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Teaching the Notion of Speed in Kindergarten Using the Sphero SPRK Robot
Abstract
Educational research in Kindergarten is gradually gaining more attention. Children who attend quality care and education programs in their early years are benefited in their future life. Also, Kindergarten lately attracts the attention of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) approaches and seems that such activities can be implemented easily in this level of education with important positive results in children’s life. In this paper the results of a teaching intervention for approaching the notion of speed in Kindergarten, utilizing the Sphero robot, are presented, indicating the feasibility of designing robotic-enhanced activities for fostering STEM education in Kindergarten.
Teaching the Notion of Speed in Kindergarten Using the Sphero SPRK Robot | Request PDF. Available from: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/318975468_Teaching_the_Notion_of_Speed_in_Kindergarten_Using_the_Sphero_SPRK_Robot [accessed Sep 13 2018].
... Type of language: Block-based and text-based. Sphero is an environment for programming the spherical educational robots Sphero BOLT, SPRK+, and Sphero Mini[46,103], which have a derivative resembling Star Wars' BB8 robot that was sold by the respective company under a license agreement. The language's visual syntax is based on Scratch, while JavaScript is also offered as a language with textual syntax. ...
Mobile robots are becoming increasingly important in society. Fulfilling complex missions in different contexts and environments, robots are promising instruments to support our everyday live. As such, the task of defining the robot’s mission is moving from professional developers and roboticists to the end-users. However, with the current state-of-the-art, defining missions is non-trivial and typically requires dedicated programming skills. Since end-users usually lack such skills, many commercial robots are nowadays equipped with environments and domain-specific languages tailored for end-users. As such, the software support for defining missions is becoming an increasingly relevant criterion when buying or choosing robots. Improving these environments and languages for specifying missions toward simplicity and flexibility is crucial. To this end, we need to improve our empirical understanding of the current state-of-the-art of such languages and their environments. In this paper, we contribute in this direction. We present a survey of 30 mission specification environments for mobile robots that come with a visual and end-user-oriented language. We explore the design space of these languages and their environments, identify their concepts, and organize them as features in a feature model. We believe that our results are valuable to practitioners and researchers designing the next generation of mission specification languages in the vibrant domain of mobile robots.
... These problems may also be extended to multi-cop and multi-robber cases. Moreover, in the future work, we plan to apply the proposed method to a real application, for example, Sphero robots [43], and improve the algorithmic performance in real. ...
Cops and Robbers problems are classical examples of pursuit and evasion problems which are parts of key researches in the field of robotics. This study shall specifically focus on the evasion strategies of robbers. This study presents the receding horizon optimization method to obtain such strategies of robbers and solves the Cops and Robbers problems in a complex environment with obstacles. In this method, the robbers estimate the control variables of the cops in real time to address the difficulties in obtaining the complete pursuit strategies of the latter for solving the evasion strategies. This method also guarantees the real-time solutions of receding horizon optimization problems. Orthogonal collocation is utilized to discretize the Cops and Robbers dynamic model, and then the resulting nonlinear programming problem is solved to obtain the optimal control. To improve the accuracy of the solution, we propose an iterative hp-adaptive mesh refinement strategy to satisfy the optimality conditions by adjusting the number of finite elements and the order of Lagrange polynomials. This mesh refinement strategy also iteratively uses finite elements and collocation points as well as applies the finite element merging strategy to improve the solution efficiency. The proposed method also provides a framework for solving other pursuit and evasion problems in a complex environment with obstacles.
... De hecho, lo de no utilizar pantallas para niños es algo nominal puramente para ellos, de forma casi inmediata utilizan iPad, iPhone y Mac para programar y controlar el artilugio. Un trabajo al respecto sobre sus posibilidades lo hacen Ioannou y Bratitsis (2017, July) en Teaching the notion of Speed in Kindergarten using the Sphero SPRK robot. Sin embargo, los resultados son pobres, sólo aprendizajes conceptuales sobre términos y acciones que serían igualmente posibles, e incluso más eficaces, de adquirir con un diseño mucho más simple y sin tanto aparataje tecnológico que puede complicarlo y hacerlo distractivo. ...
