Formation of informational and digital competence of the student of primary education by means of robotics

The article examines the problem of forming the information and digital competence of elementary school students by means of robotics. Our research work is aimed at analyzing the modern state of educational robotics, the readiness of educators for its teaching and experimental testing the possibilities of robotics as a means of forming information and digital competence of primary education seekers. The organization of pedagogical experiment meant diagnosis and correction of such components of information and digital competence as motivational, cognitive, active, reflexive, the formation of which took place in the course of pupils’ learning robotics constructors and interactive manuals devoted to the history and development of robots.  To measure the level of information and digital competence of primary school pupils the system of expert assessments of its components was used. As a result of observing behavior, accuracy, speed and independence during the fulfillment of special tasks connected with the search and processing of information, computational thinking, work on the Internet, understanding the ethics of working with information etc. the level of information and digital competence of every pupil is defined as the sum of all its indexes. The generalization of the results allowed the conclusions: the use of robotics constructors and interactive manuals, online resources that imitate actions with robots help to increase the level of information and digital competence of education seekers

Controlling aqueous sorption of humic substances on silica gel by directed alkoxysilyl-derivatization of their functionalities.

In this study we explored a possibility for enhancing aqueous sorption of humic substances (HS) onto hydroxylated surfaces (e.g., silica gel) by increasing modification rate of their most abundant functional groups - carboxyls with mineral-adhesive alkoxysilyl moieties. The synthesis included treatment of dried humic material with 3-aminopropyl trimethoxy silane (APTS) capable of forming amide bonds with carboxyl groups of HS under anhydrous conditions. The reaction was run at six different HS to APTS ratio for achieving different modification degrees of the carboxyl groups in the humic backbone. The obtained derivatives were characterized using elemental analysis, 13C NMR Spectroscopy, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, and size exclusion chromatography that confirmed quantitative incorporation of alkoxysilyl-moieties into HS structure. Aqueous adsorption was investigated in 0.028 M phosphate buffer using silica gel as a surrogate for mineral surface. Both distribution coefficients as well adsorption capacities paralleled the amount of alkoxysilyl-moieties incorporated into backbone of the parental HS. The adsorption capacity reached its maximum value of 210 mg of HS per g of SiO2 for the APTS derivative synthesized at the equimolar reagent ratio. This value was comparable to the amount of the same HS immobilized onto the APTS-treated silica gel (265 mg of HS per g of SiO2). Adsorption of alkoxysilyl-derivatives was found to be irreversible under conditions studied. Conclusively, we believe that the directed modification of HS by incorporating alkoxysilyl-moieties is well suited for producing humic derivatives with controllable affinity for aqueous sorption onto hydroxylated surfaces