Robotics in education🤖

        “Robotics have taken on a special interest in today’s education, and the number of educational programs introducing this aspect into their curriculum has grown in recent years, especially in developed countries” (López-Belmonte et al., 2021, p.2).

Why is it significant?

       Costa (2017) notes that “robotics instruction moves from traditional teacher-driven instruction to hands-on in which collaborative teams of students use STEM knowledge to solve real-world problems” (p.33). López-Belmonte et al. (2021) state that “robotics in education generates a series of advantages, including learning to work in a team, increasing self-confidence, promoting entrepreneurship, developing skills, identifying and taking an interest in other disciplines, increasing concentration, increasing creativity, and promoting curiosity and increasing interest in mathematics.” (p.2).

What are the downsides and/or barriers and how might these be overcome?

       “For robotics to be an integrated part of education systems, a number of aspects must be considered, which may make its inclusion in schools difficult. These include its high cost, the need to train teachers in the use of technological resources, students’ own digital competence, and the need for the pedagogical training of teachers” (López-Belmonte et al., 202, p.2-3).

What ethical considerations and best practices for implementation have been identified?

       I hope humans will make good use of it as a beneficial tool to make the world a better place, such as using robots to do sophisticated surgery other than start the war. 

Where is it going in the future?

The robotics in education will be more advanced, diverse, and competitive. Even though the technology of robotics is revolutionary, it will create more jobs instead of replacing all jobs. 

What are the resources available in the community?

My school district’s emphasis on STEM subjects continues to expand with an elementary robotics course and a TK-2 iPad initiative, which gets young students involved in computer coding through games and robots. One of our elementary schools received $40,000 donated by International Game Technology for building a robot-equipped computer lab for students. 

How Building Robots Captivates Kids' Imaginations: Is School Enough? Edutopia. 

Robots in Schools: The Future of Student Success. TinyEYE Therapy Services

Why Robotics Should Be Central to All Education Programs | Ayden Haoken | TEDxYouth@SWA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N8Kf5SrC1UQ

References

Costa, C. (2017). Robotics K-12 and your district: the essence of STEM education and the  

      e-ticket to unlimited possibilities. Leadership, 46(4), 32-35.

López-Belmonte, J., Segura-Robles, A., Moreno-Guerrero, A.J., Parra-González, M.E. (2021).   

       Robotics in Education: A Scientific Mapping of the Literature in Web of Science.    

       Electronics, 10(3), 291. https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics10030291

STEM Education 🧪🧬

      “Technology within education continues to expand as the demand and interest levels of students and prospective students steadily increase. Within various educational environments, the concepts evolving around STEAM, Robots, Codes, and Maker’s Spaces are integrated into the curriculum as a means of technical exposure, proactive training, and differentiated instruction. Present day, students are at an advantage, given that these concepts are already built within the curriculum”, says Andrews (2022).  According to Puckett (2021), “in the past 10-15 years, the educational landscape has changed considerably due to the explosive growth of technology and computing in our society, dominant business and industry tools. Student exposure to STEM, robots, coding, and maker spaces provide authentic learning experiences is vitally important for students to learn how science, technology, engineering, and mathematics are interrelated” (para.2).   

What is STEM?  What is STEAM?

            According to Schrum and Sumerfield (2018), “STEM-typically Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics-has become a guiding star for education. STEM is a curriculum based on the idea of educating students in these four specific disciplines using an interdisciplinary, hands-on approach that relates to real-world applications” (p.8). Wigmore adds, "STEAM is an educational approach that incorporates the arts into the more-familiar STEM model, which includes science, technology, engineering and mathematics. STEAM programs can include any of the visual or performing arts, such as dance, design, painting, photography and writing" (para.1).

Why is it significant?

       “STEM is important because it teaches critical thinking skills and instills a passion for innovation. Beyond the benefit of learning science, technology, engineering, and math, STEM assists in the problem-solving and exploratory learning that fuel success across a variety of tasks and disciplines” (Barone, 2018).

