Overview of technologies for building robots in the classroom

This paper aims to give an overview of technologies that can be used to implement robotics within an educational context. We discuss complete robotics systems as well as projects that implement only certain elements of a robotics system, such as electronics, hardware, or software. We believe that Maker Movement and DIY trends offers many new opportunities for teaching and feel that they will become much more prominent in the future. Products and projects discussed in this paper are: Mindstorms, Vex, Arduino, Dwengo, Raspberry Pi, MakeBlock, OpenBeam, BitBeam, Scratch, Blockly and ArduBlock

SPARQL Playground: A block programming tool to experiment with SPARQL

SPARQL is a powerful query language for SemanticWeb data sources but one which is quite complex to master. As the block programming paradigm has been succesfully used to teach programming skills, we propose a tool that allows users to build and run SPARQL queries on an endpoint without previous knowledge of the syntax of SPARQL and the model of the data in the endpoint (vocabularies and semantics). This user interface attempts to close the gap between tools for the lay user that do not allow to express complex queries and overtly complex technical tools

Building ArtBots to attract students into STEM learning

There is an increasing worldwide demand for people educated into science and technology. Unfortunately, girls and underprivileged students are often underrepresented in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) education programs. We believe that by inclusion of art in these programs, educational activities might become more attractive to a broader audience. In this work we present an example of such an educational activity: an international robotics and art week for secondary school students. This educational activity builds up on the project-based and inquiry learning framework. This article is intended as a brief manual to help others organise such an activity. It also gives insights in how we led a highly heterogeneous group of students into learning STEM and becoming science and technology ambassadors for their peers

Assemble geo-analytical questions through a Blockly-based natural language interface

Natural language Interfaces (NLIs) have the ability to make Geographic Information Systems more accessible for interdisciplinary researchers or any inexperienced users. However, the majority of research on NLIs for GIS explored NLIs for visualization or spatial data retrieval. Research on NLIs for geo-analytical questions is still lacking. Google Blockly, an open-source JavaScript library, is frequently used for developing visual programming editors for young students learning programming languages. Students set up program functions by selecting and assembling the programming blocks and the Blockly system automatically translates the block stacks into different programming languages. Similarly, we present a Blockly-based interface that generates a question depending on the blocks the user has assembled. It can be seen that a Blockly-based interface not only naturally represents syntactic structures in geo-analytical questions but also well assists users in familiarizing the blocks and generating clear and complete questions. A comprehensive usability study is still necessary to better evaluate the interface’s performance

Gender Differences and Digital Learning Games – One Size Does not fit all

The intrinsic motivation demonstrated towards digital games provides the opportunity for its use as a learning tool irrespective of gender differences. This has resulted in the combination of the motivation of games with curricular content referred to as Digital Game-Based Learning. While some related studies have argued that there are no gender differences in the motivational appeal of digital educational games, others present an opposing view. This paper reports the result of an investigation into the motivational appeal of digital educational games for 11-14 years old girls and boys. There is evidence that this age group is pivotal to the shrinking pipeline phenomenon in which fewer females progressively engage with computer science education and careers. The investigation involved a two stage study composed of a qualitative exploratory study, which identified the key criteria for the successful appeal of some digital entertainment games to young girls and boys and a main study. The main study generate both qualitative and quantitative data to further investigate the motivational appeal of digital educational games for learning basic computer science concepts for both girls and boys of age 11-14 years old. For the main study, two experimental games for learning basic computer science concepts were created based on the key criteria identified from the exploratory study. The first included the game characteristics that appeared to support the motivational appeal of the girls. The second game was antithetical to the first. Both genders from the participating population engaged with both games and online questionnaires were used to capture data on their perception of both games. The outcome of the investigation which involved 304 participants (girls = 152 and boys =152) from Southeast England, United Kingdom provided the empirical evidence in support of the argument that there are gender differences in the motivational appeal of digital educational game characteristics which can either support or thwart motivation i.e. one size does not fit all. The result of this investigation should support educationists, researchers and digital educational game designers in having an inclusive approach towards the creation of digital educational games for learning