La idea de pensamiento computacional desenchufado (Computational thinking unplugged) hace referencia a un conjunto de actividades que se elaboran para fomentar en los niños habilidades que pueden ser evocadas después, para favorecer el pensamiento computacional. Estas actividades están pensadas y diseñadas para ser incluidas en las primeras etapas de desarrollo cognitivo (educación infantil, primer tramo de la educación primaria, juegos en casa con los padres y los amigos, etc.). Las habilidades están pensadas para que puedan ser evocadas en otros ciclos y niveles educativos, en la educación secundaria, en la formación técnica, en la profesional o en la educación universitaria incluso. Las actividades se suelen hacer sin ordenadores y sin pantallas móviles, con fichas, cartulinas, juegos de sala de clase o juegos de patio, juguetes mecánicos, etc. En este trabajo se pone de relieve que hay una serie de datos, ideas y circunstancias que hacen posible ahora, y no antes, que se implemente el pensamiento computacional desenchufado. Por último, describimos actividades, iniciativas y experiencias que se están desarrollando ya, y hacemos unas propuestas de actividades y de sus guías para profesores y cuidadores de preescolar
(19) (PDF) Pensamiento computacional desconectado. Computational thinking unplugged. Available from: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/330451594_Pensamiento_computacional_desconectado_Computational_thinking_unplugged [accessed Feb 18 2020].
... -Edu Ioannou & Bratitsis (2016;2017). ...
Η ταχύτητα είναι μια δύσκολη έννοια για τα παιδιά του Νηπιαγωγείου και δύσκολα οι εκπαιδευτικοί της προσχολικής ηλικίας την εντάσσουν στις τάξεις τους. Ωστόσο μέσα από κατάλληλα μαθησιακά περιβάλλοντα και ιδιαίτερα με προσεγγίσεις STEAM ο εκπαιδευτικός μπορεί να προσφέρει ευκαιρίες στα παιδιά να έρθουν σε επαφή με έννοιες όπως η ταχύτητα, αναπτύσσοντας κατάλληλες αναπαραστάσεις και αξιοποιώντας την τεχνολογία που υπάρχει. Στην παρούσα εργασία περιγράφεται η σχεδίαση, και η αξιολόγηση αναπαραστάσεων της ταχύτητας για παιδιά προσχολικής ηλικίας αξιοποιώντας την εφαρμογή Sphero Edu, ως συνέχεια πρότερης έρευνας των συγγραφέων για τη διδασκαλία της έννοιας της ταχύτητας σε μαθητές νηπιαγωγείου με την αξιοποίηση του Sphero SPRK.
http://www.etpe.gr/conf/?cid=34
... Using educational robotics, Robotic Art can serve as a tool to facilitate STEAM learning [18]. Moreover, the value of educational robotics is in its applicability for all age groups, including kindergarten [19], schoolchildren from first grade to 12th grade [20], and university students [17], both in the formal education setting and in homeschooling environment [21]. ...
Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields are core technological underpinnings of an advanced society and they are also related to the economic competitiveness of nations. Many countries are suffering from low achievement and low interest among learners in STEM subjects compared to others. In this paper, we argue that the robots can be used not only for teaching schoolchildren and university students to learn the STEM subjects, but also in social and humanistic sciences to increase engagement in technology and facilitate acquisition of transdisciplinary knowledge. As a case study, we present an approach to educational robotics adopted in Kaunas University of Technology, Lithuania. The approach allows to foster student creativity and improve their teamwork abilities, as well as knowledge in robotics and robot programming.
Social robots are increasingly appearing in every aspect of young children's lives, and their use in homes and kindergartens is becoming commonplace. Social robots have been shown to promote the development of prosocial behaviors in young children, such as helping, and cooperating, but little is known about whether robot models that mimic prosocial behaviors can persuade young children to engage in this behavior. At the same time, young children also learn from the behavioral results of others, so based on previous studies, we explored whether behavioral praise for a robot model that mimics prosocial behavior can promote the development of children's sharing behavior. 58 children aged 5–6 years were randomly assigned to two experimental conditions (praise robot model; no-praise the robot model), Children in the praise robot group heard the experimenter praise the robot for sharing. Children in the no praise robot group heard no verbal feedback. The results showed that descriptive praise of the strongly prosocial robot model promoted sharing behavior in children. This indicates that the vicarious reinforcement theory of social learning theory is suitable for children to learn prosocial behaviors from robots. This result has certain reference significance for the future application of robots to promote the development of prosocial behavior in children.KeywordsChildrenSocial robotProsocial behaviorShare
Ever since technology became an integral part of human life, a range of new concepts have surfaced. Computational thinking (CT) has been extensively discussed in the last 15 years and has been gaining popularity in the educational world. Following an overview of the basic literature published on this evasive new concept, an attempt is made to outline the connection between computational thinking and programming with emphasis on tangible programming of educational robots. An implemented educational programme, which attests to the positive impact of robotics on the acquisition of computational thinking skills in early childhood, is presented and evaluated. The study took place in a typical Greek kindergarten in 2017 and focused on the development of particular aspects of computational thinking with the use of a programmable floor robot.
