on their NSF (National Science Foundation) project AMP-IT-UP STEM-ID that uses robots to perform basic operations as students learn math and science concepts. The second part he will share about the FIRST LEGO League program, a global robotics and research program for ages 9-16 that has an annual theme and challenges children to solve mission and design solutions to address a global awareness issue.

Educational robotics online

• Christian Giang (SUPSI – Scuola universitaria professionale della Svizzera italiana)

• Melissa Skweres (EPFL LEARN – Center for Learning Sciences)

Part A – Christian Giang

Under the Educational Robotics Online umbrella, he will present some examples of activities that his group performed during the lockdown (with and without access to robots; at primary school, high school and for teacher training). Since the pandemic is still ongoing he thinks it will be interesting to exchange how such activities can be organized at distance (and in all different lockdown variations).

Slides of Cristian's Presentation

Part B – Melissa Skweres

She will present quickly EPFL LEARN and its two projects:

1. www.roteco.com - an online robotic teacher community aimed at supporting primary/middle school teachers to include robotics in their classrooms by bringing together the community of teachers as well as educational professionals, institutions (teacher training universities and continuting professional development for teachers) and researchers.

2. http://www.r2t2-collaboration.com - using the educational robot Thymio. It is possible to program a Thymio in the classroom and then take this knowledge to program a Thymio remotely in real time with a slight delay to reach Mars (at the EPFL) in a collaborative teamwork challenge.

A robotic project for Elementary Schools in the Azores

• José Cascalho (GRIA-LIACC FCT - Universidade dos Açores)

He will present the Azoresbot didactic robot used in the regional open robotics initiative in 2019 and the new version of the same robot to be used in schools and the university.

• Paulo Novo (Universidade de Lisboa)

He starts to displayed an overview of the use of robots in the Azores with first steps made by the clubs of robotics in schools. Then he presents a new robot for elementary schools as a concept of low-cost and self-made project.