What are the downsides and/or barriers and how might these be overcome?

       Some of the downsides of STEM include, first, not all students can fully understand or catch up with the STEM curriculum. Teachers should make accommodations to meet individual student’s needs. Second, it can be very expensive to purchase the equipment and materials for STEM classes, such as the parts of making a boat. More funding for STEM is needed. Last but not least, most teachers across the curriculum lack the knowledge and experience to collaborate with STEM teachers. The professional training of integrated STEM instructions across the curriculum is needed.

What ethical considerations and best practices for implementation have been identified?        

       Raupp (2020) addresses the ethical consideration and best practices implementations as “ Promotes the common good; Allows for independent thought; Commits to equity and inclusion, and Provides training to engage ethically with rapidly changing technology”.  

Where is it going in the future?

       According to the National Science Foundation (2020), “the STEM Education of the Future will harness technology in ways that provide equitable access to all learners and ensure that all learners thrive. Skillful instruction aided by technological advances can overcome structural barriers such as cost, distance, opportunity, socioeconomic background, or prior STEM preparation, and allow all STEM learners to overcome stereotypes and biases with the support of their learning communities” (p.27). 

How to find the resources in the surrounding area. 

       Students may participate in various STEM activities in schools, district, libraries, and communities. Participants could interact with current individuals who are employed in the field of Engineering, Medicine and Technology. Students could also attend field trips to local agencies focused on STEM.  

References

Andrews, M.(2022). STEM, robots, codes, and maker spaces. 

       https://rdene915.com/2022/06/07/stem-robots-codes-and-makers-spaces/

Puckett, M. (2021). An overview of STEM, robotics, coding, and maker spaces. TRC Edu.

       https://www.trceducation.com/stem-robotics-coding-and-maker-spaces

Raupp, A. (2020). Ethics in STEM Education: Going Beyond the Classroom. The Journal.           

       https://thejournal.com/articles/2020/02/12/ethics-in-stem-education-going- beyond-the-        

      classroom.aspx

Shahzad B, Saleem K. (2018). Benefits of establishing maker-spaces in distributed   

       development environment. Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing book  

       series AISC, 738, p. 621–625. https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-77028-4_79

Schrum, L., Sumerfield, S. (2018). Learning supercharged. Digital age strategies and 

       insights  from edtech frontier. International society for technology in education. 

Wigmore, I. STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics). 

        https://www.techtarget.com/whatis/definition/STEAM-science-technology-engineering-arts-and-  

       mathematics

Interactivity and Engagement with Educational Technology

      Hello teachers! Why do students come to school? What do they want to get from school? Christensen (2017) states “students come to school because they want to feel successful, and they also want to feel a sense of connection with their friends''. Interactivity through engaging activities are the keys to help students feel successful and interact with their friends. As teachers, we all know the importance of students' interactivity and engagement because when students are engaged they learn better. Karuppathal et al. (2021) states “the interactivity increases the involvement and perception increases significantly” (p.698). According to Martin and Bolliger (2018), “student engagement increases student satisfaction, enhances student motivation to learn, reduces the sense of isolation, and improves student performance” (para.1). As students, they hope to be included and engaged in the instruction because when they are involved they learn better. “When high school students talked about the types of teaching they wanted, they expressed that they preferred engagement,or just the opposite of boredom” (Himmele & Himmele, 2017, p.7). 

