According to research results of the European Commission from 2015, ICT sector in Europe “is growing rapidly and creating about 120,000 new jobs each year. But due to differences in demands and skills, and despite high unemployment - especially among the young – Europe could face a shortage of up to 900,000 skilled ICT workers by 2020.” This situation requires immediate and decisive actions, among others in the education of the future employees in the ICT sector. In all the educational levels more effort and resources should be put on teaching IT skills, like coding, programming and other related to them. The main objective of this project – to organize, improve and enlarge teachers’ repository of tools based on robotics in order to facilitate them in teaching coding and support teaching other math and science topics – meets the above requirements. We planned following intermediate steps to achieve our main goal: • To carry out the research on the state of art regarding existing educational robots and supporting educational materials • To design the new materials in form of video tutorials and teaching scenarios which will fill existing gaps in existing resources • To share all the information and resources ordered and described on one online platform • To disseminate the existing repository in all the partner countries and beyond. The direct target group of the project are on the first place the teachers of primary schools teaching IT or subjects like science, maths, physics and others, where educational robots can be used as scientific support. Reaching the teachers, we address also the needs of their pupils who should be taught interesting and needful things in an attractive way and this way be more willing to get involved in the IT and technical classes. By these means we influence also the future job market, still in need of new programmers and other IT specialists. The final results which will be available to the all interested teachers are: FREE DATABASE of the available educational robots divided into 3 categories: • DIY robots (3D printed and other similar) • Lego robots (and other robots build from blocks) • “Ready to go” robots (like Sphero, Dash&Dot and other which comes with Scratch or similar coding languages) The database will include such information as: age of students, who can learn with the robot, estimated costs and possibilities of using it, programming methods, availability of tutorials and lesson plans for teachers coming with the robot, and any other useful information. ONLINE VIDEO TUTORIALS in a form of instructional movies, photo stories, documentary movies etc., on how to print, how to design, assemble and code the robots, how to use them with students. All the video tutorials will be supplemented by the description of their goal and content and will include subtitles translated into English and all partner languages. TEACHING SCENARIOS supported by the video materials and photos, filling the gaps in the existing educational materials or improving the existing educational materials. The teaching scenarios will be either directly focused on creating and programming robots or on other STEM-related subjects, where the robot become means to the goal which is teaching different issues. ONLINE PLATFORM, created and designed to become an open repository of all the materials produced within the project. Available in English, but containing introductory sections in all the partner languages. Equipped with functionalities for communication, sharing opinions, commenting and rating materials. Open for further development, new materials from all the teachers willing to share their experiences. YOUTUBE CHANNEL connected to the online platform, containing all the video tutorials produced within the project with subtitles in English and all partner languages. We are strongly convinced that with these results we will be able to impact the knowledge, skills and attitudes of both – teachers and pupils. The teacher, having better knowledge on the available robotic resources and about the ways of using it in their classes will be more eager to implement innovative teaching scenarios in their teaching programmes. Their pupils, attending the interesting lessons and developing IT skills, will be more likely to choose further activities and jobs in this field.
According to research results of the European Commission from 2015, ICT sector in Europe “is growing rapidly and creating about 120,000 new jobs each year. But due to differences in demands and skills, and despite high unemployment - especially among the young – Europe could face a shortage of up to 900,000 skilled ICT workers by 2020.” This situation requires immediate and decisive actions, among others in the education of future employees in the ICT sector. In all the educational levels more effort and resources should be put on teaching IT skills, like coding, programming and other related to them. The main objective of this project – to organize, improve and enlarge teachers’ repository of tools based on robotics in order to facilitate them in teaching coding and support teaching other math and science topics – meets the above requirements. We took the following steps to achieve our main goal: - We carried out the research on the state of art regarding existing educational robots and supporting didactic materials - We designed the new didactic materials in a form of video tutorials and teaching scenarios which fill the gaps in the existing resources - We shared all the information and resources on one online platform together with the guidance and description - We are promoting the existing repository in all the partner countries and beyond. Our resources are designed mainly for teachers of primary schools teaching IT or other subjects like science, maths, physics, arts, geography, biology, 3D printing, where educational robots can be used as didactic support. Through the teachers, we also address the needs of their students who got a chance to be taught interesting and needful things in an attractive way and therefore be more willing to get involved in the IT and technical classes. By these means we also influence the future job market, still in need of new programmers and other IT specialists. The final results of the project, which are available online on the project platform www.edurobots.eu: FREE DATABASE of the educational robots, which can be searched by three possible divisions: 1. On the type of robots (DIY, Modular and “Ready to go”) 2. On the level of students’ coding skills (Beginners, Intermediate, Advanced, Children with special needs) 3. On the coding language which can be used to program the robot. The database includes information such as: age of students, who can learn with the robot, estimated costs and possibilities of using it, programming methods, availability of tutorials and lesson plans for teachers coming with the robot, and any other useful information. ONLINE VIDEO TUTORIALS in a form of instructional movies, photo stories, documentary movies, on how to print, how to design, assemble and code the robots, how to use them with students. All the video tutorials are supplemented by the description of their goal and content and include subtitles translated into English, Icelandic, Polish, Swedish, Italian and Estonian. TEACHING SCENARIOS supported by the video materials and photos, answering for the teachers’ needs revealed during the research phase, improving the existing didactic materials. The teaching scenarios are either directly focused on building and programming robots or on other STEM-related subjects, where the robot helps in teaching other school subjects than IT and robotics. ONLINE PLATFORM, created and designed to become an open repository of all the materials developed within the project. Available in English, with automatic translation for other languages enabled. Equipped with functionalities for communication, sharing opinions, commenting and rating materials. It is opened for further development and new materials from all the teachers willing to share their experiences. YOUTUBE CHANNEL connected to the online platform, containing all the video tutorials developed within the project. We are sure that these results are useful for school teachers, their students, other educators or all the people who want to use robotics for educational purposes. The materials which we created are the perfect solution for all who want to implement innovative tools in their teaching practice and make the lessons more effective and attractive for students.