Let’s explore how educational robots and robotics can benefit diverse learners! The 1st International Workshop of the EATEL SIG EduRobotX 2023.

General goal of the workshop:

The workshop focuses on the exploration of how educational robots and educational robotics can be applied to support the diversity of learners including learners with special (educational) needs (e. g. neurodivergent learners, learners on the autism spectrum, learners with physical disabilities) and learners of different ages (children in preschools, primary, secondary, higher education, adults, seniors).

The specific five goals of the workshop are to:

1. Introduction: Introduce the SIG EduRobotX, its objectives, goals and deliverables: In this section, we provide an initial introduction and positioning pertaining to the special interest group on educational robotics, we explain the underlying rationale for establishing the workshop, we give more information on the central objectives of the workshop.
2. Background: Provide the background and theoretical framework and the diversity of application areas for ER: Initial exploration of what educational robotics are, where the central and core principles for an implementation and integration in education originate from, what different types in scope there are in the field, and what specific and generic skills can be achieved and developed when educational robotics are applied; different areas of application in the educational and social domain (education, health care, everyday life, child care, etc.); creating first and/or further awareness and opportunities for the use of ER using an approach based on thinking in terms of opportunities and possibilities, and on inclusion and diversity criteria.
3. Demonstrations: Provide hands-on experience with various ER platforms (we will encourage the participants to bring their own ER): Getting acquainted with a variety of educational robotics platforms where both the different programming methods, methodologies and application areas can be explored by workshop participants themselves via a hands-on practicum. Participants are encouraged to bring in their own good examples and their own robotics platforms so that participants can learn with, from and to each other. We ourselves will also bring several educational robotics platforms usable for a variety in scope that can be tested/tried out.
4. Design: Design together an integration of ER into practice by means of design thinking approach: Through the iterative process of the Design Thinking method, based on all the information received, the knowledge shared and the introduction/acquaintance with a variety of robotics platforms with specific application possibilities and under the guidance of the workshop leaders, participants can develop their own design for an application of educational robotics in their own practical situation.
5. Feed-Forward: Exchange and share ideas for further development and dissemination: Using the activating method “think-share-exchange” to present the designed outline and elaboration. Thereby retrieving feedback that can be used for further optimisation of the own educational robotics design. Joint brainstorming on how to continue the collaboration. Posting the draft designs on the Google drive / research drive for further “cross-pollination” and dissemination. Also, consider how and in what way follow-up approaches, implementation, research and initial publications of results can be organised/shaped.

1. Understanding of the main objectives, goals, practical outcomes/deliverables and opportunities of the new EATEL SIG EduRobotX.
2. Joint definition of EduRobotX including the description of relevant theoretical frameworks behind ER. 
3. Outline of the key ER application areas (education, health care, everyday life, child care, etc.) and the different ER categories (social, telepresence, education) providing specific examples.
4. Outline of inclusive and innovative didactic methodologies that help  integrate ER in teaching and learning practices in different contexts and for different needs.   
5. Hands-on experience for all participants who will be invited not only to try/test a variety of ER tools and platforms, but also to collaborate in designing their own teaching scenarios for integrating ER  in practice by applying  the design thinking (DT) approach.
6. Exchange and sharing ideas for further opportunities for  collaborations on new inspiring  projects, publications, events, etc.

The workshop focuses on the exploration of how educational robots and robotics can be applied to support the diversity of learners including learners with special needs (e. g. neurodivergent learners, learners on the autism spectrum, learners with physical disabilities or other learning disorders) and learners of different ages (children in preschools, primary, secondary, higher education, adults, seniors).

Specifically, the workshop will explore how the three main categories of educational robotX can be used in an inclusive and assistive way.

These categories are:

• Social robots, focusing on embodied (humanoid, zoomorphic robots, etc.), autonomous support for teaching, learning and support, and socially assistive robots.
• Telepresence robots, focusing on enabling teleoperated, interactive presence. 
• Educational robotics, focusing on the use of robotics as tools to foster STEAM (not only STEM as done before), language, strategies and a wide range of skills including soft, generic and specific skills.

While the pedagogical potential of educational robotics in STEM education has been extensively explored since the 1970s in the domains such as computer programming, mathematics and engineering design, the use of social robots, telepresence robots and educational robotics is a more recent approach, driven by new developments in hardware (including diversity of sensors) and artificial intelligence (including recognition of speech, patterns, and emotions). Educational robots and robotics have been therefore popular in STEM education, with the focus on introducing students to robotics and programming, mostly through building and programming robots capable of performing various tasks.

The new forms of social robots include anthropomorphic or humanoid robots (e.g. Pepper, NAO, Alpha Mini), and service and telepresence robots (e.g. Temi, BellaBot). These social robots are used in education to assist teachers in their pedagogical tasks, support learners in attaining learning outcomes in various domains, enhance the quality of teaching and learning experiences, as well as support teachers and students in finding information, e.g., in libraries, and orientation in space, e.g., on a campus. Also, educational robots can be applied to support a diversity of learners including learners with special educational and psychological needs, including learning disorders, in this way contributing to inclusion. Furthermore, social robots have the potential to connect learners from different population groups and facilitate co-learning and collaboration in diverse groups.

Telepresence robots are used to create a more interactive and immersive experience of presence for teachers, students, and other stakeholders who participate remotely. The potential of telepresence robots stems mainly from their ability to convey the sense of the physical presence of a remote person, who can also use the telerobot to move in a remote space and interact with other persons in that space through mediated presence, which is missing in traditional software-based approaches and in forms of hybrid learning.

References:

Ahtinen, A., Beheshtian, N., & Väänänen, K. (2023, March). Robocamp at home: Exploring families’ co-learning with a social robot: Findings from a one-month study in the wild. In Proceedings of the 2023 ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction (pp. 331-340).

Anwar, S., Bascou, N. A., Menekse, M., & Kardgar, A. (2019). A systematic review of studies on educational robotics. Journal of Pre-College Engineering Education Research (J-PEER), 9(2), 2.

Buchem, I.; Leiba, M. (2023). How to design engaging learning experiences with social robots? Results from a joint education project on learning designs with social robots with an example of “Training for first voters”, INTED2023 Proceedings, pp. 5140-5149. ISBN: 978-84-09-49026-4, doi: 10.21125/inted.2023.1332 https://library.iated.org/view/BUCHEM2023HOW

Chevalier, M., Giang, C., Piatti, A. et al. Fostering computational thinking through educational robotics: a model for creative computational problem solving. IJ STEM Ed 7, 39 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1186/s40594-020-00238-z

El-Hamamsy, L., Bruno, B., Chessel-Lazzarotto, F., Chevalier, M., Roy, D., Zufferey, J. D., & Mondada, F. (2021). The symbiotic relationship between educational robotics and computer science in formal education. Education and Information Technologies, 1-31. 

Fanchamps, N., Specht, M., Slangen, L., & Hennissen, P. (2021). Towards a Research Agenda for Developing Computational Thinking Skills by Sense-Reason-Act Programming with Robots. In S.-C. Kong & H. Abelson (Eds.), Computational Thinking Education in K-12: Artificial Intelligence Literacy and Physical Computing. MIT Press. 

Fanchamps, N. (2021). The influence of sense-reason-act programming on computational thinking Open University]. Heerlen, Netherlands. 

Yuen, T., Boecking, M., Stone, J., Tiger, E. P., Gomez, A., Guillen, A., & Arreguin, A. (2014). Group tasks, activities, dynamics, and interactions in collaborative robotics projects with elementary and middle school children. Journal of STEM Education, 15(1).