       Pechenkina et al.’s research finds (2017) “after measuring the relationships between students’ app usage and their engagement, retention and academic achievement in the subject, it is suggested that following the app’s introduction, student retention rates and academic performance increased, and there was a positive correlation between students’ scoring highly on the app and achieving higher academic grades” (p.1). Gamification provides the opportunity for students to feel successful by winning the games. Technology connects students with their friends and others during the game. According to the Gamify website, gamification is “the application of game-design elements and game principles in non-game contexts. It can also be defined as a set of activities and processes to solve problems by using or applying the characteristics of game elements” (para.1). Aldemir et al. (2018) “investigated users’ attitude towards gamification elements, including leaderboards, points, badges and found that, in general, users have positive insights about the game elements inserted into a gamified course”. These gamification elements motivate students to compete with others and make them feel proud when they win. This is supported by the research of Tsay et al. (2018) that “some gamification elements, including badges and a leaderboard, and compared the experiment and control groups with results that suggest that students in the treatment group were more engaged and therefore had a better performance compared to the control group”.

       Meanwhile Biryukov et al. (2021) point out some disadvantages of the gamification. “No successfully solved complicated tasks as an incentive for emulation. Setting the goal to win the game, not the study.” For example, most digital games used in Chinese language classrooms focus on the vocabulary, such as Quizlet, Gimkit, Kahoot. Many of my colleagues and myself notice that after playing these online games many times, some students still struggle in handwriting Chinese characters and writing in sentences and paragraphs. I do not think a game can effectively educate on its own. “Educational technology is being used to simplify and improve learning but using technology in education does not directly impact student achievement as the technology tools have to be in line with the curriculum for them to be effective”, say Zirawaga et al. (2017, para.1).

       Before sharing with you three educational technology tools which can engage learners, I would like to introduce the connectivity and integration background of my classroom technology. I use the laptop provided by the district. It works well with my current network most of the time. HDMI cables are needed to connect parts together. I do not think there is a wireless option for the HDMI connection. Most educational technology tools support Windows, Androids, iOS systems. Users can access them with various devices such as Chromebook, computer, laptop, ipad, and cellphone. I can transmit data to learners and their parents through Email with the direct link. I can invite parents to join ClassDojo to view their children’s participation in class. I need to learn how to connect to cloud storage services. 

       The three educational technology tools I want to share with you are AnswerGarden, Padlet, and Quizlet. “AnswerGarden is an easy-to-use polling tool that allows a teacher to quickly collect students' thoughts and ideas. It adopts a minimalist design that allows users to create, share, answer, and manage topic questions without signing up for accounts. Although it is a simple app, it has the potential to be used to accomplish a wide range of educational tasks, such as brainstorming, polling, synchronous and asynchronous communication, and formative assessment” (EdTechBooks). “Padlet provides a virtual wall for interaction. The writing on the wall is similar to a common class activity in which the teacher asks students to write their ideas on “post-it” notes or a poster and then display them so that the collected ideas can be shared with the whole class” (Chen, 2021, p.1444). “Quizlet is a web tool and a mobile app that boosts students' learning through several study tools that include flashcards and game-based quizzes. You can either design your own study sets from scratch or search for pre-made sets to customize and use in your teaching” (Duotl, 2022, para.1).

 

       After knowing these tools’ benefits, I believe you wonder about the price of each. AnswerGarden is a free online tool. It accepts donations. Padlet has memberships for personal, team, business, and school. It offers three free padlets topics for free in each tier and charges different prices for different amounts of the padlet topics. For example, under personal membership, three padlets are free and twenty padlets are $6.99 monthly or $69.99 yearly. Quizlet offers a free option with limited features and a paid subscription called Quizlet Plus for  $35.99 annually for teachers. Students do not have to pay once they join the teacher’s Quizlet class. They are user-friendly for first time users. There are tutorials for these apps. Users can contact these apps’ customer service for support when something does not work. My students tell me and I connect these tools’ customer service when something does not work. While waiting for their response, I usually provide students with the printed out copies for them to complete the assignment or activities. These tools can be used for asynchronous and synchronous distance learning and face-to-face classroom. I display work on the projector and Promethean screen to the entire class at the same time. I can invite and encourage synchronous learners at a distance to join Zoom or Google Meet online learning platform to participate. 

