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Educational Robotics Curricula: Current Trends and Shortcomings

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Education in & with Robotics to Foster 21st-Century Skills (EDUROBOTICS 2021)

Part of the book series: Studies in Computational Intelligence ((SCI,volume 982))

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Abstract

Nowadays, Educational Robotics (ER) is flourishing at research and didactic level aiming to enhance higher-level thinking and skills. Families, schools, and educational institutes try to offer ER activities for children by utilizing various existing technologies and curricula. Despite the materials that have been created and the available technologies and curricula, it seems that not enough attention has been paid to the comprehensiveness and homogeneity of the existing curricula. The paper introduces the importance of features usually ignored in the available curricula such as icebreakers, collaboration scripts, level of learning guidance, and provision of multilingual support. Then, the paper presents a review of indicative curricula, covering many well-known robotic technologies and systems to extract common elements and simultaneously highlight shortcomings of the current approaches. Finally, the paper argues about the need for a paradigm shift in ER curricula that will incorporate the maker and Do-It-Yourself (DIY) culture.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    https://education.lego.com/en-au/support/wedo-2/teacher-guides.

  2. 2.

    https://microbit.org/en/2017-03-07-javascript-block-resources/#lessons_a.

  3. 3.

    https://www.sparkfuneducation.com/curriculum.html.

  4. 4.

    https://learn.sparkfun.com/resources/39?_ga=1.93270749.1176615929.1473301234.

  5. 5.

    https://www.cmu.edu/roboticsacademy/.

  6. 6.

    https://www.cmu.edu/roboticsacademy/roboticscurriculum/Lego%20Curriculum/index.html.

  7. 7.

    https://www.cmu.edu/roboticsacademy/PDFs/Curriculum/Intro-to-EV3/EV3-teachers-guideWEB.pdf.

  8. 8.

    http://roboesl.eu/?page_id=591.

  9. 9.

    https://www.vexrobotics.com/vexiq/education/educational-tools.

  10. 10.

    https://content.vexrobotics.com/vexiq/curriculum/228-3319-VEX-IQ-Robotics-Education-Guide-20160511.pdf.

  11. 11.

    https://content.vexrobotics.com/vexiq/pdf/228-3428-750-Clawbot-IQ-Build-Instructions-Rev10-20150901.pdf.

  12. 12.

    https://education.lego.com/en-us/downloads/mindstorms-ev3/curriculum.

  13. 13.

    https://le-www-live-s.legocdn.com/downloads/LME-EV3/LME-EV3_MAKER_1.0_en-GB.pdf.

  14. 14.

    https://education.lego.com/en-au/lessons/maker-middleschool.

  15. 15.

    https://education.lego.com/en-au/lessonsfilter?Products=LEGO%C2%AE+MINDSTORMS+Education+EV3+Core+Set&rows=9.

  16. 16.

    https://www.parallax.com/education/teach/learn/educator-resources.

  17. 17.

    http://learn.parallax.com/.

  18. 18.

    http://blockly.parallax.com/blockly/.

  19. 19.

    http://learn.parallax.com/tutorials?field_language_tid=All&tid=All.

  20. 20.

    http://learn.parallax.com/tutorials/series/activitybot-blocklyprop-tutorial-series.

  21. 21.

    https://meetedison.com/robotics-lesson-plans/.

  22. 22.

    https://meetedison.com/robotics-lesson-plans/10-robotics-lesson-plans/.

  23. 23.

    https://www.sos.wa.gov/_assets/library/libraries/projects/youthservices/legomindstormsev3programmingbasics.pdf.

  24. 24.

    http://steamcurriculum.weebly.com/arduino-based-robotics.html.

  25. 25.

    http://steamcurriculum.weebly.com/arduino-microcontrollers.html.

  26. 26.

    https://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-Build-the-ProtoBot-a-100-Open-Source-Super-/.

  27. 27.

    https://www.instructables.com/class/Robots-Class/.

  28. 28.

    https://www.instructables.com/id/Simple-Bots-Wobbler/.

  29. 29.

    https://www.instructables.com/class/Arduino-Class/.

  30. 30.

    https://www.instructables.com/id/Line-following-Robot-with-Arduino/#discuss.

  31. 31.

    https://www.instructables.com/id/St-Patricks-Day-Pinch-Detector-With-Circuit-Playgr/.

  32. 32.

    https://www.instructables.com/id/Robot-Maze-Solver/.

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Acknowledgements

This work was conducted by the European Lab for Educational Technology-EDUMOTIVA in the framework of the INBOTS CSA project and has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 under grant agreement No. 780073 (INBOTS).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. European Lab for Educational Technology-EDUMOTIVA, Sparta, Greece

    Theodosios Sapounidis & Dimitris Alimisis

  2. Department of Information and Electronic Engineering, International Hellenic University (I.H.U.), Thessaloniki, Greece

    Theodosios Sapounidis

Authors
  1. Theodosios Sapounidis
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  2. Dimitris Alimisis
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Correspondence to Theodosios Sapounidis .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Information Engineering and Mathematics, University of Siena, Siena, Italy

    Monica Malvezzi

  2. European Lab for Educational Technology, Edumotiva, Sparta, Greece

    Dimitris Alimisis

  3. Department of Information Engineering, Università degli Studi di Padova, Padova, Italy

    Michele Moro

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Sapounidis, T., Alimisis, D. (2021). Educational Robotics Curricula: Current Trends and Shortcomings. In: Malvezzi, M., Alimisis, D., Moro, M. (eds) Education in & with Robotics to Foster 21st-Century Skills. EDUROBOTICS 2021. Studies in Computational Intelligence, vol 982. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-77022-8_12

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