keynote talk: Paulo Blikstein & Arnan Sipitakiat
February 25, time 10.15-11.00 CET
Educational Robotics is almost 40 years old. During these four decades, it went from a curiosity to a worldwide phenomenon that is now present is thousands of schools. However, the landscape of educational robotics is full of contradictions and questionable design: often products and practices are not well-adapted to children, and the “competition fever” often contradicts best pedagogical practices. Also, there is a considerable equity gap: while children in affluent schools have access to a multitude of platforms, students in public schools often are only exposed to the simplest of experiences. In this talk, we will talk about the history of educational robotics, discuss research-based design principles, present examples of good and bad design, and demonstrate a brand new lineage of open-source platforms for educational robotics that, we hope, will help lead the field into the future.
invited talk: Gary Stager
Thinking About Thinking About Robotics
February 26, time 16.00-16.45 CET
In these turbulent times, we are blessed with the availability incredibly powerful, affordable, and accessible technology sadly accompanied by an absence of vision for its educational use. This paradox may be caused by an absence of metaphors for thinking about thinking with robotics materials. Dr. Stager will share an expansive view of robotics to serve a diverse population of learners, discuss contexts for using robotics as a vehicle for knowledge construction, and share models for inspiring teachers to embrace the potential of robotics as an expressive medium and incubator of powerful ideas.
| 1st day Thursday, February 25, 2021 | ||
| 10.00 CET | Opening session: welcome, overview | Monica Malvezzi, Univ. of Siena |
| 10.15 | Keynote speech | chair: Dimitris Alimisis, EDUMOTIVA |
| Paulo Blikstein & Arnan Sipitakiat | Educational Robotics: Design Principles, Past, and Future | |
| 11.00 | (Virtual) coffee break | |
| 11.15 | New developments in educational robotics (Part A) (20 min for each presentation) | chair: Michele Moro, Univ. of Padua |
| Francesca Gratani, Lorella Giannandrea, Alessandra Renieri and Martina Annessi | Fostering students’ problem-solving skills through educational robotics in primary school | |
| Lorella Burlin, Giordano Casonato, Massimo Saccardi and Michele Moro | Why educational robotics may support teachers to discover, to develop and to promote students’ talent: the GIF4T approach | |
| Rico Mockel, Lucas Dahl, Dean Boonen, Desiree Parren and Yiyong Gou | Robotics Education under COVID-19 Conditions with Educational Modular Robots | |
| Christina Pasalidou and Nikolaos Fachantidis | Distance Learning in the Era of COVID-19: Supporting Educational Robotics with Augmented Reality | |
| 12.35 | (Virtual) lunch break | |
| 14.00 | New developments in educational robotics (Part B) (20 min for each presentation) | chair: Dimitris Alimisis |
| Gonzalo Zabala, Ricardo Moran and Matias Teragni | Mendieta, one Robot per School: Multi-user Robot for Technology Education | |
| Dimitrios Nikolos, Anastasia Misirli and Vassilis Komis | Debugging strategies with a simulated robot: A case study | |
| Amy Eguchi | AI-Robotics and AI literacy | |
| 15.00 | Social robots | chair: Monica Malvezzi |
| Sofia Pliasa, Anna-Maria Velentza and Nikolaos Fachantidis (20 min) | The socially assistive robot Daisy Promoting Social Inclu-sion of children with ASD | |
| Filippo Talami, Maximiliano Romero and Giovanni Borga (short paper, 10 min) | Edù, a robotic companion in pediatric protective isolation units | |
| Giada Francescato, Maximiliano Romero and Giovanni Borga (short paper, 10 min) | Development of a robotic agent for increasing elderlies socialization | |
| 15.40 | Open session for discussions | chair: Michele Moro |
| 16.00 | End of the first day |
| 2nd day Friday, February 26, 2021 | ||
| 10.00 CET | Papers stemming from the INBOTS CSA project (20 min for each presentation) | chair: Monica Malvezzi |
| Monica Malvezzi, Juan C. Moreno Sastoque | Introduction to INBOTS | |
| Maria Pozzi, Unnikrishnan Radhakrishnan, Ana Rojo Agustí, Konstantinos Koumaditis, Francesco Chinello, Juan C. Moreno Sastoque and Monica Malvezzi | Exploiting VR and AR technologies in education and training to Inclusive Robotics | |
| Theodosios Sapounidis and Dimitris Alimisis | Educational robotics curricula: current trends and shortcomings | |
| Sofia Almpani and Dimitris Alimisis | Dance & Robots: Designing a Robotics-enhanced project for dance-based STEAM Education Using ENGINO | |
| Britt Östlund | Robots entering the care sector: The case of a new curriculum for the education of assistant nurses in Sweden | |
| 11.25 | (Virtual) coffee break | |
| 11.35 | Discussion panel: inclusive robotics in the pandemic times 1h | chair: Michele Moro, short introductions from Univ. of Siena, EDUMOTIVA, Robotic Teacher Community, Open discussion |
| 12.35 | (Virtual) lunch break | |
| 14.15 | New studies and methodological issues in educational robotics (20 min for each presentation) | chair: Dimitris Alimisis |
| Silvia Di Battista, Monica Pivetti, Brunilda Simaku, Gloria Beraldo, Emanuele Menegatti and Michele Moro | Educational Robotics Acceptance by Italian Teachers, Educators, Psychologists and Psychotherapists | |
| Lucio Negrini, Sophia Reyes Mury, Dio Moonnee and Paolo Rossetti | Teachers’ reasons to join a community about educational robotics and STEAM: a Swiss experience | |
| Merisio Chiara, Bozzi Gilda and Edoardo Datteri | There is no such thing as a “trial and error strategy” | |
| Anton Yudin, Andrey Vlasov, Dmitriy Zatekin and Stepan Lapshinov | Educational Robotics: School to University, Examples of Interconnected Longitudinal Individual Student Routes | |
| Effransia Tzagaraki, Stamatios Papadakis and Michail Kalogiannakis | Exploring the Use of Educational Robotics in primary school and its possible place in the curricula | |
| 15.55 | (Virtual) coffee break | |
| 16.00 | Invited talk | chair: Michele Moro |
| Gary Stager | Thinking About Thinking About Robotics | |
| 16.45 | End of the conference | |