The rationale of this project is to reach these students before they drop out and intervene to keep them in school, so that we can improve the future of both individual students and our school as a whole. We start from the assumption that many of these high school dropouts would remain in school if there were successful alternative high school education programs available that were structured to better meet their specific needs. This is the reason why our project is addressed to students who are considered more vulnerable to permanently leaving school than is the average student. We will define them “at-risk students”. New technologies (included robotics and 3d printers) have been introduced in school curricula and are excellent tools for teaching and learning and a compelling topic for students of all ages, but they have been introduced without providing enough resources for educational activities. We aim at using special immigrants-appropriate teaching and learning materials to enable at-risk students to explore the world of robots and to learn about computer science, natural sciences, art and technology (STEAM). The primary focus of our project is on designing a classroom as a flexible, high-tech learning space that fosters collaboration and creativity. The methodology that we use for designing and implementing our robotics-enhanced project integrates the main principles of constructivism, constructionism and problem-based learning, that will let the students be actively involved in their own process of learning. Focusing on a particular target students, we aim at overcoming technical and professional barriers for teachers and students alike. We will also cooperate to the Er4stem Project providing our experience on the field. The activities will relate to the real world and they will stimulate students involved to address real world issues that are relevant to their lives or communities. Students will be prompted, in the course of the project, to effectively use various technologies as tools in the planning, development or presentation of their projects. The project will help students to share ideas, collaborate and team-work; to improve their communicative skills, also working with English, reading instructions, finding information on the internet and, sometimes, also working on web conferences on common projects with pairs from abroad. They will learn to use many digital tools and apps to record data or to present the results of the whole project. They will learn to recognize differences and accept them to improve the work of the group; they will also experience sense of initiative and entrepreneurship at many different levels. Dissemination activities and exploitation of the results of the project will be implemented through well-targeted mechanisms. Three main dissemination lines will be applied: (1) Internet communication; (2) Publications; (3) Events and Networks. All three lines will address the three main target groups (the educational community, policy makers, the general public). All intellectual outputs will be available for free use of anyone interested in them. In order to make them popular they will be mentioned as open resources in press releases and will be tagged as open online courses. In all dissemination events public will be informed of the free of charge use of the published materials. The only requested commitment will be to rate, share opinions and ideas to improve and further implement the project. Through this project, students will have a chance to become broadly educated and to create a society of technical intelligence.
Our Project was based on the shared awareness that many of the high school dropouts would remain in school if there were successful alternative high school education programs available that were structured to better meet their specific needs. This is the reason why our project was addressed to students who were considered more vulnerable to permanently leaving school than is the average student (at-risk students). As a result, in order to remove at least some of the reasons of the dropouts, we set a model of workshops where students were definitely active, so that being able to have a close look on the most innovative topic a general education school can offer and, as a consquence, being able to take a rational and well informed decision. New technologies (included robots) have been introduced in school curricula and are excellent tools for teaching and learning and a compelling topic for students of all ages. Our goal was to provide enough open source resources for educational activities. We also aimed at using special immigrants-appropriate teaching and learning materials to enable at-risk students to explore the world of robots and to learn about computer science, natural sciences, art and technology (STEAM). The primary focus of our project was on designing a classroom as a flexible, high-tech learning space that could foster collaboration and creativity. The methodology that we used for designing and implementing our robotics-enhanced project integrated the main principles of constructivism, constructionism and problem-based learning. As a result, all the students were actively involved in their own process of learning. Focusing on a particular target students, we aimed at overcoming technical and professional barriers for teachers and students alike. We have also cooperated to the Er4stem Project providing our experience on the field. The activities were related to the real world and they stimulated students involved to address real world issues that are relevant to their lives or communities. Students were prompted, in the course of the project, to effectively use various technologies as tools in the planning, development or presentation of their projects. The project helped students to share ideas, collaborate and team-work; to improve their communicative skills, also working with English, reading instructions, finding information on the internet. They learned to use many digital tools and apps to record data or to present the results of the whole project. They learned to recognize differences and accept them to improve the work of the group; they also experienced sense of initiative and entrepreneurship at many different levels. Furthermore, during the international mobilities, the teachers could experience different teaching methods, such as Clil, learning in the field,modelisation through ICT, GisMapping and Peer to Peer education. So we got two results: 1. Training on innovative teaching methods for teachers; 2.Approach to new topics in robotic field, for students. The educational robotics workshops were characterised by NON -FORMAL approach to the topics and were open to external professionals as collaborators in Bulgaria. Dissemination activities and exploitation of the results of the project were implemented through well-targeted mechanisms. Three main dissemination lines were applied: (1) Internet communication; (2) Publications; (3) Events and Networks. All three lines addressed the three main target groups (the educational community, policy makers, the general public). All intellectual outputs are now available for free use of anyone interested in them at the URL http://www.erasmusrobo.eu In order to make them popular, they were mentioned as open resources in press releases and will be tagged as open online courses. In all dissemination events were informed of the free of charge use of the published materials. The only requested commitment is to rate, share opinions and ideas to improve and further implement the project.