       Now, you are invited to use the interactive asset to share your opinions and experiences of educational technology on the tools I created for you. Please share your favorite educational technology tool’s name on www.AnswerGarden.ch, post your favorite educational tool’s pictures and videos and comment on others on www.Padlet.com, and study, review, test, and match the vocabularies of educational technology on www.Quizlet.com. Thank you for your participation and inspiration. 

       In conclusion, regardless of the tool, it is about the teaching and learning, not the technology. We only use technology as a tool to improve teaching and enhance learning. The ultimate goal of education is to improve students’ academic performance and social emotional learning. Some of the roles of the instructor when implementing technology for learning include: choosing the age and content appropriate games, providing related learning materials and assessment standards, and facilitating the use. It is true that technology brings many benefits to education, for example, it makes learning more accessible, affordable, and interactive, it helps teachers save time in designing games, grading, and delivering the lesson. One-to- one Chromebook programs made remote learning possible. However, it does not guarantee quality education. Only when teachers mindfully guide students to use technology in learning, demonstrate how to explore information, train them in the ability of concentration, and teach them cyber safety skills, can technology be a beneficial tool in education, instead of a distraction. “Given the human interactions at the heart of learning and the plethora of demands on teachers' time, the best measure of most K-12 technology may be whether it makes it easier for teachers to do their job well”, says Hess (2022, p.24). Tuma (2021) adds “technology can enhance interactive learning in well-designed and structured formats based on educational objectives” (p.231). I hope this blog could illuminate your mind with the core of education which is the interactivity and engagement in education and technology can be an effective tool to enhance the outcome of teaching and learning.  

       Thank you for reading and sharing.

References

Anonymous. AnswerGarden. EdTeach Books. https://edtechbooks.org/onlinetools/answergarden

Aldemir, T., Celik, B., & Kaplan, G. (2018). A qualitative investigation of student perceptions

       of game elements in a gamified course. Computers in Human Behavior, 78, 235–254.

Biryukov, A., Brikoshina1, I., Mikhalevich, N., Sycheva, S., Khalimon, E. (2021). Gamification 

       in education: threats or new opportunities. Russian and Foreign Experience in the System

      of  Humanities Education. SHS Web of Conferences 103, 02001.  

       https://doi.org/10.1051/shsconf/202110302001

Christensen, C. (2017). Disrupting class book to education commission of the States.

       https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hewX1Wmqrb4&t=1865s

Duotl. (2022). Introduction to Quizlet.       

       https://otl.du.edu/knowledgebase/introduction-to-quizlet

Hess, F. (2022). Education after the pandemic. National affairs. 

       https://nationalaffairs.com/publications/detail/education-after-the-pandemic

Karuppathal, R. (2021). Impact of augmented reality education on students interactivity.   

       International Journal of Pharmaceutical Research, 13(2), 690-699.

Martin. F., Bolliger, D. (2018). Engagement Matters: Student Perceptions on the Importance     

       of Engagement Strategies in the Online Learning Environment. ERIC. 

       https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ1179659

Himmele, P., Himmele W. (2017). Total participation techniques. Making every student an  

       active learner. ASCD Member Book. 

Pechenkina, E., Laurence, D., Oates G., Eldridge D., Hunter D. (2017).  Using a gamified     

       mobile app to increase student engagement, retention and academic achievement. 

       https://doi.org/ 10.1186/s41239-017-0069-7

Tsay, C. H. H., Kofnas, A., & Luo, J. (2018). Enhancing student learning experience with 

       technology-mediated gamification: An empirical study. Computers and Education, 121,  

       1–17.

Tuma, F. (2021). The use of educational technology for interactive teaching in lectures. Annals   

       of Medicine and Surgery, 62, 231-235. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.amsu.2021.01.051

Zirawaga, V., Olusanya, A.,  Maduku, T.Gaming in Education: Using Games as a Support Tool 

       to Teach History. Journal of Education and Practice, v8(15), 55-64.   

       https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ1143830