COVID-19 as a Magnifying Glass: Exploring the Importance of Relationships as Education Students Learn and Teach Robotics via Zoom

Ed+gineering, an NSF-funded program, adapted hands-on robotics instruction for online delivery in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. This qualitative multiple case study shares the experiences of participating education students in spring 2021 as they collaborated virtually with engineering students and fifth graders to engineer bioinspired robots in an afterschool technology club adapted to be virtual. The online context reduced the education students’ interactions with people other than the engineering students and fifth graders on their team and thus positioned COVID-19 as a metaphorical magnifying glass amplifying the critical role that these relationships played in influencing the project’s outcomes. Through analyzing short-answer reflections, the researchers observed patterns in the ways the education students’ interactions with their engineering and fifth-grade partners shaped their teaching self-efficacy and intention to integrate engineering and coding. Education students appeared to gain the most self-efficacy from feeling supported by, but not dependent upon, their engineering partners, and from adopting engineering-teaching roles. Satisfying interactions with fifth graders and successful production of functioning robots appeared to enhance education students’ intention to integrate engineering and coding into their future instruction. Education students reported gaining self-efficacy for both engineering and coding during the experience, but were more likely to report feeling confident about teaching engineering than teaching coding at the project’s end. Implications and lessons learned are shared, which may be particularly relevant for educators who prepare elementary education students to teach engineering in K-6 settings

Using Arts and Crafts to teach Computer Science at the YMCA After-School Program

Computer Science (CS) is a popular, flourishing field. To prepare young students, CS is now being taught in middle school. Our team created a curriculum that delivers CS education using arts and crafts. We crafted a multi-week program that taught CS concepts including pseudo code, debugging, functions, and algorithms using art activities involving navigating a maze and drawing pixel art. We piloted the curriculum with 6th/7th graders at a YMCA after-school program, where we observed the students’ perspective, interest, and knowledge of CS. After the pilot program, we analyzed the results to measure the curriculum’s effectiveness and found the students better understood CS. The project resulted in a curriculum and set of recommendations for future groups conducting similar projects

A ROS-Based Open Tool for Controlling an Educational Mobile Robot

Commercial educational robots provide an accessible entry point into the world of robotics. However, their programming is often limited to specific platforms, which can make it challenging to acquire the skills necessary for industry and research. In this study, we introduce an open-access tool developed using C++ and Arduino IDE that enables us to manage a commercial mobile robot through the Robot Operating System (ROS) middleware. This provides programmers with the ability to work in a powerful programming environment, such as Python. The robot used is the CrowBot BOLT, a kit based on ESP32 that enables wireless communication and includes various peripherals for application development. The mobile robot topics include robot velocities, RGB LEDs, a buzzer, a programmable button, and proximity, light, and line sensors. The proposal is assessed using two controllers: one for proximity and the other for tracking angular light. Both controllers are developed using Visual Studio Code. The experimental results demonstrated the proper functioning of the tool. Additionally, the response time was evaluated, and it was found that optimal performance is achieved at a frequency of 10 Hz. In summary, this proposal provides an accessible option for students and developers seeking to gain skills in robotics using ROS. The project’s repository is located at https://github.com/joseVarelaAldas/ROS-Crowbot

The UCF Report, Vol. 06 No. 21, January 11, 1984

\u2783 brings Foundation record $2.25 million; Speakers tell graduates: Continue learning and stay in Central Florida;$150,000 donated by UCF grad; TV executive says media shared concern for education\u27s future; M.L. King celebration Jan. 13-14; \u27Eagle Lady\u27 speaks to Women\u27s Club; O\u27Leary tribute at UCF on Sunday

Spartan Daily, October 6, 1997

Volume 109, Issue 26https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/spartandaily/9173/thumbnail.jp

Words And Bots : An Emprical Experiment Vocabulary Mastery With Robotics In Young Children

This study aims to determine the impact of educational robot on increasing English vocabulary as a foreign language. Pre-experimental research design was conducted with 35 first grade junior high school students as sample. The pre-post English vocabulary test was given to the sample and the research were done in eight meetings. In the control class there was no action treatment and did not use robots in learning but in the treatment class, researchers used educational robots, namely the Evoce robot in learning. From the comparison between the two classes both the control class and the treatment class from the pre and post English vocabulary tests, the result finding showed in the t-test score based on the value of df = 35-1 = 34 at a significant level of 5%, a ttable of 1.0691 is obtained and at a significant level of 1%, a ttable of 2.441 is obtained. With a tcount of 9.899, which means that it is greater than ttable at a significance level of 5% and 1%, (1.0691 2.441) then Ho is rejected and Ha is accepted. In summary, the Evoce robot has given contribution in young learners’ English vocabulary. It recommended that the educational robot may become one of alternative media to be used for recent days for English vocabulary clas

Spartan Daily, September 4, 1998

Volume 111, Issue 6https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/spartandaily/9294/thumbnail.jp

Opinion Paragraph Writing Intervention for Students with Significant Disability

Increasingly, technology has been used to provide access to academic curricula for students with moderate to severe intellectual disability. In the current pilot study, we used a multiple probe across participants design to evaluate the effectiveness of a technology-based instructional package on the opinion writing skills of three middle school students with moderate and severe intellectual disability. Findings suggest that the intervention resulted in improved performance across all three participants and that all participants maintained performance at levels greater than baseline. Limitations and implications for practice and future research are discussed

Fluency development and young readers

The study investigated the effects of integrating explicit fluency instruction in the dimensions of: accuracy, rate, expression, and punctuation. Eight elementary students in second, third and fifth grades who received Response to Intervention services for reading and each group met four times a week for forty-five minutes participated. The district used the STAR evaluation system to establish the groups. After the lessons, participants recorded a reading of their instructional level text and completed a rubric to score their performance in each of the four dimensions: punctuation, expression, rate and accuracy. Later, I listened to the same recording and scored each student using the same rubric. The research in this study was qualitative and collected from observational notes, fluency rubrics, teacher journal entries, and audio recordings. This data served as the basis for the qualitative research, analysis determined a positive impact on the students\u27 use of the dimensions as well as their self-efficacy. The study indicated teaching students, specific dimensions of fluency of punctuation, expression, rate, and accuracy, improved the fluency for students reading below grade level