6º m
TERECoP – 6° Meeting
Educational Robotics in Italy:
future perspectives after the TERECoP
experience
The Italian group:
Emanuele Menegatti and Michele Moro, DEI UNIPD;
Irene Pagello, Marco Antonelli, and Stefano Tonello,
ITR; Nello Fava and Stefano Monfalcon, TMR
Introduction
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The group
Previous competences
The course implementations
Outcomes
The lessons learnt
Future development
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The group
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• Department of Computer Engineering (DEI) –
University of Padova
● Emanuele Menegatti
● Michele Moro
• IT+Robotics (ITR) – Padova
● Irene Pagello
● Marco Antonelli, Stefano Tonello, Alberto Pretto
• Town Museum of Rovereto (TMR)
● Nello Fava
● Stefano Monfalcon
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Previous competences
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• DEI
● Research on Robotics and Computer Vision
● Programming languages and Real time systems
● Constructivist/constructionist approach in
teaching/learning
• ITR
● Development of robotic application
● Dissemination of modern robotic culture
• TMR
● Dissemination of scientific knowledge
● Application of educational robotics
● Supporting the scholastic system for applying
robotics in education
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The course implementations
• The ‘official’
implementation was held in
Rovereto
• About 15 in-service
teachers on different
levels
• Two weekends + two
evaluation meetings
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• Objectives:
● to build competences for
designing educational
laboratory project-based
activities;
● to learn to use innovative
didactic methodologies and
technologies that the course
proposed;
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The course implementations
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• Objectives:
● to consolidate the ability of working
in groups, also through the use of ICT
tools;
● working on:
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▪ the realization of the proposed activities,
with communication and guided
groupbased work;
▪ pedagogical and methodological reasoning
on the educative management of the
activity
• After the course, ten teachers
presented their activities in the
exhibition of the Discovery Festival
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The course implementations
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• Another implementation in Bolzano
• About 20 in-service teachers as trainees
• Following substantially the TERECoP
curriculum with some adaptations
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Outcomes
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• Papers presented in international conferences
• Organization of a workshop on Educational Robotics 29
followed by an open day in Venice
• Organization of the edu-robotics exhibition within
the Discovery in Rovereto (included a TERECoP stand)
• Participation to several initiatives organized by
schools
• Participation to the Open Day in Pamplona
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Outcomes
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• Development
● Several didactical examples of various
levels, both in NXT-G and NXC
● Analysis of the NXT sensors
● A simple simulator with graphical interface
● A remote laboratory
● How to control NXT with other languages
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Lessons learnt
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• Teacher prefer practical activities with
respect to theoretical lessons
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• They are not used to exploit a constructivist
approach in their daily lessons in the class
• Their request was for activities examples
with a clear didactical content
● Importance of a well presented and
organized repository (avoiding just offthe-shelf examples)
• They show difficulties in organizing effective
and well-integrated laboratorial activities
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Lessons learnt
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• Some criticalities
● In Italy teachers of arts and humanities
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have difficulties in approaching robots as a
teaching tools and also in collaborating on a
project base with the teachers of science
or technology
● The cost of the NXT kit
● NXT could be too complex for primary level
students and perceived too childish for
oldest secondary level students
● Financial requests for new courses
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Lessons learnt
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• Suggestions
● Take into account the peculiar local school context 29
and teacher audience
● Focalize the conveying to teachers of the
methodological method and to give them
motivations for applying robotic technologies
within their normal curricula
● Not be strictly dependent on the robotic kit
chosen
● Find collaborations with external entities (apart
from financial issues) if the can give support in any
phase of the learning process (examples: FLL, LEC,
Robocup, club houses)
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Future Projects
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• The organization of new teacher training activities in
collaboration with the school network(s) and official
scholastic institutions
• To continue development of lab activities with
undergraduate/graduate students (more specifically
using Lejos, URBI and with humanoid robots)
• The participation to a new European or National
Project on Educational Robotics (to be identified)
• To organize again a workshop (and maybe an open
day) at SIMPAR 2010 in Darmstadt (Germany)
• To collaborate with TMR for the LEC, FLL and other
dissemination activities
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The end
6º m
TERECoP – 6° Meeting - M.Moro – DEI UNIPD - Italy