LearnBot 2.0: A tool for programming teaching and emotion management through robotics

El uso de robots como herramienta para facilitar la educación tecnológica está ganando rápidamente interés. La robótica educativa permite a los estudiantes experimentar situaciones que contribuyen a adquirir estrategias cognitivas para resolver, planificar y ejecutar problemas reales. El robot LearnBot fue diseñado en el área de la robótica educativa para promover el desarrollo del pensamiento computacional en diferentes etapas educativas. LearnBot es una plataforma robótica de bajo coste que se programa utilizando el lenguaje de programación Python. Este trabajo tiene como objetivo desarrollar una versión mejorada de LearnBot para extender esta herramienta robótica a otros usos relacionados con la gestión emocional. Con este fin, utilizando la nueva plataforma robótica, llamada EBO, los estudiantes pueden simular comportamientos emocionales. Además, se ha desarrollado una herramienta de programación específica para EBO, llamada LearnBlock, diseñada para facilitar el uso del robot. LearnBlock proporciona un lenguaje visual a través del cual los niños pueden programar comportamientos en el robot de una manera intuitiva especificando qu´e tiene que hacer el robot cada vez que se produce una situación determinada. El lenguaje se puede extender fácilmente mediante la creación de nuevos bloques asociados a funciones de Python. Además, los programas pueden ejecutarse en el robot físico y en un robot simulado. Ambos, EBO y LearnBlock, son desarrollos abiertos. En este documento, se describen detalladamente los diferentes aspectos del diseño, la implementación y el uso de ambas herramientas educativas. Además, se presenta una revisión de los robots educativos existentes estrechamente relacionados con nuestro proyecto, comparando diferentes aspectos de estas herramientas educativas.The use of robots as tools to facilitate technological education is rapidly gaining interest. The educational robotics allows students to experience situations that contribute to acquire cognitive strategies for solving, planning and execution real problems. The robot LearnBot was designed in the area of educational robotics for promoting the development of computational thinking in different educational stages. LearnBot is a low cost robotic platform which has to be programmed using the Python language. This work aims at developing an improved version of LearnBot to extend this robotic tool to other usages related to emotional management. To this end, using the new robotic platform, called EBO, students can simulate emotional behaviors. In addition, we have developed a specific programming tool for EBO, called LearnBlock, designed for easy usage of the robot. LearnBlock provides a visual language through which children can program robot behaviors in an intuitive way by specifying what the robot has to do whenever a given situation occurs. The language can be easily extended by creating new blocks associated to Python functions. Moreover, LearnBlock programs can run in either the physical robot and a simulated robot. Both, EBO and LearnBlock, are open developments. In this document, the different aspects of the design, implementation and usage of both educational tools are described in detail. In addition, a review of the existing educational robots closely related to our approach is presented, comparing different features these educational tools.Máster Universitario en Ingeniería Informática. Universidad de Extremadur

Retos: ¿Puedes programar a Cozmo?

El uso de la tecnología en nuestra sociedad ha ido aumentando durante las ultimas décadas. Desde el auge de los ordenadores personales hasta el uso masivo de smartphones, la democratización de la tecnología nos permite tener al alcance de todos las últimas innovaciones. Si bien el acceso a la tecnología puede ser universal, este acceso conlleva un aprendizaje que hasta hace unos años no se tenía tan en cuenta en el proceso de enseñanza en los colegios e institutos. Sin embargo, se ha visto que este conocimiento es necesario en el contexto de la sociedad actual, tanto para mejorar su futuro como para prevenir ciertos riesgos. Uno de los efectos de esta necesidad ha sido la incorporación de asignaturas como Tecnologías de la Información y Comunicación o el aprendizaje de métodos básicos de programación en Tecnología de 4º de la ESO. La robótica es otro de los campos que ahora mismo se encuentra en auge y que también esta siendo incorporada a las programaciones en los últimos años. En este trabajo fin de máster se propone un aprendizaje basado en problemas en los que los alumnos deberán crear programas que superen distintos retos y utilizar un robot para superar una evaluación, cooperando y compitiendo en grupos.<br /

Cognimates

Thesis: S.M., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, School of Architecture and Planning, Program in Media Arts and Sciences, 2018.Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. "Some pages in the original document contain text that runs off the edge of the page"--Disclaimer Notice page.Includes bibliographical references (pages 199-204).Conversational agents and intelligent toys are present in children's homes. This raises questions as to the impact of Al on their development. In this context, we explore how to educate the children that are growing up with Al and best prepare them for the future. Our prior studies showed that young people consider intelligent agents as friendly and trustworthy, and sometimes even defer to them when making decisions [16, 73]. This thesis explores how children, who are 7 to 14 years old, develop a better understanding of Al concepts and change their perception of smart agents by programming and teaching them with the Cognimates platform we developed. Variations between children of different nationalities and SES backgrounds are discussed together with the influence of their collaboration and communication skills.by Stefania Druga.S.M