Resumen
La idea de pensamiento computacional desenchufado (Computational thinking unplugged) hace referencia a un conjunto de actividades que se elaboran para fomentar en los niños habilidades que pueden ser evocadas después, para favorecer el pensamiento computacional. Estas actividades están pensadas y diseñadas para ser incluidas en las primeras etapas de desarrollo cognitivo (educación infantil, primer tramo de la educación primaria, juegos en casa con los padres y los amigos,…). Las habilidades están pensadas para que puedan ser evocadas en otros ciclos y niveles educativos, en la educación secundaria, en la formación técnica, en la profesional o en la educación universitaria incluso. Las actividades se suelen hacer sin ordenadores y sin pantallas móviles, con fichas, cartulinas, juegos de sala de clase o juegos de patio, juguetes mecánicos, etc. En este trabajo se pone de relieve que hay una serie de datos, ideas y circunstancias que hacen posible ahora, y no antes, que se implemente el pensamiento computacional desenchufado. Por último describimos actividades, iniciativas y experiencias que se están desarrollando ya, y hacemos unas propuestas de actividades y de sus guías para profesores y cuidadores de preescolar.
Palabras clave Pensamiento computacional, pensamiento computacional desenchufado, evocación, principales principios de aprendizaje, actividades de aprendizaje, Kibo, bee bot, cs unplugged, PlayMaker
Abstract
The idea of computational thinking unplugged refers to a set of activities that are developed to encourage children skills that can be evoked later, to promote computational thinking. These activities are designed to be included in the early stages of cognitive development (early childhood education, first stage of primary education, games at home with parents and friends, ...). The skills are designed so that they can be evoked in other stages. In secondary education, in technical training, in professional or even higher education. The activities are usually done without computers and without mobile screens, with cards, cards, classroom games or playground games, mechanical toys, etc. In this paper it is highlighted that there is a series of data, ideas and circumstances that make it possible now, and not before, that unplugged computational thinking be implemented. Finally, we describe activities, initiatives and experiences that are already being developed, and we make proposals for activities and their guides for preschool teachers and caregivers.
Este libro trata del pensamiento computacional desde la perspectiva de la enseñanza y del aprendizaje en todos los niveles educativos, pero básicamente a los niveles anteriores a la universidad. En el se plantea que el pensamiento computacional constituye una competencia clave en la nueva alfabetización digital, constituida por las competencias que permiten a los individuos desarrollar las funciones de comunicación, representación y proceso de la información en la cultura epistemológica que implica la Sociedad del Conocimiento. Los contenidos tratan de lenguajes de patrones propios del pensamiento computacional, de las componentes que según el análisis que se hacen constituyen y definen el pensamiento computacional y de experiencias prácticas de implementación en curriculos oficiales de distintos sistemas educativos. Es útil para profesores, técnicos en diseño y organización educativa e investigadores en computación, educación y teoría del aprendizaje entre otros.
The third edition of this textbook by Paul Hewitt is one of seven
textbooks reviewed in this issue of The Physics Teacher.
From fearing STEM to playing with it: The natural integration of STEM into the preschool classroom
- N M Torres-Crespo
- E Kraatz
- L Pallarsch
N. M. Torres-Crespo, E. Kraatz and L. Pallarsch, "From fearing
STEM to playing with it: The natural integration of STEM into the
preschool classroom", SRATE Journal, vol. 23(2), 2014, pp. 8-16.
STEM education: Kindergarten is where it should begin
- J Hunter
J. Hunter, "STEM education: Kindergarten is where it should begin,
2015,
in
http://www.smh.com.au/comment/stem-educationkindergarten-is-where-it-should-begin-20150816-gj00p5.html.
STEM as a curriculum: An experimental approach
- J Morrisson
- B Bartlett
J. Morrisson and B. Bartlett, STEM as a curriculum: An experimental
approach, 2009.
Development of Curriculum for Primary and Secondary Education and guidance for the teacher 'Tools for teaching Approaches
New Curriculum for Kindergarten in Greece, Curriculum for
Kindergarten 2011, Act "New School (21st Century School) -New
Curriculum, Priority Axes 1,2,3 -Horizontal Action" with MIS code
295450, Subproject 1: "Development of Curriculum for Primary and
Secondary Education and guidance for the teacher 'Tools for teaching
Approaches' ", Athens: Pedagogical Institute, 2011.