Educational Robotics in Online Distance Learning: An Experience from Primary School
This work addresses the problem of maintaining hands-on learning for primary school students and teachers during remote education, but it is incremental as it adapts existing methods to a new context.
The paper tackled the challenge of implementing Educational Robotics activities in online distance learning for primary school students during Covid-19 school closures by developing pen-and-paper approaches complemented by social media, which were successfully tested with 13 students over four weeks.
Temporary school closures caused by the Covid-19 pandemic have posed new challenges for many teachers and students worldwide. Especially the abrupt shift to online distance learning posed many obstacles to be overcome and it particularly complicated the implementation of Educational Robotics activities. Such activities usually comprise a variety of different learning artifacts, which were not accessible to many students during the period of school closure. Moreover, online distance learning considerably limits the possibilities for students to interact with their peers and teachers. In an attempt to address these issues, this work presents the development of an Educational Robotics activity particularly conceived for online distance learning in primary school. The devised activities are based on pen and paper approaches that are complemented by commonly used social media to facilitate communication and collaboration. They were proposed to 13 students, as a way to continue ER activities in online distance learning over the time period of four weeks.