Trends in the Development of Basic Computer Education at Universities

Basic computer education in universities is experiencing huge problems. On the one hand, the amount of knowledge that a university graduate must have is increasing very quickly. On the other hand, the contingent of students varies greatly in terms of the level of training and motivation, and the level of this differentiation is constantly growing. As a result, the complexity of training and the percentage of dropouts increase. Scientists and educators are looking for a solution to these problems in the following areas: revising the knowledge necessary for obtaining at the university in the direction of the reality of their receipt in the allotted time; the use of new information technologies to simplify the learning process and improve its quality; development of the latest teaching methods that take into account the realities. This paper presents a strategic document in the field of computer education at universities - Computing Circulum 2020, as well as an overview of the areas of development of basic computer education, such as learning using artificial intelligence, virtual laboratories, microprocessor kits and robotics, WEB - systems for distance and blended learning, mobile application development, visual programming, gamification, computer architecture &amp; organization, programming languages, learning technologies. In addition, the author gives his experience and vision of teaching basic computer education at universities

Programming Robots for Activities of Everyday Life

Text-based programming remains a challenge to novice programmers in\ua0all programming domains including robotics. The use of robots is gainingconsiderable traction in several domains since robots are capable of assisting\ua0humans in repetitive and hazardous tasks. In the near future, robots willbe used in tasks of everyday life in homes, hotels, airports, museums, etc.\ua0However, robotic missions have been either predefined or programmed usinglow-level APIs, making mission specification task-specific and error-prone.\ua0To harness the full potential of robots, it must be possible to define missionsfor specific applications domains as needed. The specification of missions of\ua0robotic applications should be performed via easy-to-use, accessible ways, and\ua0at the same time, be accurate, and unambiguous. Simplicity and flexibility in\ua0programming such robots are important, since end-users come from diverse\ua0domains, not necessarily with suffcient programming knowledge.The main objective of this licentiate thesis is to empirically understand the\ua0state-of-the-art in languages and tools used for specifying robot missions byend-users. The findings will form the basis for interventions in developing\ua0future languages for end-user robot programming.During the empirical study, DSLs for robot mission specification were\ua0analyzed through published literature, their websites, user manuals, samplemissions and using the languages to specify missions for supported robots.After extracting data from 30 environments, 133 features were identified.\ua0A feature matrix mapping the features to the environments was developedwith a feature model for robotic mission specification DSLs.Our results show that most end-user facing environments exist in the\ua0education domain for teaching novice programmers and STEM subjects. Mostof the visual languages are developed using Blockly and Scratch libraries.\ua0The end-user domain abstraction needs more work since most of the visualenvironments abstract robotic and programming language concepts but not\ua0end-user concepts. In future works, it is important to focus on the development\ua0of reusable libraries for end-user concepts; and further, explore how end-user\ua0facing environments can be adapted for novice programmers to learn\ua0general programming skills and robot programming in low resource settings\ua0in developing countries, like Uganda

A Study on the Effect of Non-Traditional Demographic Populations in an Undergraduate Computer Science Course

There is a significant amount of research analyzing the effect of race, gender, and other common demographical data on student interest and performance in computer science. However, there is relatively little research concerning less common demographic populations, such as introverts, artistic students, and visual learners. This study investigates if these less traditional demographic data affect student performance or interest in computer science and what effect delaying coding in introductory courses may have on these populations. We taught three sections of an introductory computer science course (one which delayed coding by half a term) and compared student performance and interest with non-traditional demographic data. We find relatively little correlation between student grades and their demographic data, but this study supports the idea that the delayed programming affects student interest

Collaborative Learning of Robotics with Elementary School and University Students : Design of co-learning workshop and learning experiences

In the future, the number of robots and their areas of application are expected to increase. Robotics literacy, knowledge and understanding of what robots are and what are their features, is a skill needed to form an appropriate relationship with the robots. Robot literacy is already taught to children in schools, but extra-curricular activities have been introduced in robotics education research as meaningful ways of learning different aspects of robots and robotics. The learners of robotics have benefited from co-learning experiences, where they collaborate with other groups of learners to solve problems and challenges together. Children collaborating in learning robotics with parents has proved to increase their knowledge, skills, and confidence regarding robots, and it has helped the parents to motivate their children to learn. The present research acknowledges the benefits of robotics co-learning for learners familiar with each other. In this thesis, we designed and evaluated a co-learning robot workshop designed for the novel pairing of co-learners, 8th-graders, and university students. The workshop consisted of three robot-related co-learning tasks, using robots Spot, QTrobot and Clicbot. The university students facilitated the workshop tasks. In the pre-study phase, we conducted a co-design week with one 15-year-old pupil participant, and we made an initial design for the workshop. Nine 8th-graders and six university students participated in the workshop and the evaluation of it. The pupils’ teacher participated in the pre-study and evaluation of the workshop. The workshop was held at Tampere University Hervanta campus in Robostudio, a multidisciplinary co-learning space with multiple robots. The results of the co-learning robot workshop were positive, and the participants enjoyed the co-learning experience. The pupils learned about robots and programming, and the students learned about interacting with the pupils. Co-learning robot workshops are beneficial for the participants to learn about robots and about communicating with diverse people. However, there were some things to be improved in the workshop, such as communicating instructions or ice-breaking. We formed eight design implications from the gathered data for a more comfortable, safe, and fulfilling co-learning experience. The design implications include suggestions to put on effort into ice-breaking and visual instructions related to the tasks and safety. Additionally, to motivate the participants to learn, they should be given the freedom to make choices regarding their work